The Country Identification mission report South Africa - VLIR-UOS

South Africa
Strategy Identification
Process
Mission Report
April 2013
Sinclair H. Mantell

Table of contents
Abbreviations and acronyms………………………………………………….. 3
Foreword………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Executive summary………………………………………………………..…….. 6
I. Background……………………………………………….…………….……….. 13
II.
Country Identification Process…………………………………….………..
1. Objectives of the mission……………………………………………………………..
2. Methodology……………………………………………………………………………..
3. Expected results………………………………………………………………………...
15
15
16
17
III.
Main findings from the mission……………………………………...
a. Consultations in the North
b. Consultations in the South
1. Main findings observations from institutional visits…………………………….
2. South Seminar with HET institutions and stakeholders………………………...
3. Core issues to be taken into account in the Country Strategy………………...
4. Strategic priority matrix (main themes and cross-cutting support domains)
5. Alignments of the findings between North and South…………………………...
Figure 1. Relative priority matrix of possible VLIR-UOS cooperation actions within
the country strategy for South Africa………………………………………………………
Figure 2. Organisation summary of the South Africa Country Strategy………………
18
18
20
25
28
29
30
32
33
34
IV. Lessons learned and conclusions………………………………… 35
V. Key publications consulted………………………………………… 39
Annexes………………………………………………………………… 40
Cover photo: The mission team on the occasion of its visit to the offices of Higher Education
South Africa (HESA) on 9 th April, 2013
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Acronyms and abbreviations
BTC
CEO
CHE
CHET
CPUT
CSIR
DE
DGD
DHET
DST
EU
FET (C)
FWO
GET
HEQF
HESA
HE
HET
ILO
KULeuven
MRC
MoU
Belgian Technical Cooperation
Chief Executive Officer
Council on Higher Education, South Africa
Council for Higher Education Transformation, South Africa
Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa
Distance Education
Directorate General for Development, Belgium (now Belgian
Development Corporation)
Department of Higher Education and Training, South Africa
Department of Science and Technology, South Africa
European Union
Further Education and Training (College)
Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Belgian Science Research
Council)
General Education and Training
Higher Education Qualifications Framework, South Africa
Higher Education South Africa
Higher Education
Higher Education and Training (universities and FET Colleges)
International Labour Organisation
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Medical Research Council, South Africa
Memorandum of Understanding
NADEOSA National Association of Distance Education Organisations of
South Africa
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NQF
NRF
N-S
N-S-S
OECD
OER
RAVAC
RISA
SADC
SAIDE
SARCHi
SI
TEAM
THRIP
UCT
UGhent
UK
UNESCO
UNISA
VLIR-ICP
VLIR-IUC
VUB
WHO
ZAR
National Qualifications Framework, South Africa
National Research Foundation, South Africa
Cooperation involving one or more Flanders institutions and
individual partners in the South
Cooperation involving one or more Flanders institutions and
several different partners in the South
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
Open Educational Resources
Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Centre, South Africa
Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (NRF)
Southern African Development Community
South Africa Institute for Distance Education
South African Research Chair Initiative (DST/NRF)
VLIR-UOS South Initiative: an intervention type operating at the
academic individual/research group level
VLIR-UOS intervention type operating at department/faculty
cooperation level: previously known as the Own Initiative
Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme
University of Cape Town, South Africa
University of Ghent
United Kingdom
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
University of South Africa
Vlaamse Universitaire Raad – International Course Programme
VLIR-Institutional University Cooperation
Free University of Brussels
World Health Organisation
South African Rand (currency)
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Foreword
Education, training and innovation are considered central to South Africa’s long-term development.
They are core elements in eliminating poverty and reducing inequality, and key foundations of a more
equal society. The higher education sector, in particular, is essential for generating the knowledge
bases and the required levels of innovation required for a country to realise its full economic and
democratic potentials while at conserving and managing its natural resources in a sustainable way.
Capacity development aims at furthering the ability of HE institutions to serve as important actors in a
country’s development and to deliver services to society. VLIR-UOS funds inter-institutional cooperation
partnerships to develop research, teaching and training on themes that are developmentally
relevant and which result from shared academic interests. The VLIR-UOS country strategy for South
Africa will represent an informed policy choice that serves as a framework for future programming in
the specific contexts of the country and the roles which it is playing within neighbouring countries of
the SADC region.
South Africa’s passion to succeed in developing its higher education and training sector to meet the
many challenges which lie ahead are reflected in these poignant lines, taken from the education vision
in the National Development Plan (NDP) to 2030 for South Africa:
We are Africans. We are an African country.
We are part of our multinational region. We are an essential part of our continent.
We feel loved, respected and cared for at home, in community and in
public institutions.
We learn together…….we love reading.
Each community has: A school:
teachers who love teaching and learning, a local library filled with a wealth of books,
A librarian.
All our citizens read, write, converse, and value ideas and thought.
We are fascinated by scientific invention and its use in the enhancement of lives.
We live the joy of speaking many languages.
Since its publication in 2011, adoption by the South African legislature and latterly endorsement by the
ruling African National Congress party at its annual conference in 2012, the NDP appeared, at the time
of the mission in April 2013, to be widely adopted as the platform for implementation of fresh initiatives
to improve access to education, to create new job opportunities and to address poverty reduction
adequately through the development of a knowledge-based economy. Since the mission, however,
several criticisms against the NDP in terms of the way in which it is to be implemented have been
voiced by several powerful sectors of the political spectrum in South Africa. It is to be hoped that these
setbacks of a political nature can soon be resolved so as not to hinder what appear to be supportive
policies for the strengthening of the HET sector in the country.
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Executive Summary
VLIR-UOS currently funds partnerships of willing academics (Flemish academics offer their time on a
voluntary basis) on themes that are developmentally relevant and result from a shared interest. Interventions
may be in the form of scholarships or projects at institutional or faculty level. Capacity development,
aimed at furthering the ability of higher education (HE) institutions to serve as actors in development
is at the centre of the VLIR-UOS programme. VLIR-UOS has been urged to formulate a strategy
for each of its 20 partner countries, which is being done in a phased manner. South Africa and
Ethiopia are the two countries for which strategies are being developed in 2013. Country identification
missions are conducted by country teams consisting of two experts (one international and one local), a
member of the Bureau UOS, and the VLIR-UOS country desk officer responsible for development of
strategy for the country concerned.
The current mission was intended to identify the needs (demand side), space and opportunities (thematic,
regional, institutional) for both Flanders and South African academics’ interests to match. One
important goal is that any future co-operations should preferably be founded on a shared interest basis
which is also reflected in the distribution of financial resources in as many cases as possible. Need
identification was to be achieved through visits to pre-selected HE institutions, authorities, and other
stakeholders. In addition, the hosting of a local seminar in the country for which a strategy is being
developed, allows for further inputs, discussions, and elaboration.
In order to arrive at a country strategy, the following main steps are implemented: collection and
analysis of existing data and documents (by means of a desk study), the holding of interviews with
stakeholders in Flanders who have, or are currently, engaged with South African academics in cooperation
activities, organisation and mounting of two consultative seminars (one in the North and the
other in the South), an identification mission to consult with stakeholders in the target country and the
production of a consolidated mission report. Its contents then guide the production of a final strategy
document which is produced by VLIR-UOS..
As part of the North consultative process, a total of 21 face-to-face interviews and eight Skype conferences
were held with Flemish academics coming from a broad spread of early and mid-career academics,
as well as senior professors. All interviewees, without exception, have enjoyed extremely
positive experiences in their cooperation with South African academic counterparts. Many of the
established partnerships, about which much was learned during the interview discussions, are playing
leading roles in the establishment and sustainability of very active research and delivery networks.
Examples are in primary (family) health care, societal aspects of development and water resource
management associated with chemical, physical, chemical and economical dimensions of this resource
in South Africa and often linked to collaborative research and training in other SADC countries.
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The North seminar was organised by VLIR-UOS in Brussels and attended by over 80 participants
including Ms. Nolitha Vukuza-Linda, the South African Minister of Higher Education and Training to
UNESCO, OECD, ILO, Germany and Switzerland, and Dr Bogosi Mogale, Head of the South Africa
Embassy Health Section in Brussels. All five Flemish universities and a number of university colleges
and institutes (e.g. Arteveldehogseschool, Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg, Departement International
Vlaanderen, Thomas More University College, KAHO Sint-Lieven, KU Leuven Kulak, Hogeschool
Gent, KHBO) were represented. A few of the South African postgraduate students and postdoctoral
scientists, sponsored by VLIR-UOS and carrying out parts of their academic studies in Belgium, were
also able to participate. The DGD Desk Zuid-Afrika, the Belgian Technical Cooperation and Flanders
development donors with projects on-going in university collaborations with South African institutions
were also represented, as were two Belgian NGOs working in South Africa.
The seminar had as its main conclusions:
Importance of identifying common interests within the broader framework of the socioeconomic
development and higher education needs of the partner country in a win-win situation
for both North and South parties as a basis for the VLIR-UOS new country programmes;
The respective socio-economic development plans of South Africa emphasize education and
knowledge as the keys to empowered and sustainable development and the fight against poverty;
The VLIR-UOS country programme should contribute to the attainment of the development
and higher education goals of the country as operationalized in key indicators with targets
(e.g. the National Skills Development Strategy and the National Development Plan).
The seminar work sessions also produced four thematic areas for multidisciplinary research, namely
Food security and agriculture, Sustainable management of natural resources (climate change and
improved adaptation strategies, biodiversity, water conservation and use), Economic and social development
(urban and rural livelihoods, multilingualism, migration, governance and local development)*
and Medicine and Primary Health Care. Crosscutting (transversal) themes identified included: Institutional
strengthening (including research policy), capacity building (including teacher training), service
delivery, ICT applications and modelling applications, Social and historical dynamics, land reform,
democracy, governance, multilingualism, improving vocational and skills-based training.
The in-country mission to South Africa took place on 7-16 April, 2013. The mission team consisted of
Professor Sinclair Mantell (International Cooperation Expert), Mr Neil Butcher (Local Expert), Professor
Patrick Sorgeloos (a VLIR-UOS Board member) and Mr Christophe Goosens (VLIR-UOS Desk
Officer for South Africa). A total of nine universities (three Traditional, four Comprehensive and two
Universities of Technology) were visited. These were the Universities of Witwatersrand, Cape Town
and Stellenbosch, the Universities of Limpopo, Johannesburg and South Africa, and the Universities of
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Technology of Tshwane and Cape Province, respectively. In addition, the offices of seven statutory
bodies and related institutions in the Higher Education and Training (HET) sector of the country were
included. These included the Higher Education South Africa (HESA), the Department of Higher Education
and Training (DHET), the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Department of Science and
Technology (DST), the Council for Higher Education and Transformation (CHET), the CEO of the
Further Education and Training at False Bay College, and the CEO of The Innovation Hub in Pretoria.
These visits captured the various challenges facing South African universities and FET colleges in
their efforts to meet planned higher education and training (HET) development targets. Currently the
23 universities (11 Traditional, six Comprehensive and six Universities of Technology), although
governed and subsidised to a level of around 40% of their campus budgets by the state, maintain their
autonomy and report to their own councils rather than to the government. There are, in addition to the
public universities, 52 FET Colleges and around 100 private tertiary educational establishments serving
the interests of HET in the country. A concerted push (referred to as “massification”) over the last
10 years has led to increased access to higher education for African and coloured students. This
political drive, however, has led to very rapid expansion of undergraduate teaching groups, placing
significant pressure, not only on infrastructural facilities and the incumbent academic and nonacademic
staff in the universities and FET Colleges, but also the students themselves. Current dropout
rates in many cases exceed 40%.
There are many positive developments and constructive activities in the HET sector in the country.
Furthermore, internationalisation is a declared part of a national tripartite policy to improve the
academic performances of all public universities (see below). The DHET is expecting to develop a
policy on joint degree programmes due for approval before the end of 2013. When finalised, this will
create opportunities for the development of joint degrees, especially at the masters and doctorate
levels, and participation of Flemish academics in joint teaching and research supervision with South
African counterparts. The mission noted that there are many HET initiatives for which there is funding
available in South Africa, but to make best use of these resources additional human capacity development
is required, highlighting therefore this activity as a gap which future cooperation partnerships
with Flemish universities could fill.
South Africa is aiming to have a post-school system that provides a range of accessible alternatives
for young people. It aims to raise at universities to 1 500 000 (to a projected participation rate of 23%
from its current level of 17.9%) and to aim for 4 000 000 enrolments (approximately a 60% participation
rate) in colleges or other post-school institutions such as the proposed community education and
training centres. This is an extremely ambitious programme and will require major changes in academic
management and the development of substantial academic capacity with associated improvements
in capabilities to be made by the 23, and three newly planned, universities. The first change envisaged
will come under the actions of “self-differentiation” (the specialization of different HET institutions to
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perform specific functions and so raise their potential to achieve excellence in certain tertiary education
pursuits). The second, will be “transformation” (the strengthening of the higher education system
by improving the whole education supply chain from basic to general and further education
streams thereby enabling increased access and reflection of diversity and social cohesion) and the
third, “internationalisation” since many of the historically disadvantaged universities (particularly in
the Comprehensive and University of Technology groupings) have much ground to make up regarding
internationalisation compared to many of their counterparts in the traditional university sector.
The majority of academics in the HET sector of South Africa are not Ph.D. holders (only 34% across
the university sector) and as a consequence they have difficulties being recognised as active researchers
by national funding agencies like the DST/NRF (where research performance is the main
criteria for academic career track advancement). Because of heavy teaching loads and limited independent
research experience, the vast majority of academics therefore have difficulties advancing
their careers.
There is a significant shortage in vocational type training for opportunities to produce the numbers of
artisans which are needed in the country (a primary function of the FET Colleges) and a shortfall in
trained postgraduate throughput (in terms of M.Sc. and Ph.D registrations and related graduations).
This places constraints on South Africa’s ambitions articulated in its current National Development
Plan to become a knowledge-based economy by 2030. Currently, South Africa produces 28 Ph.D.
graduates for every million of its population while other BRIC countries like Brazil produce almost
double the number. According to the NRF, the major priority in the HET sector is to increase the pool
of doctoral candidates so as to raise the levels of innovative thinking and knowledge transfer in the
country.
There are high expectations that the Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges will become a
central component of South Africa’s skills development system. In current HET plans, FET colleges
will become institutions of choice for young school leavers, offering general vocational training as well
as providing academic and theoretical education for apprentices. Most importantly, their programmes
need to articulate with universities so that those who choose a vocational training route can later
continue their studies at university level should they elect to do so. The Colleges are expected also to
develop close ties to workplaces in the public and private sectors, so that tertiary education can become
increasingly responsive to the needs of the employers in surrounding communities, and offer
tailor-made vocationally oriented programmes in addition to their core academic ones.
Of the total registrations in South African universities in 2011, 556 694 students were campus-located
while 381 506 were undergoing distance education (DE) courses. These data indicate that DE will be
one of the more important and significant tools by which South Africa will be able to deliver its planned
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growth in the HET sector in the next two decades. The numbers of A-rated researchers in South
African universities (according to the standard NRF classification) during 2012 were only 89 out of a
total of approximately 2 500 researchers (rated in the NRF’s five research classes) across all of the
South African public universities. One problem highlighted at the South Seminar is that many universities
are in the practice of maintaining their younger staff members (postdocs) on prolonged postgraduate
student status so as to avoid mandatory payments on employment tax and other pension/medical
insurance arrangements. The mission observed a clear shift in the discourse with South African universities
away from traditional external donor-driven initiatives towards more internal-driven activities,
guided by both national and institutional priorities. The sense obtained during the mission was that this
shift reflects South Africa’s status as a middle-income country, which is increasingly self-reliant financially
but still clearly has many significant human resource capacity gaps. This situation should create
excellent opportunities for truly mutually beneficial international development cooperation by means of
equal partnership platforms. It means that a highly innovative and mutually beneficial Flanders-
South Africa Country Cooperation Strategy can be developed through the principle of matched funding.
It is recommended that in the case of South Africa, all of the different instruments of VLIR-UOS university
cooperation modalities including postgraduate study scholarships, research internships, specialist
short course training, and potential institutional cooperation building initiatives will be potential
opportunities for university cooperation between South Africa and Flanders. The possibility of applying
the NETWORK instrument to regional multidisciplinary thematic research areas of food security,
sustainable water resource mapping and management and socio-economic development issues such
as democracy, governance, support for disadvantaged rural communities, is particularly promising. In
this scenario, the existing VLIR-IUC linkages between Flemish counterparts at institutions with their
developing experiences of successful interactions and co-operations, could play hub roles in a network
of university teams based on different university campuses within the country and the region.
The major priority for co-operations between South Africa and Flanders should, however, for some
time focus very much on postgraduate training delivery and joint supervision of students. The possibility
that joint degrees might be offered from a South African and a Flemish university could form the
necessary frameworks for joint master-level degrees, involving possibilities of joint teaching, shared
research and student exchanges (at the levels of doctoral scholars and postdoctoral interns) between
collaborating Flemish universities (and their associated university colleges) and South African HET
institutions. Topics which fall under the four thematic areas and which incorporate considerations of
key cross cutting socio-economic issues could very well form the bases of many useful co-operations
between FET Colleges in South Africa and associated university colleges in Flanders which have
complimentary research and teaching interests in activities such as training young university lecturers,
nurses and primary health care workers.
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The highest priority activities are likely to be partnerships in which substantial postgraduate training is
supported through multidisciplinary research, increased research output in high impact journals, extension
workshops in areas such as climate change, primary health care, good governance, local
community development, human resource development in primary health care delivery, good governance
and local community development. With respect to the HET domains, highest priority should
again be given to postgraduate training. In terms of research themes, the areas of food security and
sustainable water resource management are top priorities due to their widely perceived importance
and significance for national development. Research output should also be a top priority for most of
the identified thematic research areas, whilst extension (outreach-type) activities should focus on
climate change, primary health care delivery, good governance and local community development
issues. In most cases, VLIR-UOS interventions would be expected to be jointly funded by South Africa
agencies and VLIR-UOS through the establishment of appropriate MoU’s and other agreements. This
will mean that all of the cooperating parties, whether or not they are partners based in South Africa,
Flanders or in other SADC countries, are able to register strong levels of joint ownership which is likely
to lead to more sustainable forms of university cooperation and joint academic activities.
The outputs from the North and the South rounds of consultations are well-aligned in terms of demand
(the need for capacity building particularly at the postgraduate masters and doctorate training levels in
South Africa) and the need for mentoring and other forms of support for new generations of postdoc/emerging
academic levels within both the university and FET College sectors. In terms of supply,
Flemish academics are very keen to engage with South African counterparts, especially in combined
postgraduate training and research activities which deal with one of the four thematic pillars and which
include adequate treatment of cross-cutting issues. The demand for postgraduate training and support
for young emerging academics is especially high in the Comprehensive universities and the Universities
of Technology.
What is most important about future cooperation partnerships between South Africa and Flemish
universities and associated university colleges is a strong sense of ownership both in the South and
in the North. In addition, there is a need for both institutional potential and basic capacity, as well as
opportunities for joint capacity building (for example, though credit exchange, double degrees, and cofunding).
Country strategies should build on existing linkages, without inhibiting new partner relations
and new project development. They should also have potential to link up with support provided by
other facilitating agencies apart from VLIR-UOS. This is especially important in the cases of potential
institutional partnerships, including twinning to build joint initiatives like IUC or NETWORK modalities
with which to establish thematic regional networks, to facilitate the mobility of young and mid-career
researchers, to assist institutional development, and above all enable academics to benefit their careers
through international exposure and peer support (for both sets of academics in either Flanders or
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South Africa/SADC countries). The above components make up a sustainable package for cooperation
that builds on trust and the sharing of the long-term benefits that accrue.
In summary, the countrywide strategy for South Africa could usefully have the following characteristics:
multidisciplinary and sufficiently broad to ensure a sufficient number of quality partnerships, direct
developmental relevance and should always be based on sustainable capacity building. It would be
best to employ a timeframe of around twelve years for longer types of institutional N-S and S-S-N
partnerships, with a possibility of strategic revision every six years; and it should preferably balance a
mixture of interventions (national, institutional and private sector involvement) in a wide portfolio of
academic pursuits and research interests and that they be both thematic- and region-based.
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I. Background
The process of country strategy identification was instigated by VLIR-UOS in the context of implementation
of a political agreement signed in 2010. This agreement urges VLIR-UOS to formulate a strategy
for each of its 20 partner countries to be achieved in a phased manner. Country identification processes
are conducted by country teams consisting of two experts (one international and one local), a
member of the Bureau UOS, and the VLIR-UOS country desk officer responsible for development of
strategy for the country concerned. A VLIR-UOS strategy represents an informed policy choice that
serves as a framework for programming. This framework must be sufficiently broad to ensure that an
adequate number of quality partnerships can be formed and projects formulated on the basis of the
VLIR-UOS operating modalities. However, the means of VLIR-UOS, both in terms of financial and
human resources, are limited. For this reason, a relatively broad strategy may result in a modest
programme.
VLIR-UOS currently funds partnerships of willing academics (Flemish academics offer their time on a
voluntary basis) on themes that are developmentally relevant and result from a shared interest. Interventions
may be in the form of scholarships or projects at institutional or faculty level. Capacity development,
aimed at furthering the ability of higher education (HE) institutions to serve as actors in development,
is at the centre of the VLIR-UOS programme.
Country strategies are policy documents that will guide funding decisions of VLIR-UOS and allow for
strategic impact based on programme coherence and contextual relevance (as indicated by the black
circle).
STRATEGIC NICHE
FOR PROGRAMMING
SUPPLY
The planned mission was meant to identify the needs (demand side), the space and opportunities
(thematic, regional, institutional) for both Flanders and South African academics’ interests to match.
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Any future co-operations should preferably be based on a shared interest which is also reflected in the
distribution of financial resources in as many cases as possible. Need identification is achieved
through visits to pre-selected HE institutions, authorities, and other stakeholders. In addition, the
hosting of a local seminar in the target country (in this case South Africa) allows for further inputs,
discussions, and elaboration of potential linkages where appropriate.
After engaging in five country strategy identifications in 2011-2012 (i.e. those for Cuba, Ecuador,
Tanzania, Uganda and Vietnam) and realising a similar process in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, South Africa and Ethiopia are the next countries in line for country strategy development.
In order to arrive at a country strategy, a common methodology was developed. It comprised:
• A Desk study and Fact Sheet compilation (information on Higher Education, Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers, International Collaboration Activities, former and current cooperation activities,
consultation of a number of south actors, surveys, mapping of expertise in the South
and the North etc);
• External evaluation commissions appointed for guidance of the country identification process
(December 2012);
• Consultation process (expert briefing, North Seminar and Interviews, current strategic cooperation
framework);
• Country Identification Mission led by external evaluation commission. This involved preparation
and production of a pre-mission country strategy status document as a starting point for
visits, input for the country seminar, a road-map for visits/interviews, the holding of a country
seminar to be organised as an input seminar either at the beginning, during or as a conclusive
event depending upon the local way of working and subject to discussion among mission team
members;
• Country Strategy to be proposed based on a consolidated mission report (this document). Its
content provides the basis of the formulation of a draft country strategy paper involving feedback
from the Flemish associations as to the strategic options put down as a conclusion from
the South needs (i.e. as expressed in the Country Identification Mission Report).
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II.
Country Identification Process
The in-country mission to South Africa was carried out from 7 – 16 th April, 2013 by a mission team
made up Professor Sinclair Mantell (International Cooperation Expert), Mr Neil Butcher (Local Expert),
Professor Patrick Sorgeloos (Member of VLIR-UOS Board) and Mr Christophe Goosens (Desk Officer
for South Africa). The relatively short time available following the North Seminar (which was held in
Brussels on 15 th March, 2013) and the Easter holiday break (falling at the end of March, over a time
when most public offices are usually closed for a two week period), meant that visits had to be organised
according to a tight schedule.
1. Objectives of the mission
The specific objectives of the mission in a middle income country like South Africa were as follows:
• To undertake an assessment of national priorities in terms of Higher Education and Training 1 ,
and how the HET sector can make contributions towards poverty reduction. Outputs were to
include the identification of possible strategic niches for cooperation between South Africa and
Flemish HET institutes. This was to be achieved by consulting widely through visits, interviews
and the hosting of local seminars in the North and in the South, with the involvement of a wide
spectrum of local stakeholders where (a) ‘matching’ of needs and interests between South African
institutions and the Flemish HET sector should be possible and (b) VLIR-UOS interventions
and university cooperation instruments could yield optimal results;
• To undertake an assessment of pre-defined local academic institutions in terms of their willingness
to engage in international cooperation and their competence to manage such initiatives;
• To make recommendations in terms of a VLIR-UOS strategy for South Africa which takes into
account the relevance and appropriateness of the various VLIR-UOS intervention types.
1 Often referred to in South Africa as “post-schooling”, to cover the broader contexts of adult education
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2. Methodology
The preparatory work for the mission consisted of a survey of Flemish and South Africa institutions
and a desk study of various South African and international (policy) documents. Contact prior to the incountry
mission was also made with the South African Embassy in Brussels and the Belgian Embassy
in Pretoria. The outcomes of the above preparatory actions were a South Africa fact sheet containing
overviews of existing cooperation between Flemish universities and South Africa, including actions
which also involve neighbouring SADC countries where relevant.
The Desk Study and compilation of a Country Fact Sheet were carried out in February - March 2013
and allowed the mission team to build up a profile of the basic characteristics of South Africa as a
Middle Income country and the role which higher education and training activities among its 23 formal
universities and fifty or so FET Colleges play in the current and future plans for development of the
country. Background relevant to the mission (concerning the geography and demography of South
Africa, its political and economic development, its poverty reduction strategies and some of the key
environmental issues it is currently facing) is presented in Annex 1. Facts and statistics of the Country
Fact Sheet are also being subsequently updated using information gathered from the numerous
meetings and interactions with stakeholders during the in-country mission.
In order to assess the degree of interest on the part of Flemish academics for participation in international
partnerships with counterparts in South Africa, a series of Skype interviews was held with Flemish
academics over several weeks and intensive face-to-face meetings on the day immediately prior to
the North Seminar in Brussels which took place on 15 th March, 2013.
The purpose of the seminars, interviews and meetings conducted in both the North and the South was
to provide an opportunity for:
Articulating the principles framing VLIR’s engagement with South Africa being a middle Income
country and, in particular, to emphasise the need to align all proposed activities with
South Africa’s higher education development goals, to arrive at multidisciplinary thematic areas
to address these goals and to develop a country strategy that is also complementary to activities
of other donor partners;
Sharing the scope and depth of the VLIR programme with stakeholders and potential applicants;
Reflecting on the current and past experiences of the country programme of Northern researchers
and South African academicians and students presently in Belgium;
Providing technical information about VLIR’s activities in South Africa to potential applicants;
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Identifying possible thematic areas for N-S and N-S-S engagement; and
Capturing the opportunities and demand for international cooperation between Flemish and
South African partners
In terms of the choice of which HET institutions to visit in South Africa, the two universities which are
currently involved in VLIR-IUC partnerships - the Universities of Limpopo and of the Western Cape -
were considered essential, as was a selection of visits to a sample of the remaining 21 universities (of
the traditional, comprehensive and universities of technology types). Statutory bodies representing
management and delivery of services in HET, both in the provinces and across the country, were also
visited. With many of the offices of these organisations being based in Gauteng Province, within the
vicinity of the administrative and business centres of Tshwane and Johannesburg, the South Seminar
was planned to be held in Johannesburg half way through the mission to take into account possibilities
of new information and perceptions from academics and senior academic managers coming out of the
seminar which could assist the mission build on relevant information during the latter half of the mission.
Because of time constraints and the substantial distances involved, visits to universities and HET
institutions in KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State, Mpumulanga, North West, the Northern Cape and the
Eastern Cape were not feasible. To compensate for this, seminar invitations were sent to representatives
of key universities in these provinces so that their interactions with mission members was facilitated.
An innovation/business incubation hub located in Pretoria (The Innovation Hub) was also included
in the visits in order to appreciate the various options open to academic staff and students of
universities to become engaged in innovation and development of new businesses. Following the
South Seminar in Johannesburg, the mission team moved to Cape Town and meetings were arranged
over the weekend of 13-14 April, 2013 with staff of Stellenbosch University and the University of the
Western Cape. A week or so before each of the planned visits, a background to the mission’s purpose
was sent out to each institution so that discussions might be aligned in the short time available for
interactions towards defining challenges and demands on the higher education sector in South Africa.
The content of the suggested agenda for discussions sent out in advance of visits is shown in Annex
4.
3. Expected results
Results of the mission were expected to be as follows:
An overview of strategic niches for cooperation taking into consideration local South African HET
needs and national development plans with Flemish supply of academic cooperation support with
a strong emphasis on opportunities for mutually advantageous partnerships (i.e. “win-win” situations);
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An overview of potentially interesting partner universities for VLIR-UOS cooperation initiatives
with respect to their linkages with national priorities and other relevant objectives;
Recommendations formulated in terms of the potentials for transversal support initiatives; the best
possible portfolio (i.e. combinations of intervention types) for VLIR-UOS cooperation in South Africa;
and generic opportunities and constraints for university cooperation for development with
South Africa.
III.
Main findings from the mission
a. Consultations in the North
The North seminar was organised by VLIR-UOS in Brussels with Northern stakeholders to inform
interested parties about the on-going process of strategy identification for South Africa and to brainstorm
about the possible long-term framework for future VLIR-UOS interventions involving Higher
Education and Training institutions in South Africa with extension and possible involvement of scholars,
academic staff and other university-based personnel based in neighbouring SADC countries. It
was very well attended with over 80 participants from all five Flemish universities and from a number
of prominent associated university colleges and institutes with active cooperation in South Africa. A
small number of South African postgraduate students and postdoctoral scientists, and who were in
Belgium carrying out parts of their academic studies and collaborative research, also participated. The
DGD Desk Zuid-Afrika, the Belgian Technical Cooperation and Flanders development donors with
projects on-going in university collaborations with South African institutions were also represented, as
were two Belgian NGOs working in South Africa. In the future, Belgian DGD is planning a new bilateral
development programme with South Africa which is due to commence in 2014 and will have new
instruments and a modified strategy which is geared to effective delivery of aid to middle income
countries. Such measures will include the increased awareness of knowledge sharing, increased
attention to S-S interactions and collaborations and a strengthening of existing and new forms of
regional integration. This is because many of the social and environmental problems of SADC countries
are common and need a shared approach when designing effective interventions. Universities in
the region are therefore very important and strategically significant in the future policy and approach
for bilateral support programmes between Belgium and the SADC region. Cooperation with Comprehensive
universities and the Universities of Technology is considered especially important and creates
substantial opportunities, notably for cooperation in the vocational training domain.
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Group discussions were held under three clustered themes: Natural and biological resources, Medical
issues / Primary Health Care and Societal Development Issues. Cross-cutting (transversal) issues
were considered in each of the three groups. They included the immediate needs of higher education
in South Africa to boost skills and vocational training, social implications of migration, increasing
access of African and coloured sectors of the population to education (not only full-time but also parttime
and adult post-schooling), governance democracy, service delivery, capacity building in terms of
human resources, implications and the threats posed by global climate change on food security, and
the roles of South Africa in academic S-S linkages with neighbouring SADC countries.
The university cooperation supported by VLIR-UOS with South Africa has had a catalytic effect on
stimulating international university cooperation between South Africa and other SADC countries involving
a wide range of Flemish actors, including the Belgian Embassy in South Africa, the Directorate-
General for Development Cooperation (DGD), the Belgian Technical Cooperation (BTC), the European
Union (EU – particularly its higher education initiatives like Erasmus Mundus), the Belgian Research
Foundations (FWO and FNRS) and the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO).
Apart from the two cross institutional IUCs with University of Western Cape and the University of
Limpopo involving staff exchanges, shared teaching, short course training and collaborative research,
between at least ten different research and teaching units, has supported specifically the following:
a. Fifteen TEAM projects (linkages between university departments and research groups);
b. Seven Southern Initiatives between individual scientists and their research teams, three of
which are still on-going;
c. Five N-S-S programmes in which South African universities have been initiated to collaborate
on start-up university cooperation initiatives in the following topics:
Integration of concepts and standardisation of methodologies in hydrology/hydrogeology
and aquatic ecology for sustainable management of water resources in Southern Africa;
Engage in research that will produce institutional information to further advance a culture
of postgraduate academic excellence at UWC and at the University of Zambia;
Eco-hydrology: a new approach to the study and management of freshwater systems in
southern Africa;
Proposal of University of Nairobi to collaborate with the University of Western Cape for
the development of a training environment for E-Learning;
Integrated ecological and hydrogeological study of anthropogenic impacts on the Lower
Runde River system (Zimbabwe).
The tertiary Southern institutions involved in these N-S-S linkages have been University of Nairobi
(Kenya), University of Zambia (Lusaka) and University of Zimbabwe (Harare), all which were previous
IUC partner universities and are now working on regional cooperation with the existing IUC pro-
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gramme at UWC in South Africa. This indicates the linking potential of the VLIR-IUC universities,
with extended experiences of academic relationships with colleagues in Flanders. Further, the linkages
which Flemish and South African university academics have with counterparts based in other
countries outside of the continent of Africa also opens up many doors for future collaboration and
cooperation. All such academic groups and university institutions therefore act themselves as potential
focal points (hubs) for stimulating new initiatives in important areas of study related to environmental
and social issues of significance and inherent to the Southern African region as a whole. Since 2003,
a significant total of 52 scholars from South Africa have completed their doctorate programmes (partly
or wholly undertaken in Belgium) with support from the VLIR-UOS cooperation frameworks and a
further 72 scholars have completed their masters’ programmes with support in one form or another
from the VLIR-UOS instruments. Significantly, 17 South African M.Sc. students benefited from shared
credit arrangements in their degree programmes between their host university in South Africa and a
counterpart institution in Flanders. When looked at collectively over the whole decade 2002 – 2012, a
total of 476 scholars benefited in one way or another from VLIR-UOS support instruments and cooperation
structures.
b. Consultations in the South
Campuses of nine universities (three Traditional, four Comprehensive and two Universities of Technology)
were visited. These were respectively, the Universities of Witwatersrand, Cape Town and
Stellenbosch; the Universities of Limpopo, Johannesburg and South Africa; and the Universities of
Technology of Tshwane and Cape Province. In most cases representatives of senior academic management
chaired the meetings which were attended also by representatives of different departments
with international cooperation activities or staff of international offices of the respective institutions. In
the case of statutory bodies, the mission was able to talk with senior managers and policy makers in
HET. The five statutory bodies and related organisations in the South African Higher Education and
Training (HET) sector visited included the Higher Education South Africa (HESA), the Department of
Higher Education and Training (DHET), the National Research Foundation (NRF), the Department of
Science and Technology (DST) and the Council for Higher Education and Transformation (CHET). In
two cases meetings were held with the CEOs of institutions. These were the CEO of the Further
Education and Training at False Bay College, and the CEO of The Innovation Hub in Pretoria. The
programme itinerary and the list of institutions and HE statutory bodies visited in South Africa is presented
below (Table 1) and details of the persons involved in meetings in South Africa are shown in
Annex 2. A summary of the minutes of the discussions held at each of the institutions visited is presented
in Annex 3. The mission is indebted to Ms. Monica Mawoyo and Ms Catherine MacDonald for
assisting the local expert, Neil Butcher, in making local meeting and seminar arrangements. Neil also
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kindly reviewed the contents of several drafts of this mission report, as well as produced the summary
of activities undertaken at the South Seminar (presented in Annex 7).
Table 1. In-country mission programme
Date Location Time Activities
07/04/2013 Polokwane 11.15 SHM and CG arrival in Polokwane after overnight travel
from Zurich and internal flight transfer in Johannesburg
18.30 NB arrival by road from Johannesburg
08/04/2013 Turfloop 09.30 Meeting with senior academics of UL
12.00 Meeting with senior academics involved in VLIR-IUC
activities
14.00 Travel by road to Johannesburg
18.00 Meeting with PS (who arrived during day from Europe)
for update on day’s events
09/04/2013 Pretoria 11.00 Meeting with HESA
14.30 Meeting with senior academics at Tshwane University
of Technology
17.15 Meeting with Acting Deputy Director of DHET
18.30 Return by car to Protea Hotel, Johannesburg for feedback
discussion on day’s meetings
10/04/2013 Johannesburg 09.30 University of Johannesburg
12.00 Combined meeting with University of Witwatersrand:
Department of Rural Health and the university’s International
Relations Department
16.30 Meeting with CEO of SAIDE and member of NADEOSA
17.30 Return to Protea Hotel and feedback meeting on day’s
meetings
11/04/2013 Pretoria 09.00 Meeting with Director: Development Partnerships
11.00 Meeting with leading academics at UNISA
13.30 Meeting with the CEO of The Innovation Hub
15.00 Meeting with the Programme Director: Human Capacity
Programme Human & Institutional Capacity Development
16.30 Return to Johannesburg by road and feedback meeting
on day’s events and
Johannesburg 19.30 Restaurant dinner hosted by the Representative of the
Flemish Government in South Africa
12/04/2013 Johannesburg 08.30 South Seminar held in Wanderer’s Club
09.00 SHM, CG, PS travelled by air to Cape Town
13/04/2013 Stellenbosch 09.30 Meeting with Researchers and Senior Academic staff of
the Department of Agrisciences and the Coordinator of
Exchange Programmes and International Student
Mobility at Stellenbosch University. Also present, a
senior academic from the Department of Ichthyology
and Fisheries Science at Rhode University
13.00 Lunch hosted by Professor Danie Brink
14.00 Car drive back to Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town via
scenic coastal route Oceanview to Hout Bay
14/04/2013 Cape Town 13.00 Fish Restaurant Meeting on the Cape Town Waterfront
with senior academic staff involved in the VLIR-IUC
programme
17.00 Arrival of NB from Johannesburg to rejoin mission after
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the South Seminar and departure by PS for overnight
flight back to Europe
15/04/2013 Cape Town 09.00 Meeting with senior academics and senior librarian at
the Cape Peninsula University of Technology
11.00 Meeting with the CEO False Bay FET College
13.30 Meeting with senior academics involved in the VLIR-
IUC programme
16/04/2013 Cape Town 10.00 Meeting with senior academic staff representatives of
the University of Cape Town
12.00 Meeting with representatives of the FET Institute and
the Faculty of Education based at the University of the
Western Cape
14.30 Final summing up lunch with SHM, NB, CG and MM
18.30 Departure by SHM and CG to Zurich
Initials: SHM = Professor Sinclair Mantell (International Cooperation Expert), CG = Mr Christophe Goosens (VLIR-UOS
Desk Officer for South Africa), NB = Mr Neil Butcher (Local Expert), PS = Professor Patrick Sorgeloos (VLIR-UOS Board
Member), MM = Ms. Monica Mawoyo (assisted NB with arrangements for local visits).
1. Main observations from institutional visits
In order for a middle income country like South Africa to sustain its economic development, requires a
capability to increase current levels of innovation coming from academic research based both in
universities and in privately-run research institutions.
The meeting at the DHET revealed that three new universities are to be established over the coming
few years (not two, as had been widely suggested during some of the previous institutional meetings).
This means that by around 2018, there will be a total of 26 public universities in the country, placing
even more demand for qualified academics to staff the new universities at a time when enrolments will
also be increasing significantly in the existing universities. The three new universities will be located in
predominantly rural areas: one in the Northern Cape Province (at Kimberley), one in Gauteng Province
at Medunsa (already a joint campus of the University of Limpopo, but which will become a separate
university in the new plans) and the other in the north-eastern Mpumulanga Province (Nelspruit). Of
the total registrations in universities in 2011, 556 694 students were campus-located while 381 506
were undergoing distance education (DE) courses. These data underline the increasing emphasis
being placed on DE as one of the most important and significant tools by which South Africa will be
capable of delivering its planned expansions in the HET sector over the next two decades. The DHET
acting deputy director indicated that there was a willingness to enter into serious discussions with
agencies like VLIR-UOS on how the principle of matched funding of postgraduate training scholarships
and other shared initiatives in the HET sector could be implemented. Representatives of the DST and
NRF also gave members of the mission the impression that the principle of arranging matched funding
arrangements to support formal research exchange and postdoctoral internships between South Africa
and Flanders would be possible in certain theme areas considered as priorities to these agencies. The
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thematic areas of water resource management, climate change and food security could be three such
themes.
As far as postgraduate graduation levels are concerned, in 2004 there were 7 883 Masters students
graduating, whilst seven years later in 2011 there was a marked reduction to 4 641. The reasons for
the substantial decline are not clear but information from the various meetings held during the mission
indicated that the failure rates could have been influenced by:
• Financial difficulties faced by students enrolled in full-time training on-campus and who have
family commitments exacerbated by a variety of factors including loss in family earning power
caused by the effects of HIV/Aids and associated health and social problems;
• Inadequate levels of postgraduate supervision associated with relative inexperience of the academic
staff who are already under pressure from heavy undergraduate teaching loads;
• Unsuitability of curricula to real life situations, lessening the chances of securing employment
after leaving postgraduate training; and
• The academic standards of registered students are not being compatible with the requirements
for full-time intensive masters level studies.
With respect to Ph.D. graduates, although there were reasonable increases in the numbers of doctorate
students graduating between 2004 (1 103) and 2011 (1 637), the scale of the challenges facing
South Africa’s HET planners is as follows: while 28 Ph.D.’s are produced every year per million head
of population in South Africa, other BRICS countries like Brazil produce double that number per million
head of population every year. Inevitably many of the best undergraduate and masters students in
universities are being attracted away from academia by the prospects of better livelihoods outside of
the universities within the business and commercial sectors (creating so-called Private Sector Brain
Drain). This means that the quality of students remaining in universities may often fall below internationally
recognised standards required for winning overseas scholarships.
The universities visited have clear intentions of improving the standards of their research output.
However, they have a great deal of ground to make up. In 2012, the total number of A-rated researchers
in South African universities (according to the standard National Research Foundation’s classification)
was only 89 and that most of the A-rated researchers were based at the eleven Traditional universities,
whilst relatively smaller numbers were based in either the Comprehensive universities and
the Universities of Technology.
One particular problem raised at the South Seminar is that many HET institutions in South Africa tend
to maintain their recently graduated postdoctoral academics on a type of prolonged postgraduate
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student status so as to avoid having to pay them more substantial remuneration rates (incurring employment
tax and other pension/medical insurance contributions). This practice undoubtedly has the
effect of demoralising doctorate holders from pursuing an academic lecturing and research career and
does not help to reduce the current levels of brain leakage being experiences from universities to other
sectors outside of HET. The important roles which postdocs can play in bolstering research team,
department or faculty research activities is well recognised and this was confirmed during discussions
held at the South seminar. Opportunities created by international academic cooperation could assist
many postdocs establish themselves in their academic careers and so help to avoid brain leakage.
The research impact standards of university research, rated as being above the recognized international
norm, are in the disciplines of environment and ecology, space science, clinical medicine and
computer science. Scarce and critical skills graduates in 2011 were identified by HESA in the areas of
Engineering Sciences, Human Health and Animal Health, Natural and Physical Science and Starter
(Initial) Teacher Training. Nevertheless, there are encouraging signs that in the case of some of the
domains like engineering sciences, substantial progress is being made in the output of graduates from
previously disadvantaged backgrounds: African students made up 48% of the total graduates in this
subject domain in 2009, whereas only eight years previously the proportion of African students graduating
was below 28%.
In the National Development Plan increases in innovation and business incubation are seen as important
ways for universities and FET Colleges to increase their engagement in facilitating development
and decreasing poverty in the country by creating more potential opportunities for employment
and improved livelihood prospects for the population as a whole. The visit to The Innovation Hub in
Pretoria showed an effective model of current university research activity leading directly to potential
business creation and incubation potentials. The formulation and sharing of different types of new
training experiences might also be a catalyst for stimulating innovation by young academics. The
incubation of new Small, Micro and Medium Enterprises (SMME’s) on or near university campuses
has been found in many countries to stimulate strong linkages between academia and commerce for
the purposes of increasing innovation provided that there is good continuous communication between
the academic researchers and stakeholders. Business and science communication skills would therefore
appear to be extremely important components of business incubation activities and of influencing
the research culture itself. The Innovation Hub in Pretoria is currently active in the topics of ICT and
Food Processing Biotechnology and there appeared to be already several examples of direct commercialisation
of the outputs from university-based research arising from research carried out at the
Gauteng-based universities like Pretoria and Witwatersrand. The supportive environment created by
such innovation centres located on, or within close proximity to, university campuses where postgraduate
students and academic supervisors carry out their research, often increases the chances and
speed whereby patentable products and processes can be incubated and commercialised. Even
postgraduate students benefit from being trained in a commercial research environment, showing that
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the principle of SMME development in combination with appropriate types of university academic
research has the potential to spawn a next generation of academics. These experiences could lead to
development of courses and teaching environments that are increasing more likely to lead to highly
employable graduates since their university of college training will be more closely aligned to the
needs of industrial enterprises and small businesses. The Universities of Technology have a particularly
important role to play in building levels of innovation in the country and the Cape Peninsular
University of Technology has strong academia-to-industry linkages in place through the creation of
special senior academic positions (in one or two cases even SARCHi Chairs) to stimulate innovation in
the kinds of research conducted by the university. Meanwhile, the Tshwane University of Technology
is clearly cultivating strong relationships with rural communities and food processing/biotechnology
industries and so play a role in stimulating innovation. This involves several developmentally relevant
academic disciplines in the food security sector, such as crop science, indigenous knowledge coupled
with multilingualism, water resource management and community health care and communications.
The involvement of several Flemish academics with science parks and business incubation activities
in South Africa (such as the iThemba Labs in radiation physics and radiation biology) have great
potential to foster many potentially important partnerships between Flanders and South Africa in
downstream research projects with increased potential for commercial development of new products
and processes.
2. South Seminar with HET Institutions and Stakeholders
As part of its management of a government-funded programme directed at international partnerships
in the context of university cooperation for development, VLIR-UOS is formulating country strategies
as broader frameworks for its academic cooperation modalities. A key part of this activity, is to support
as many opportunities as possible for a thorough consultation process with stakeholders in the South,
With this in mind, a one-day country seminar (the South Seminar) was held during the current incountry
mission in South Africa on 12 April, 2013 at the Wanderer’s Club in Johannesburg. The programme
for the seminar is presented in Annex 6.
The event brought together representatives of different South African universities, Belgian Directorate
General for Development, the Flemish Provincial Government, and other organizations in the higher
education sector of South Africa to discuss development of a suitable country strategy for scoping
future VLIR-UOS actions in South Africa and the SADC region. A full account of the seminar’s proceedings
and the various outputs from the plenary and smaller group work sessions is presented in
Annex 7.
Introductory speakers at the seminar drew attention to the fact that the purpose of the country strategy
identification is to give a voice to both local and Belgian partners so as to elaborate a strategy map for
development cooperation in higher education. In this way, country strategies are a framework for
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cooperation, which seeks to provide a strategic match between Southern demand and Flemish expertise
and human resources.
Each institution represented at the seminar was provided a short opportunity to describe examples in
which they have direct experience of international cooperation including – but not necessarily limited to
collaborations with Flemish universities. Seminar participants were introduced through this process to
a wide diversity of examples of international cooperation, which served to emphasize both the value to
date of collaborations that have occurred to date and the many different forms that international collaboration
can take. It also provided some clearer directions on the most useful forms of international
collaboration, which fed into subsequent plenary and group discussions. Participants signalled challenges
in the flow of information about collaborations even within the same HET institution, some
members of the same universities often not knowing about each other’s collaborative efforts. The
exercise reinforced the value of international development cooperation, and representatives suggested
that there are in fact many existing initiatives underway to which the VLIR-UOS Country Strategy
might usefully connect. The examples given by participants further strengthened the case for the most
useful collaborations being based firmly on mutual self-interest and on prolonged experience of each
other’s perceptions of academic standards, cultural values and expectations. Very importantly, seminar
participants also confirmed and endorsed observations made in the various meetings held and
visits made on the mission up to that time: the fact that a key requirement for South African universities
is to increase their academic capacity in the face of on-going pressures to increase enrolments
across all levels of study.
The work sessions centred around the HET supply chain, from the entry of school leavers into the
system up to senior academic management delivery and policy according to four defined phases with
identified needs:
Phase 1: Foundation course/undergraduate level: articulation between FET and universities;
Phase 2: Masters and doctorate postgraduate level: postgraduate training;
Phase 3: Postdoctoral researchers and emerging academic staff: the next generation
Phase 4:Senior Academic Management: support for mid-level and senior academic functions
The plenary group engaged in active discussions related to these four phases in the HET supply chain
by first considering the challenges and then the possible opportunities to lessen impediments in the
supply chain. In order to stimulate smaller group work discussions, a café style movement at intervals
of participants around the four different work stations based on the each of the four phases in the HET
supply chain was facilitated so that different participants listed challenges and others posed possible
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opportunities to address the listed challenges. This led to accumulation of a many interesting ideas
and perceptions about HET in South Africa and how participants considered the various ways forward
to address key challenges. In summary, the outputs underlined the need for capacity development.
Towards the end of the work group sessions, a brainstorming event considered the various thematic
areas proposed by Northern stakeholders and also endorsed by participants in the various meetings
held during the mission and during the South Seminar. The objective was to assess to the extent to
which cross-cutting issues could be built into research topics within each of the themes: Water Resources
Management, Climate Change, Food Security, Health Care and New Technologies. The
outputs listed in Annex 7 demonstrated that there would likely be many cross-cutting issues related to
socio-economics, economics, politics, education, curriculum development (particularly at the masters
level) and governance etc which would be extremely relevant to the development of applied research
under these thematic areas. This does not preclude the possibility that one thematic area would still be
justified to concentrate on societal development issues so that aspects such as governance were not
obscured and tackled appropriately by research teams involved in any type of international university
cooperation. The Health Care theme attracted many suggestions for social science research and
underlined the need not to bring to the fore aspects like disability, the special circumstances presented
by the HIV/Aids epidemic, the special requirements needed for training primary health care workers
based in rural areas of the country and in neighbouring SADC countries. Many other interesting suggestions
were introduced which can be taken into account for further consideration and amplification in
the formulation of the country strategy. These included a need for biophysical expertise, the roles of
nutrition and access of the correct forms of food to ensure healthy lifestyles, the inequity often experienced
by some sectors of the population in gaining access to nutritious foods (partly a marketing and
a pricing problem and not necessarily an availability issue), the updating and re-engineering of primary
health care in both urban and rural areas, accessibility to health care involving factors, such as linguistics,
and the availability of adequate transport infrastructure and an underlying attitude of some sectors
of society.
All of these issues raised by participants demonstrated the need for a combination of technical and
social science: the need for multidisciplinary approaches to solving practical problems in society and
the country.
In conclusion, the assembled participants (photograph of the seminar group is shown in Annex 7),
considered the seminar a useful occasion at which to air and identify the specific and general needs,
challenges and opportunities in the HET sector of the country and to generate useful information and
feedback (Annex 8) with which to shape the contents of the VLIR-UOS countrywide strategy for South
Africa.
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3. Core issues to be taken into account in the Country Strategy
With a Middle Income country like South Africa, the guiding principle should be a shift from ‘money
changing hands’ to ‘minds exchanging ideas’, with the following being identified as important:
• Government partners as a facilitator, with implementation by partners (i.e. partner driven);
• More emphasis on capacity building and institutional support;
• Exchange of expertise via diverse actors;
• Support for civil society;
• Coherence between development cooperation and economic and cultural cooperation; and
• Regional cooperation.
Five broad areas of work have been selected by Belgian support to countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
These are:
1) Democracy and human rights;
2) Education, training, and research;
3) Inclusive and sustainable growth;
4) Public health; and
5) People to people development (culture, youth, etc).
Several additional priority areas have been recognised for the future, including:
• Increasing the level of academic qualifications of staff and students;
• Improved project management (to manage large grants and joint programmes);
• Provision of support to disadvantaged students through bursary schemes and effective mentoring;
• Retention of staff through appropriate incentives;
• Development of networks in Africa and the rest of the world; and
• On-going review of North-South and South-South relations in a rapidly changing global context.
The consensus was that these priorities and activities were appropriate strategic approaches to follow
for future international cooperation. Furthermore, the findings and observations made as a result of
interviews and discussions with stakeholders, confirmed that the four main pillars themes of the earlier
draft country strategy were endorsed as the potential thematic platform for guiding the allocation of
joint South African/VLIR-UOS support for research and teaching partnerships based at universities
and FET colleges in South Africa, SADC countries and Flanders.
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4. Strategic priority matrix (main themes and cross-cutting support domains)
One would expect that a middle income country, in which there are over 20 highly active universities,
52 FET Colleges and over 100 private HET institutions, has within its HET sector all of the capabilities
to make best use of the available VLIR-UOS instruments to achieve meaningful benefits from international
institutional cooperation activities linked to community and business development in the country.
In the words of the National Planning Committee, “while the South African HET system functions
relatively well, tertiary education including adult education faces major challenges. These include low
participation rates, high attrition (drop-out) rates, curricula which do not speak in many cases to society
and its needs, the absence of an enabling environment that allows every individual who enters the
system to be able to express and reach full potential, and poor knowledge production that often does
not translate into innovation”. South Africa would appear to have substantial financial resources at its
disposal for these types of activities as demonstrated by its commitments to implementing enabling
education policies which are intended to increase the access of its population to a full primary and
secondary education and an ever-increasing level of participation in the HET sector. The mission
received an indication that the commitments by the DHET to create policies and frameworks to guide
international development cooperation in the future are strong. To drive the knowledge-based economy,
innovative research will be needed and this will come from creating the enabling environments for
postgraduate students and academic staff to develop their research ideas in close communication with
stakeholders of communities and commercial enterprises.
All of the universities visited appear to have well-organised university academic management structures
along well-recognised international models. There were indications of this during the South
seminar institutional presentations. Most universities have a wide range of national and international
cooperation activities in which they participate as partners. South Africa’s historically advantaged
universities have considerable experience in delivering highly regarded levels of postgraduate training
to scholars who come to study in the country under government scholarship programmes from other
African states. On the mission’s visit to Stellenbosch, a group of 10 Nigerian students had newly
arrived to begin their postgraduate training as part of a contractual training agreement between the
Nigerian Ministry of Higher Education and Training and Stellenbosch. Activities like these indicate that
the Traditional group of universities can be recommended in the strategy as important hubs for regional
postgraduate training initiatives and, based on current assessments, that the Comprehensive universities
and the Universities of Technology would be better targeted for the purposes of staff capacity
development aimed at raising academic attainment levels of their younger members of academic staff.
This would imply involvement of the latter types of universities in SI, TEAM or IUC activities.
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The current VLIR-IUC partner universities (UL and UWC of the Comprehensive university grouping)
could be potential platforms for the development of research and training hubs in a NETWORK type of
N-S-S cooperation modality that could extend to neighbouring SADC countries in appropriate multidisciplinary
research themes. This could have the same beneficial effect which the primary health care
twinning initiative has been achieved and in which UL is currently involved in cooperations with HET
institutions in Mozambique and other neighbours in the field of rural development, rural vulnerability
assessment work and primary health care extension. In addition, the specialist institutes (like the
Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies established on campus at UWC during the period of
the IUC partnership with Flanders are likely to have important coordination roles in future rural development
initiatives aligned to a NETWORK type cooperation modality. These could form either S-S-N
or even S-S-N-N cooperation models.
The priority matrix table presented in Figure 1 aims to reflect the relative priorities (red for high, green
for moderate and yellow for relatively low priority) of each potential VLIR-UOS intervention level supported
activity and the themes and domains which might be covered. There is a need to differentiate
the relative research and teaching capabilities of different university departments within the country for
supporting partnerships in the four thematic areas. This will then ensure that there is a strong likelihood
that cooperation supported by VLIR-UOS is being progressed in academic environments where
there is an assurance of added value in terms of academic/societal development/service-to-society
outcomes. There should also be a very clear sustainability component for both staff and student development
at the respective institutions involved in any partnership.
The greatest concentration of efforts (i.e. the highest priority) in university cooperation between South
Africa and Flanders is likely to be partnerships which support one of the following activities: postgraduate
training, multidisciplinary research, increases in research output of high international standard,
extension workshops in climate change, primary health care, good governance and local community
development. With respect to human resource development, this will continue to have a high priority in
primary health care and family medicine, good governance and service delivery in the contexts of one
or more of the four chosen thematic areas: Food Security, Environment, Health and Social Sciences.
With respect to the domains, highest priorities should be given to education (e.g. joint teaching, joint
degrees, where feasible, and joint accreditation of modular sections of masters courses particularly).
The components of research should ideally be of a multidisciplinary nature (or at least with an indication
that the proposed activity is to link with a multidisciplinary programme of national significance) and
to management in the fields of either Food Security, Water Resource Management, Primary Health
Care, Good Governance and/or Local Community Development. International networking and other
linkages will be particularly relevant for the four themes. Postgraduate training and short course training
in ICT applications to academic learning and pedagogic evolution in curriculum development and
language training will be extremely relevant (where available) to both the university and FET college
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sectors. These activities are expected to have important positive impacts on the training of primary
and secondary school teachers and of nurses involved in all sectors of the health care system with
beneficial impacts on community development. Given that pre-service teacher training is entirely
organized by universities in South Africa, and that so many new teachers lack practical teaching skills,
there will be many opportunities for the associated university colleges in Flanders to participate in very
relevant useful collaborations.
Moderate priority is considered as appropriate for collaborative training in biotechnology, public health,
and communication because South Africa has already acknowledged and strong capabilities in these
fields. Low priority components include short training (since these facilities are already being delivered
effectively by South African Traditional universities) and extension services in ICT (software development
is comparatively advanced in the country, although hardware connectivity remains a major
constraint in institutions located in rural areas).
In terms of research, the thematic areas of Food Security, Sustainable Water Resource Management,
Primary Health Care and Societal Development issues are top priorities. These include attention to
cross-cutting issues such as institutional strengthening (including research policy), capacity building
(including teacher training), service delivery, ICT and modelling applications, social and historical
dynamics, land reform, democracy, governance, multilingualism, improving vocational and skills-based
training including language competence. Research output is expected to be a top priority for most of
the identified thematic research areas, whilst extension activities should be focussed on resilience and
climate change, primary health care delivery, good governance and local community development. In
most of the above activities, VLIR-UOS interventions should be jointly funded so that all of the cooperating
parties, whether or not they are partners based in South Africa, Flanders or in other SADC
countries, can register and retain a strong level of joint ownership based on an equal partnership
platform (as illustrated below in Figure 2).
5. Alignment of the findings between the North and South consultations
The outputs from the North Consultations, as recorded in the Country Strategy summary report (an
extract of the relevant sections is shown in Annex 5) and from the South Consultations, are wellaligned
in terms of demand (particularly the need for capacity building particularly at the postgraduate
masters and doctorate training levels) and of the support now required for new generations of postdoc/emerging
academic levels within the university sector. In terms of supply, Flemish academics are
very keen to engage with South African counterparts, especially in combined postgraduate training
and research activities which deal with one of the four thematic pillars and which include adequate
treatment of cross-cutting issues. The demand for postgraduate training and support for young emerg-
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ing academics are especially relevant to the Comprehensive universities and the Universities of
Technology.
Figure 1. Relative Priority Matrix of possible VLIR-UOS cooperation actions
within the countrywide strategy for South Africa
THEMES
DOMAINS
EDUCATION RESEARCH EXTENSION MANAGEMENT
SUB-THEMES/AREAS Master Ph.D.
Workshops
International
Short trainng, Multidisciplina
Collaborative
Research output
/societal HRD networking and
recycling ry research
training
activity
linkages
CONTENT BASED THEMES
Biotechnology
Aquaculture
FOOD SECURITY
Food production &
value chains
ENVIRONMENT
Animal Sciences &
production
Water Resource
Mangement
Climate change
Institutional Policy
Institutional
strengthening
ICT
Research Policy and
Culture (incl. Statistics
for research)
Language
development
ICT in education (Elearning
& other)
Health
Primary health care
Public Health
HIV/AIDS
Good Governance
Social Sciences
Sports
Communication
Local Community
Development
Academic Learning
Priority
activity
Moderate
Priority
Low
Priority
Highest priorities will need to be given to postgraduate training at Masters and Doctorate levels and other forms of
human resource development in all thematic areas. Ideally scholarships should be awarded on a matched funding
basis to spread the number of opportunities to the maximum numbers of scholars and to share the partnership
benefits through joint ownership. A mixture of social and technical science aspects should preferably be components
of all thematic research activities which take place under TEAM, IUC or a NETWORK interventions, with
maximal levels of local community interactions wherever possible. Research output should be a target of registered
scholars and collaborators. Development of e-learning materials appropriate to each thematic area need to
be developed as a key priority activity so as to support distance education initiatives which are much needed to
support university-based and adult education projects.
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In summary, the findings and observations made as a result of interviews and discussions with South
African stakeholders confirmed that the four main pillars themes of the earlier draft country strategy of
March 25, 2013 (which arose during discussions at the North Seminar and at interviews with Flemish
academics) were endorsed as the potential thematic platform for guiding the allocation of joint South
African/VLIR-UOS support for university research and teaching partnerships between individual academics,
department teams, and research networks based in universities and FET colleges in South
Africa, SADC countries and Flanders.
IV.
Lessons learned and conclusions
The university sector in South Africa is an extremely attractive one for many Flemish academics with
which to seek partnerships and cooperation both at the individual, departmental, faculty and institutional
levels. This is in part due to the following factors:
The long tradition of academic interactions because of the historical affinity of the Afrikaans
language with Dutch;
The relatively high academic standards of the historically advantaged South African universities.
The leading five are considered by independent external assessment as being among the
top 500 academic institutions in the world 2 ;
Many scientific research groups of Flemish universities and associated university colleges
have either been engaged or are currently participating in various forms of joint postgraduate
teaching and student mobility programmes with South African counterparts (e.g. through the
EU Erasmus Mundi Student Mobility Programme). Activities have involved, in two or three
cases, the concept of joint degree teaching, especially at the Masters level, in subjects like agriculture,
aquaculture and the political and social sciences, in which registered postgraduate
students from neighbouring SADC countries also participate and some of these students receive
a portion of their postgraduate coursework and other aspects of training in Flemish HET
institutions;
Flemish academics are keen to see possibilities for these sorts of joint academic activities in
teaching and research continue and possibly expand in the future;
2 http://www.webometrics.info/en/Africa/South%20Africasort=asc&order=Excellence%20Rank%2A
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The academic interests of many Flemish university departments cover mutually interesting research
topics. These include international policy development (in the light of South Africa’s increasing
influence on the continent of Africa), social and political sciences focusing on governance,
service delivery and specialist needs of disabled students, food security, sustainable
natural resources management (particularly water resource management), primary health
care, nursing and curriculum development through the sharing of teaching experiences in vocational
training. There are also strong research interests registered in HIV/Aids and its implications
for health care and future labour availability. The predicted impacts of global climate
change linked to the geographical location of the country where climatological changes are
most likely to have increasing major implications for agriculture, water resource management
and food security in the coming 30 years is one major overriding interest of natural scientists
interviewed in Flanders. The influences of multilingualism on access to education in South Africa
and its roles in community migration and the dynamics of societal change are also well
represented among the interviewees. Their academic interests in South Africa are primarily
because of the uniqueness of the country’s recent past created by its transition from apartheid
to a modern form of democracy; and
The active and sustained interactions of Flemish and South African academics with South African
and International industrial enterprises seeking applications of advanced basic sciences.
Two notable examples are in fundamental particle physics (e.g. iThemba laboratories in South
Africa with particle physicists based in Flanders) and ICT (South African universities and businesses
cooperating with ICT operations like iMinds, a campus-based business operation at
VUB ). These associations and partnerships are already leading to innovation and SMME
business creation.
In general, Flemish academics interviewed during the mission have experienced positive partnerships
with South African academic counterparts. Many of the established partnerships are playing leading
roles in the establishment and sustainability of active research, education and delivery networks. Good
examples of highly productive cooperation were found in primary (family) health care, societal aspects
of development and water resource management associated with existing VLIR-IUC cooperation
activities with University of Western Cape and with the University of Limpopo. The Primary Health
Care twinning network between several South African universities and neighbouring SADC countries
has international recognition (by WHO for example) as a valuable programme of training and research
for primary health care practitioners.
The mission noted that there are many initiatives for international cooperation where funding is available
within the South African higher education sector. For example, internationalisation is one declared
policy to raise academic standards and ensure a sound development of the South African HET sector
in the future. However, additional human resource capacity is invariably required, highlighting that this
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is an extremely important potential gap which future cooperation activities with Flemish universities
could fill. Specific challenges within the HET sector that surfaced during the mission include:
a. The importance of creating suitably funded and mentored emerging academics for appointments
to post-doctoral positions (either as research associates or as probationary academic
staff), as a critical first step in creating attractive career pathways for future academics (noting
particularly the problem of an increasingly ageing academy and the apparently often-practised
administrative procedure on the part of some universities of maintaining postdocs on prolonged
postgraduate student tracks so as to avoid paying employment benefits and other compulsory
taxes);
b. Capacity of academics, both in terms of actual availability of suitably qualified staff and in relation
to constraints on capacity imposed by the increasingly heavy administrative and teaching
workloads, is likely to be expected of incumbent members of academia;
c. The need for investigating increased options for co-supervision of postgraduate students in order
to expand the supply of qualified people to move into, rather than out of, academia;
d. Creating opportunities for young academics already experiencing heavy teaching loads to engage
in international partnerships is not straightforward, since many might decide to turn down
such internationalisation opportunities because of the daunting prospects of increasing existing
workloads caused by internationalisation activities. However if the partnership involved is an assured
way of generating a series of scientific publications which will help in career progression
(making university co-operations between South Africa particularly attractive to both parties) and
that the young staff member is also supported by senior academic management in making arrangements
for shedding some of the teaching load, then the opportunities created by a partnership
become more feasible and are more likely to be taken up by hard-pressed academics;
e. Senior academic managers at universities need to play their part in fostering opportunities for
their young emerging academics;
f. The possibility that a certain number of postdoctoral internships could be supported through
some type of jointly funded scheme between Belgium and South Africa needs to be investigated.
Such a scheme could provide Flemish and South African academics involved in formalised
partnerships to exchange their academic teaching and research supervision responsibilities for
a few months. This could facilitate better the development of partnerships in the case of young
academics being able to share their academic duties also apart from carrying out research jointly.
The sharing of ideas in teaching and research in their respective institutional environments
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would be expected to create a rich learning experience for both parties involved;
g. The growing demand for foundation programmes at both the undergraduate level (to meet the
challenges associated with the secondary-tertiary education transition) and at the postgraduate
level (for the transfer of postgraduates of B.Tech. at FET Colleges into masters-level courses at
universities). These will be important situations for potential linkages between University Flemish
Associated Colleges to be involved as partners with FET Colleges and universities for the
purposes of advancing curriculum development and language skills. The roles which distance
education and open learning resources can assist in addressing some of these gaps are relevant
because of the extensive experience of many Flemish university and associated college
groups in e-learning;
h. The need for international exposure of different kinds, are key incentives to improve the prospects
of young postgraduates and postdocs (emerging academics) into full-time academic careers.
International S-S-N connections will also create new opportunities for stimulating business
incubation projects and for encouraging increasing numbers of examples of innovation
originating from joint university-based research activities, not only between S-N Partners but between
academics in the SADC countries as well with great potential to development of S-S-N
linkages;
i. The Comprehensive Universities and the Universities of Technology have a substantial amount
of ground to make up on their Traditional University counterparts in South Africa, both in terms
of the levels of basic and applied research activities being conducted and the standards and
amounts of high impact scientific publication output generated. Future VLIR-UOS country strategy
for South Africa should take account of such differences and create a strategic tendency to
give priority to cooperation partnerships (involving scholarships, Southern and TEAM initiatives)
between Flemish academics and academic staff based at Comprehensive universities and at
the Universities of Technology; and,
j. Traditional universities in South Africa are in a very strong position to play a key role in supporting
regional S-S-N postgraduate (masters level) joint training and the possibilities for joint degree
programmes, should these prove to be mutually advantageous to both South African and
Flemish academics. The total number of international students enrolled in South African universities
was 68 237 in 2011, 72% of whom came from Southern African (SADC) countries. This
underpins the substantial beneficial influence that the South African HET sector already has on
higher education systems within the SADC region and the great potential that there is for potential
VLIR-UOS N-S-S co-operations between South African universities and counterparts based
in other SADC countries. This is especially relevant when it is considered that many of the prob-
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lems and challenges being tackled by neighbouring countries of South Africa, such as how best
to organise water resource use and shared river flow controls, are pressing issues for all countries
in the region; and Sharing resources and expertise via linkages to Flemish expertise via
South African universities is a sensible rationale for making best use of scarce human capacity
and infrastructural resources.
The planned establishment of three new universities in rural locations of South Africa is expected to
create many new opportunities for Flemish academics to link with counterparts in these younger
universities especially in the field of rural development-type research and extension activities that are
already parts of existing VLIR-UOS partnerships underway at UL and UWC.
In conclusion, the countrywide strategy now being proposed for South Africa should have the following
characteristics:
it should be multidisciplinary and sufficiently broad to ensure a sufficient number of quality
partnerships;
it should concentrate on research and training on issues of developmental relevance and sustainable
capacity building;
it should ideally employ a timeframe of around twelve years in the cases of IUC or NETWORK
modalities, with a possibility of strategic revision every six years; and
it should be balanced through a good mix of interventions (national, institutional) and with a
wide portfolio, i.e. it is both theme- and region-based.
In the strategy recommendations, interventions involve a set of agreed themes and involve a regional
SADC component in potential postgraduate training and advanced research activities.
What is also most important about future cooperation strategy between South Africa and Flemish
institutions of Higher Education and Training is the presence of a strong sense of ownership both in
the South and in the North. In addition, there is a need for both institutional potential and basic capacity,
as well as opportunities for joint capacity building (for example, though transferable academic credit
exchange, double degrees, and co-funding as has been experienced in partnerships with other regions
of the world by either Flemish partners, e.g. with aquaculture research linkages between Vietnam,
Flanders and South Africa and in primary health care and medicine with collaborators in Flanders,
South Africa, United States of America and Latin America.
Country strategies need to build on existing linkages, without inhibiting new partner relations and new
project development. They should also have potential to link up with support provided by other facilitating
agencies apart from VLIR-UOS. The three most important components of meaningful cooperation
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considerd by Flemish and South African academics are: firstly, all activities should be driven by mutual
self-interest; secondly, the emphasis of shared activities should focus on knowledge for development
including issues such as technology transfer, exchange of know-how, mentoring of junior researchers,
joint programmes, and development of project management skills and thirdly, the importance and
significance of institutional partnerships, including twinning, joint initiatives, regional networks, thematic
networks, mobility of researchers, institutional development, and international exposure. In this way,
the three components make up a sustainable package for cooperation that builds on trust and the
sharing of long-term benefits for the collaborating parties involved. These special characteristics
were voiced repeatedly by all stakeholders during the mission.
V. KEY PUBLICATIONS CONSULTED
The institutions visited during the mission generously provided literature describing their academic
activities and visions for the future. Below is a list of some of the more significant sources of information.
Cloete, N. et al. 2013. The role of higher education in international development. Higher Education
and different notions of development. IIE Networker p.21-23. Spring 2013.
DHET 2012. Green Paper for Post-School Education and Training. 100pp
Higher Education Monitor No 8: The State of Higher Education in South Africa. A report of the
CHE Advice and Monitoring Directorate. October 2009. 116pp.
Higher Education South Africa. 2011. A Generation of Growth. Proposal for a national Programme
to Develop the Next Generation of Academics for South African Higher Education. 22pp.
Hugo, J. and Allan, L. 2008. Doctors for Tomorrow. Family Medicine in South Africa. NISC South
Africa. 76pp.
National Development Plan: Vision for 2030. 11 November 2011. Chapter 9. Improving Education,
Innovation and Training. p261 – 294.
Overview of NRF 2013: funding opportunities, Grant Management and the Rating of Researchers.
22pp.
South African Public Higher Education: Key Statistics 2013. Centre for Higher Education Transformation
(Calendar)
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Annexes
Annex 1
Contextual information on South Africa relevant to the mission
Page
41
Annex 2 Mission visits in South Africa 48
Annex 3
Visit reports for institutes and stauatory bodies engaged
during the in-country mission
52
Annex 4 Pre visit agenda: potential focus for discussions 77
Annex 5 Extract from South Africa Strategy Summary Status Report 79
Annex 6 Programme for the South Seminar in Johannesburg 84
Annex 7 South Seminar with HE institutions and stakeholders 86
Annex 8 Post South Seminar feedback 98
Annex 9
Pre-mission questionnaire: articulation of problems, challenges
and possible solutions to the constraints in the HET
sector in South Africa
99
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Annex 1. Background information on South Africa relevant to the mission’s
objectives and activities
Contextual information on South Africa of relevance to the current mission can be found on the VLIR-
UOS website under “Countries – South Africa” 3 .
Geographical and demographic characteristics;
Political structure;
Development strategies with focus on poverty reduction;
Economic performance; and
Environmental Resource Management
a) The Higher Education Sector in South Africa
Following are the main observations on the South African university and FET College functions acquired
from a combination of desk study information and outputs from consultations with persons at
the arranged meetings with universities, statutory bodies and related HET agencies during the incountry
mission in South Africa.
South Africa’s formal education system has three levels: General Education and Training (GET), which
lasts nine years and is compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 and 15; Further Education
and Training (FET), which lasts three years and includes the possibility of a vocational education
focus; and Higher Education (HE) by means of which undergraduate and postgraduate degrees (masters
and doctorates) are delivered 4 . Access to GET is virtually universal, and needy children are exempted
from paying school fees, so the major challenge in formal education is to make the quality
more consistent and to prevent dropout during the GET phase. Consequently, education and training
authorities have been established to develop the skills required for economic growth and global participation.
South Africa's 23 universities (11 traditional, six comprehensive and six universities of technology),
although governed and subsidised to a level of around 40% campus budgets by the State, maintain
their autonomy and report to their own councils rather than to the government. This makes coordinat-
3 http://www.vliruos.be/media/1829185/country_sheet_south_africa_march13.pdf
4 For the purposes of the current report, the acronym HET is used to cover both vocational and academic HE
institutes (ie the FET Colleges and the Universities), unless otherwise specifically stated.
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ed responses to different national priorities in HET sometimes awkward to plan, develop and synchronise.
One fundamental problem is that the funding formula tends to replicate the status quo rather than
transforming it, so the only recourse for government to effect changes is through earmarked funding.
There are around 100 private tertiary educational establishments in the country, some of which are
satellite campuses of international universities like Monash (Australia) or colleges established by
church organisations. The Belgium Campus in Pretoria 5 is one such private non-profit higher education
institution with an international orientation and a Christian background. Many of the private HET
institutions are already accredited while others are currently seeking accreditation. Universities and
FET Colleges come under the policy guidance of the Ministry of Higher Education and Training (Post-
Schooling), which is separate from the administration of Primary and Secondary School Education,
which falls under the Ministry of Basic Education. There is also a Ministry of Science and Technology
which administers affairs related to government-led research and postgraduate training initiatives,
such as those based at the CSIR, NRF and DST.
The 50 or so Further Education and Training (FET) colleges (a full listing by province is provided by
the DHET on its website 6 ) have evolved from technical colleges that primarily supported the artisan
apprenticeship system. They have been used to teaching the formal education component of qualifications
for artisans in the major industries in the country, including mining, construction, telecommunications,
railways and electric power. Enrolment in these colleges was restricted to whites until the last
decade of apartheid. The colleges represented a route through which those who did not complete their
secondary education could gain an alternative qualification. Colleges also presented an opportunity for
post-matriculation studies with the Report 191 N4-N6 certificates, which could, after 2 000 hours of
work experience, result in the awarding of the National N Diploma. Over time, these colleges attracted
students who had completed the Senior Certificate, either because they did not qualify for university or
did not have the resources necessary to study at university. Restructuring of the college sector started
in 2000 and by 2009, 50 multi-campus FET colleges were established from a merger of 152 technical
colleges. There are high expectations of the College sector as a central component of South Africa’s
skills development system. FET colleges must become in the new HET plans institutions of choice for
young school leavers, offering general vocational training as well as providing academic and theoretical
education for apprentices. Most importantly they must articulate with universities so that those who
choose a vocational training route can later continue their studies at university level if they elect to do
so. The Colleges must develop close ties to workplaces in the public and private sectors, becoming
responsive to the needs of the employers in their surrounding communities, and offering tailor-made
5 http://www.belgiumcampus.co.za/
6 http://www.dhet.gov.za/EducationInstitutions/FETColleges/tabid/174/Default.aspx
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programmes where possible in addition to their core programmes. The DHET intends to put considerable
effort into improving and strengthening them in order to be able to expand the sector in the coming
years. A key first step in strengthening the FET colleges is to differentiate between the stronger
and weaker institutions, in order to provide appropriate support and leadership to both. Autonomy for
institutions may not achieve the desired goals if institutions do not have sufficient capacity to manage
themselves.
A concerted push (referred to as “massification”) has been made over the last 10 years by South
Africa to increase access of higher education to black and coloured students. This political drive has
led to a rapid expansion of undergraduate teaching groups, placing considerable pressure on infrastructural
facilities and the incumbent academic and non-academic staff in the universities. The majority
of lecturers in the HET sector of South Africa are not Ph.D. holders (only 34% across the university
sector) and as a consequence have difficulties being recognised as active researchers by national
funding agencies like the NRF (in which research is a significant component of academic career track
advancement). This is mainly because of heavy teaching loads, exacerbated by the fact that many
have limited postgraduate experience and frequently they lack exposure to international research
activities and the stimulation in academic careers that often results from sharing experiences with
peers participating in cooperation activities like international research and teaching networks. Typically
South Africa’s first degree structure consists of a three-year bachelor’s degree, followed by a one-year
bachelor with honours degree or postgraduate diploma. These normally grant access to master’s
degrees (coursework with a research component or by research only). In some cases, a four-year
professional bachelor’s degree can give access directly to a master’s degree. The highest qualification
on the HEQF is a Ph.D. or doctoral degree. Honours programmes are generally a combination of
taught modules (with seminars and laboratory time) and a minor research thesis. Postgraduate diploma
programmes are a combination of coursework (with seminars and laboratory time) and may include
a minor research thesis. Master’s programmes are either a combination of coursework (with
seminars and laboratory time) and a substantial research thesis or purely research (thesis-only) based
programmes. Doctoral programmes have a minimum registration period of two years before the degree
may be conferred. Students typically enrol for around three years and are expected to work
independently under the guidance of a supervisor. Doctoral candidates in all faculties must submit a
substantial dissertation and will generally be required to complete an oral examination.
There is a significant shortfall in postgraduate throughput (in terms of M.Sc. and Ph.D. registrations
and related graduations) for a country of South Africa’s size and ambitions to become a knowledgebased
economy by 2030 7 . South Africa currently produces 28 Ph.D. graduates for every million of its
population: Brazil produces 48, South Korea 187, United States of America 201, Australia 264, UK
7 South African PhD Project booklet – Creating strength and diversity in the South African public and private sector.
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288 and Portugal 569. According to the NRF/RISA, South Africa needs to increase the pool of doctoral
candidates so as to raise the levels of innovative thinking and knowledge transfer in the country and
the SADC region so as to cope with the expected growth in demand for innovation and business
creation, to rejuvenate the current tranche of academics in the HET sector, to increase the diversity of
and topicality of curricula delivered by HET institutions to make them more aligned to the type of
qualifications,
A recent study by Tettey (2010) 8 investigated the retention of the next generation of academics in
African universities, in which the South African Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University was included.
The results of the study showed that staff student ratios across the university sector in South Africa
have improved relatively little since 2000 and that staff-student ratios at present are in reality in the
order of 40 - 45, which is much higher than the levels in universities in other African countries like
Nigeria, Tanzania and Mozambique. Worth noting is the fact that staff-student ratios experienced by
South African academics are double to treble those experienced by most lecturers in traditional universities
of Europe and North America.
There is a relatively poor academic career retention incentive in the majority of South African universities
so that it is often the best qualified researchers and teachers who leave the university of first
appointment after obtaining their doctorate qualifications. There is a continuing brain-drain leakage
from universities into industry, the private SMME sector as well as from migration into the more advantaged
university institutions in urban areas where there is a better academic career track potential than
in rural locations.
A consultative Green Paper on Post-Schooling and Training moving currently towards the foundation
of a White Paper to be finalised during 2013, after a wide consultative process that has taken approximately
one year, is the driving policy document for the development of HET in the country through to
2020 which is also aligned to the National Development Plan 9 which is the country’s vision through to
2030. It states that South Africa needs an education (Primary, Secondary and Tertiary) system with
the following attributes:
a. High quality, early childhood education, with access rates exceeding 90%;
b. Quality school education, with globally competitive literacy and numeracy standards;
8 Wisdom J. Tettey 2010. Challenges of developing and retaining the next generation of academics: deficits in academic staff
capacity at African Universities. http://www.foundation-partnership.org/pubs/pdf/tettey_deficits.pdf
9 National Development Plan: Vision for 2030. 11 November 2011. Chapter 9. Improving Education, Innovation and Training
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c. A Further and Higher Education sector that enables people to fulfil their potential. An expanding
HE sector that is able to contribute towards rising incomes, higher productivity and the shift
to more knowledge-intensive economy.
d. A wider system of innovation that links key public institutions (universities and science councils)
with areas of the economy consistent with economic priorities.
Clearly there are several important challenges for the South African HET sector and many of these are
not only problems associated with post-schooling but very much also to do with basic education and
the policies which drive this sector. By 2030, South Africa is aiming to have a post-school system that
provides a range of accessible alternatives for young people: it is aimed to raise university enrolments
to 1 500 000 (to a projected participation rate of 23% from its current level of 17.9%) and to aim for 4
000 000 enrolments (approximately a 60% participation rate) in colleges or other post-school institutions
such as the proposed community education and training centres. This is an extremely ambitious
programme and is very likely to need major changes in academic management and the development
of substantial academic capacity with associated improvements in capabilities to be made by the
current 23 and three newly planned universities.
Changes envisaged in the HET sector required to meet these plans come under the actions of “selfdifferentiation”
– the specialization of different HET institutions to perform specific functions and so
raise their potential to achieve excellence in specific tertiary education pursuits, “transformation” –
the strengthening of the higher education system by improving the whole education supply chain from
basic to general and further education streams thereby enabling increased accessibility and reflection
of diversity and social cohesion. Such a system of HE would envisage some of the universities having
to function optimally as knowledge-based institutions. This will have implications for funding apportionment
from the State and Provincial Governments’ budgets, since the performances of these differentiated
types of universities will need to be based on criteria other than research output. The third
drive will be in the area of “internationalisation”, since many of the disadvantaged universities (of the
comprehensive and technical types) have much ground to make up regarding internationalisation
compared to many of their counterpart institutions in other parts of the world. This is largely due to the
fact that many of the present corps of academic staff are products of the era of academic boycotts and
lack of exposure to, and an understanding of, the vital role of internationalization in setting quality
standards. Internationalization of staff and student bodies, however, requires flexible policies and
highly effective management of applications for study visas, work permits and other paperwork by the
Department of Home Affairs.
The traditional universities like Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Pretoria offer degrees and diplomas at
undergraduate and postgraduate levels in academic and applied science subjects. South Africa’s
education structure is guided by a Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF) which provides
the basis for integrating all higher education qualifications into a National Qualifications Framework
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(NQF).The Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) based within the Council for Higher Education
(CHE) coordinates quality assurance in higher education in the country. The Education White Paper
3 10 assigns responsibility for coordinating quality assurance in higher education to the HEQC. The
organisation is therefore required to facilitate a common approach to quality assurance in collaboration
with the other bodies concerned, such as professional councils and sector education and training
authorities (SETAs); and to ensure that duplication of quality assurance activities in higher education is
avoided. This can involve sharing information and quality assurance systems, and in some instances
entering into formal agreements or memoranda of understanding with other bodies whose scope of
practice in quality assurance in higher education overlaps with that of the HEQC.
The HEQC recognises that its work must be informed by international debates on developments in
quality assurance in higher education, and that the organisation can contribute significantly to such
debates. Relationships with quality assurance agencies in the African continent and internationally are
key to the HEQC's achieving this objective. For this reason, the organisation has over the past five
years established formal Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the Australian Universities
Quality Agency (AUQA), the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) in the UK, the National Assessment
and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in India, the Namibian Qualifications Authority (NQA) and the Tertiary
Education Council (TEC) in Botswana.
Student financial assistance is provided by the Government through the National Student Financial Aid
Scheme (NSFAS). Moreover, alternative admission processes have been developed that select educationally
disadvantaged students on the basis of their academic potential while many institutions
have introduced academic development and ’bridging’ or sometimes called ‘foundation’ programmes
that help students overcome poor schooling and support learning in English. Higher Education in the
country is financed from government budget, student fees, and donations and entrepreneurial activities.
Government HE funding more than doubled since 1996 to 10,780 million ZAR in 2005. This
framework is currently under review with the aim of informing future funding practice beyond 2010.
The National Research Foundation (NRF) established in 1999 provides services and grants to support
research and postgraduate research training. Areas earmarked for by the NRF for significant funding
are: economic growth; ecosystems and biodiversity; education; globalisation challenges; information
and communication technology; sustainable livelihoods and unlocking the future.
International partners in HET development include apart from DGD (Belgium), Austria, CIDA, the
Carnegie Corporation, DANIDA (Denmark), DFID (UK), EC (EU), FINIDA (Finland), GTZ (Germany),
USAID (United States of America), JICA (Japan), NORAD (Norway), SIDA (Sweden), the Ford Foundation,
IDRC (Canada), Irish Aid, the Netherlands, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Nations and
10 Education White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education)
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USAID. The funding arrangements and policies of the international funding organisations are regularly
changing in view of South Africa’s status as an upper middle income country.
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Annex 2. List of persons met at institutional meetings held with Southern
Stakeholders during the in-country identification mission in South Africa
VI. Date VII. Institution/organisation VIII. Persons present IX. Email contact
X. 08/04/13 XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
University of Limpopo (UL)
Turfloop Campus. Vice
Chancellor, Deans and
Senior Academics
Medunsa Campus Staff
Member
University of Limpopo (UL)
Turfloop Campus
Heads of IUC Projects
Hlengani Siweya
Frederik Ponelis
Kingsley Ayisi
Jesika Singh
Dimakatso Tiaka
Mbudzeni Sibara
M.M. Mokgalong
(ULVice-Chancellor)
N.M.Mollel
M.A.Rampedi
M.J.Mphahlele
Jabulani Makhubele
Antoinette Jooste
Marianne Callerks
Mgambi J.W.
Rose-marie McCabe
Dimakatso Tiaka
hlengani.siweya@ul.ac.za
frikkie.ponelis@ul.ac.za
kingsley.ayisi@ul.ac.za
jesika.singh@ul.ac.za
dimakatso.tiaka@ul.ac.za
mbudzeni.sibara@ul.ac.za
mahlo.mokgalong@ul.ac.za
naftali.mollel@ul.ac.za
makjwana.rampedi@ul.ac.za
jeffrey.mphahlele@ul.ac.za
jbulani.makhubele@ul.ac.za
antoinette.jooste@ul.ac.za
marianne.callerks@ul.ac.za
jones.ngambi@ul.ac.za
rose-marie.mccabe@ul.ac.za
dimakatso.tiaka@ul.ac.za
08/04/13 Late afternoon travel from
Polokwane to Johannesburg
09/04/13 Higher Education South
Africa (HESA)
Jana van Wyk
Loveness Kaunda
Jeffrey Mabelebele (CEO)
R. Ahluwaha (HE AIDS)
jana@hesa.org.za
loveness@hesa.org.za
jeffrey@hesa.org.za
ramneele@hesa.org.za
Tshwane University of Tech- Mashudu C. Mashige mashigemc@tut.ac.za
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nology (TUT)
Department of Higher Education
and Training (DHET)
Elsabé Coetze
Puffy Soundy
Dharani Sivakumar
Robert Rugimbana
Desmond Nazer
Maggy Ndombomomba
Per Jooste
S.C.D Wright
Diana Parker
Gareth Macquela
coetzeeim@tut.ac.za
soundyp@tut.ac.za
sivakumard@tut.ac.za
rugimbanar@tut.ac.za
nazerdp@tut.ac.za
mombamnb@tut.ac.za
joostepj@tut.ac.za
wrightscd@tut.ac.za
parker.d@dhet.gov.za
maquela.g@dhet.gov.za
10/04/13 University of Johannesburg
(UJ)
University of Witwatersrand
(UW) Rural Health Dept and
Medical School combined
with representatives of the
university’s International
Relation’s Office
P.A.P.Nair
Johan van Juren
Shepherd Dhliwayo
Zodwa Magwenzi
Papa Moffat
Catherine Ngila
Ian Couper
Richard Cooke
Rainy Dube
Le-Ande Sheldon
Gita Patel
pnair@uj.ac.za
johanj@uj.ac.za
sdhliwayo@uj.ac.za
kmagwenzi@uj.ac.za
moff@vodamail.co.za
jcngila@uj.ac.za
ian.couper@wits.ac.za
richard.cooke@wits.ac.za
rainy.dube@wits.ac.za
le-ande.sheldon@wits.ac.za
gita.patel@wits.ac.za
South Africa Institute for
Distance Education (SAIDE)
National Association for
Distance Education of South
Africa (NADEOSA)
Jenny Glennie
Ephraim Mhlanga
jennyg@saide.org.za
ephraimm@saide.org.za
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11/04/13 Department of Science and
Technology (DST)
University of South Africa
(UNISA)
The Innovation Hub (TIH),
Pretoria
Lisa Du Toit
Michele Havenga
Kobus Wessels
Marie Jouseu Rensburg
Hugo Lotriet
Frankie Mojapelo
Liona Criesel
Joseph Diescho
McLean Sibanda
lisa.dutoit@dst.gov.za
havenmk@unisa.ac.za
wessejs@unisa.ac.za
jvrenm@unisa.co.za
lotrihh@unisa.ac.za
mojapmp@unisa.ac.za
griesl@unisa.ac.za
diescj@unisa.ac.za
msibanda@theinnovationhub.com
XXIII.
National Research
Foundation (NRF)
XXIV. Thandi Mgwebi thandi.mgwebi@nrf.ac.za
XXV.
12/04/13 South Seminar held in the
Wanderers Clubhouse
Participant list shown in
Annex 8
Late evening flight to Cape
Town for SHM, CG and PS
13/04/13 Stellenbosch University
(SUN)
Danie Brink
Salie Khalid
Louise Warnich
Huba Boshoff
db@sun.ac.za
ks1@sun.ac.za
lw@sun.ac.za
huba@sun.ac.za
Rhodes University (RU)
Horst Kaiser
h.kaiser@ru.ac.za
14/04/13 University of Western Cape
(UWC) staff
Seafood Restaurant Lunch
XXVI.
Lincoln Raitt
Chris Stroud
Alan Christofellels
Chris Tapscott
Ramesh Bharuthram
lraitt@uwc.ac.za
cstroud@uwc.ac.za
alan@sanbi.ac.za
ctapscott@uwc.ac.za
rbharuthram@uwc.ac.za
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Christina Zarowsky
Larry Popkas
czarowsky@uwc.ac.za
lpopkas@uwc.ac.za
Travel of NB to Cape Town
15/04/13 Cape University of Technology
(CPUT)
Return to Europe by PS
Sharon Panayiotou
James Odendaal
Michael McPherson
Shaun Pather
panayiotous@cput.ac.za
odendaalj@cput.ac.za
mcpherson@cput.ac.za
pathers@cput.ac.za
False Bay FET College Cassie Kruger cassie.kruger@falsebay.org.za
University of Western Cape
(UWC) in addition to the
UWC group above who were
present at a lunch held on
the Waterfront, Cape Town,
Institute for Poverty, Land
and Agrarian Studies
(PLAAS)
Lawrence Piper
Nicky Roman
Cloette February
Leolyn Jackson
Andries du Toit
lpiper@uwc.ac.za
nroman@uwc.ac.za
cfebruary@uwc.ac.za
lkackson@uwc.ac.za
adutoit@plaas.org.za
XXVII.
Accompanied ccompanied XXVIII. by
XXIX.
XXX. 16/04/13 University of Cape Town
(UCT)
Accompanied by Ms. Monica
Mawoyo
Centre for Higher Education
and Transformation (CHET)
Accompanied by Ms Monica
Mawoyo
Return of SHM and CG to
Europe
Mladen Poluta
Graham Bresiot
Lara Dunwell
Nelleke Bak
Theresa Lorenzo
Steve Reid
Madeleine Duncan
Thandabantu Nhalpo
Seamus Needham
Joy Papier
Gerald Ouma
mladen.poluta@uct.ac.za
graham.bresiot@uct.ac.za
lara.dunwell@uct.ac.za
nelleke.bak@uct.ac.za
theresa.lorenzo@uct.ac.za
steve.reid@uct.ac.za
eve.duncan@uct.ac.za
thandabantu.nhlapo@uct.ac.za
sneedham@uwc.ac.za
jpapier@uwc.ac.za
gouma@uwc.ac.za
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Annex 3. Visit reports for institutions and statutory bodies engaged during the
in-country mission to South Africa
University of Limpopo (UL) 11
The institution offers a broad range of programmes and has ample links with relevant development
actors in the country in general and the Province of Limpopo in particular. Its motto is “ Finding solutions
for Africa” and its 2020 vision is to be a leading African university focused on the developmental
needs of its communities and epitomising academic excellence and innovativeness. The university is
building well on its earlier internationalisation efforts. The UL intends to broaden the scope and increase
the quality of its education, outreach and research efforts. It is currently in its fourth year of a
VLIR-IUC institutional collaboration programme with Flemish universities (Antwerp, Hasselt and KUL)
with their associated colleges. The university came into being through the merger of the University of
the North and the Medical University of Southern Africa (at Medunsa Campus) as part of the Government’s
restructuring of higher education in the period 2002-2005. It therefore constitutes a merger of
two historically disadvantaged institutions one of which was rurally situated and the other an urban
institution although both had a commitment to the socio-economic development of rural areas of the
country. Currently UL has extensive experience of inter-institutional cooperation at both the national
and international levels.
There are several new initiatives which reflect the relative importance of the position and locality of the
university in a rural area with many social and rural development issues in common with many of the
neighbouring SADC countries. A Rural Development Innovation Hub has been established with links
to DRUSSA – the Development Research Uptake in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is a five-year programme
supporting 24 African universities as they strengthen processes and systems to manage
research uptake. Community engagement projects, particularly in the area of breeding and genetic
improvement of local cattle breeding, link also with training activities of local FET Colleges and local
farming communities. A Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Centre (RAVAC) has recently also been
established on campus with financial support from DAAD, Germany and linkages with four German
universities at Gottingen, Frankfurt, Bonn and Munich and with South African university groups based
at the University of Venda, Witwatersrand and CSIR. It is planned to host research which will engage
with issues related to food security and water resource management local communities in studies on
rural livelihoods in the event of different impacts of global climate change.
11 http://www.ul.co.za
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University of Limpopo has recently published a UL2020 strategy in which it aims to increase its involvement
in research, teaching and learning in four of the five pillars of the National Development
Plan, i.e. Health and Wellness, Poverty Alleviation, Human Resource Development and Education. In
the latter pillar, UL intends to improve its support to lecturers and other academic staff through mentoring
and counselling activities coordinated through a Centre for Academic Excellence. This centre is
also responsible for the training of lecturers in supervision and teaching methods and in the improvement
of pedagogic content of courses through a collaboration with the University of Pretoria School of
Education. Under the Health and Awareness pillar, activities for this will be continued at Medunsa
Campus until the actual demerger takes place. Major interests are in the field of vaccinology and the
relation of these activities with Health Care delivery and the training of nurses via linkages with local
provincial nursing colleges. The current MRC supported diarrheal disease unit will be continued to
complete a programme of rotovirus vaccine delivery for which Medunsa has a leadership role. In Rural
Development and Innovation the cattle breeding initiative will continue to be a major project while the
recently established Water Testing Laboratory (to open in June 2013) will play a key role in training
and research on national sanitation and water quality initiatives. Food security issues will also be
major initiatives related to the RAVAC initiative. Aspects of Biodiversity, applications of nanotechnology
and aquaculture will also be pursued through existing linkages between UL and the Universities of
Pretoria and Witwatersrand. A Centre for Rural Empowerment on campus is also planned as is a
restructuring of the university’s faculties to take account changing societal priorities and challenges in
the food security, mining and land reform sectors. A malaria research initiative is also to be continued
in collaboration with CSIR.
A second meeting was held in the VLIR Guesthouse during the visit to UL. This was with project
leaders involved in the current VLIR-IUC programme. In a frank and open discussion lecturing staff
highlighted some of the current challenges facing lecturers under pressure of the effects of massification,
transformation and differentiation. In terms of cooperation activities, while it was unanimously
agreed that these were welcomed due to their beneficial effects on research and provision of internationalisation
for both staff and students, there were reservations regarding the imposition of additional
administrative work loads related to managing such initiatives on already heavily overloaded academics.
This is especially true of younger members of staff who are overloaded with undergraduate teaching
but who are the ones who would benefit the most in their career track development from participation
in internationalisation and research co-operation activities. This has to be dealt with realistically by
senior academic management at universities in such a way so as to release staff from some of their
most onerous teaching duties and so allow younger academics to develop their internationalisation
and institutional cooperation activities within realistic time management schedules. Intercampus workshops
and specialist courses (e.g. the VLIR ICP initiatives in key institutional development areas were
seen as one way in which new co-operations and curriculum development could be stimulated and
increase the likelihood that actions would eventually be realised at the faculty and university levels).
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The problems associated with teaching first year students who do not have a foundation knowledge
due to weaknesses in the academic standards reached in their last year of secondary education
(Grade 12). This means that many undergraduates are insufficiently prepared for university courses
and in many cases extra foundation courses must be mounted by the universities and FET Colleges to
deal with these deficiencies in academic standards. In some cases, four-year undergraduate courses
are required in some disciplines to allow for a complete first year of academic alignment before the
normal undergraduate degree programme is able to be started. It was suggested that an earlier Dutchfinanced
project (in collaboration with the Free University of Amsterdam) called “UNIFY” 12 had been
extremely successful in bringing school leavers in the basic sciences and mathematics up to the
academic levels required for university undergraduate studies. Further mention was made on the
usefulness of this education programme from experiences shared in discussions with staff based at
HESA. With the Dutch Bilateral agreements no longer in operation with South Africa, the programme
had been phased out. Unfortunately no further details of this programme could be obtained during the
mission, despite repeated inquiries, but its potential value for universities in South Africa, under pressure
to deliver even more undergraduates in the 2030 vision of the National Development Plan, should
be followed up further at some point. The other difficulty faced by South African universities is the
matter of the diverse multi-lingual backgrounds of students entering the HET system where English
language teaching is a requirement and in many cases teaching in several different languages by
academic staff is a necessity involving refresher or fresh linguistics training. On postgraduate training,
it was generally felt that there was value for students to undergo Masters training before tackling a
doctorate programme, especially one that might involve a certain amount of overseas training and
investigative activities. The poor academic career tracks for junior academic staff needs an urgent
review so as universities can retain staff once they have reached a post-doctorate level of qualification.
Cross-university collaboration within South Africa and the SADC region was needed more than
ever before for ensuring that adequate levels of quality assurance in academic standards could be
developed in a coordinated fashion. The main problems and challenges articulated in a pre-mission
questionnaire by the senior management of UL are presented in Annex 10.
12 http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.phpproductid=2037&freedownload=1&js=n
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Higher Education South Africa (HESA) 13
Higher Education South Africa (HESA) was formed on 9 May 2005, as the successor to the two statutory
representative organisations for universities and technikons (now universities of technology), the
South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association (SAUVCA) and the Committee of Technikon
Principals. The executive board of HESA is made up of the 23 Vice Chancellors chaired by the CEO of
HESA. Its role is advisory in modifying policy. Under the Executive in the administrative structure are
located five management boards with an extra one responsible for risk audit that coordinate the activities
of five advisory groups made up of suitably qualified members. The groups are Funding Strategy,
Research and Innovation, Transformation Strategy, Teaching and Learning and HIV & AIDS Strategy.
The latter group is particularly active and represents the care delivery, research and training activities
within the HET sector which involves delivery of HIV/AIDS Health Care Services (the Campus Clinics
Programme) in the country since the frequency of HIV is still relatively high among both university
students and staff. The Teaching and Learning group is currently engaged in developing a teaching
and learning charter which can guide and be used in universities as a standard quality assurance
instrument.
HESA has been overseeing the progress in implementing the consultative processes involved with
developing the Green Paper 2012 on HET. It has also been busy recently coordinating the development
of a National Senior Certificate curriculum to smooth out the differences in standards between
students based at different post-schooling institutions for subsequent entry into Bachelors training
streams at universities. Scholars must perform well in at least four relevant subjects chosen from a
designated and approved list. There is even a new initiative called “Apply before you Enrol” campaign
to ensure that the application processes in universities are more measured and controlled than they
can be at present with school-leavers and others out of school in the age bracket 18-24 applying all in
a rush at the last moment for university places.
To stimulate academic development activities and the desperate need for satisfactory connectivity in
the disadvantaged rural universities, Rural Campus Connectivity Projects (SANREN and TENET) have
been initiated with 28 million ZAR being invested in broad band infrastructural projects in those universities.
In another initiative, a total of 500 million ZAR will be invested during the next three years for
300 university academic positions in a bid to beef up existing academic areas particularly in the disadvantaged
universities. There are at present too few post-School Education and Training establishments
(mainly Colleges) in the country to support the need for substantial increases in artisanal and
13 http://www.hesa.org.za
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skill-based qualifications. There is also a move by HESA committees to investigate the best ways in
which brain leakage from university academic career tracks into business and technology sectors can
be countered effectively using leverage and advocacy measures to improve the early career progression
of young academics, particularly those returning from doctoral training. There is a recognition that
doctoral graduates are badly needed in the academic staff sector since these can increase publication
outputs, attract funding for further research and above all promote confidence building among the
future generations of lecturing staff.
Internationalisation is considered a priority for the HET sector especially as it is seen as an avenue to
the spawning of innovation initiatives with international industrial and institutional partners. In relation
to Ph.D. programmes in which there is a shared supervision there is an optimistic impression that
these help bridge the shortage of postgraduate supervision gap. In addition HESA is currently looking
at ways in which training could be provided to returning academics following doctorate graduation to
build up their confidence for the academic profession and to be actively engaged with the existing
career track systems operating in their respective university. In relation to the differentiation exercises
underway, a substantial EU funding initiative to support lecturer upgrades, leadership and governance
and HIV/AIDS has now terminated so that there is a clear need to follow up some of these initiatives
using alternative financial support sources since they were regarded as particularly useful and helpful
to university development in the country.
Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) 14
TUT is an example of a university of technology formed from the merger of technikons and various
HET colleges. Its mission emphasis is on production of degree programmes with close links to industry
and society. One Southern Initiative, involving a S-S connection between Stellenbosch and TUT, is
currently in progress on developing and applying a potable water filtration system developed at Stellenbosch
for use in NE rural areas of the country. This is through a cooperation linkage with Professor
Bart van der Bruggen (KUL). The mission met a group of nine senior academics running faculties and
research programmes involving international and national university cooperation in areas of Human
Sciences, Humanities, Crop Science, Economy and Finance, Pharmaceutical Science, Water Technology,
Biotechnology/Food Science and Nursing. Both Food Security and Water Resource Management
thematic areas for potential future co-operations with Flemish counterparts. It was agreed that
societal development issues such as governance, public management practices, resource delivery,
multilingual skill development and poverty alleviation, small business development etc could be accommodated
well within such theme areas since socio-economic and political considerations in relation
to the thematic subjects would be needed as part of the service to society elements in any re-
14 http://www.tut.ac.za
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search, training and teaching. Any possibilities for establishment of joint degrees at the postgraduate
level would be welcome as the beneficial spin-offs would be appreciable in terms of academic quality
and broadening the horizons of future research-led teaching through exchanges of ideas and curriculum
development approaches. The curricula are being revamped to be more aligned with the needs of
industry and society. Good examples of this were in the areas of biotechnology and food science, in
economy and business studies and in the humanities where linkages with teacher training colleges
were assisting with improvements to secondary school curricula. TUT was already involved in S-S
linkages with universities in Ethiopia in the Water Resources and Sanitation area.
The visit and interactions with the various staff members present gave the mission a favourable impression
that the type of academic activities in which they were engaged were very much in line with
the National Development Plans to foster a more innovative approach to societal development through
aligning its training and research functions directly to the society stakeholders it is intended to serve.
Department of Higher Education and Training 15
The mission was privileged to hold discussions with the Acting Deputy Director of Higher Education
and Training, despite her extremely busy schedule, accompanied by the Head of International Partnerships
at DHET. The Department was formed in May 2009 bringing together all post-school education
and training institutions, FET colleges and adult education institutions, formerly administered and
coordinated within the Department of Education as well as the skills levy institutions, formerly under
the Department of Labour. The Green Paper aims to conceptualise the nature of the Department and
to set out its priorities. Stakeholders and the general public are being invited to contribute their views,
which will be considered when the White Paper on the post-school system is drafted sometime in the
coming months to deal with the many challenges facing post-school education in South Africa. Despite
the many advances and gains made since 1994, the system continues to produce and reproduce
gender, class, racial and other inequalities with regard to access to educational opportunities and
success. One of the greatest challenges facing the system is the large number of young people who
face a very bleak future if major changes are not introduced. Equally important, the post-school system
is not meeting the needs of the economy and society as a whole. The Green Paper aims to align
the post-school education and training system with South Africa’s overall development agenda, with
links to various development strategies such as the New Growth Path, the Industrial Policy Action Plan
2, the Human Resource Development Strategy for South Africa 2010-2030, and South Africa’s Ten-
15 http://www.dhet.org.za
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Year Innovation Plan. This will allow it to contribute more effectively to the goal of inclusive economic
growth and development, and to contribute to fundamentally reducing unemployment and poverty.
The Green Paper provides a vision for a single, coherent, differentiated and highly articulated postschool
education and training system. This will contribute to overcoming the structural challenges
facing South African society by expanding access to education and training opportunities and increasing
equity, as well as moving towards the achievement of high levels of excellence and innovation.
Although progress in transforming the post-school institutions has been made since 1994, the system
still bears the marks of apartheid. This manifests itself in inequalities, poor quality of education in
former black institutions and lingering discrimination: The potential for systems of matched funding for
Masters and Doctorate training overseas was an attractive proposition for the DHET in its efforts to
increase the numbers of postgraduates being trained in South African universities but the frameworks
under which such initiatives could be structured was still in their infancy and needed to be developed
first to an appropriate level within the context of various government departments, e.g. the Ministry of
Home Affairs (which issues travel and study documents for scholars intending to study abroad). It was
suggested that the use of existing mobility frameworks like EU’s Erasmus Mundus were the best way
forward for organising joint funding of scholarships and postdoctoral internships under co-operations
intended to be started in the short to med-term. Joint degrees particularly at the Masters level would
be also very welcome but accreditation schemes might have to be formalised first before such opportunities
could be entrenched as standard procedures. The importance and significance of postdoctoral
activities in the development of a new generation of academics was also confirmed as was the emerging
role of national museums in developing research of heritage value and for opening up new opportunities
for international exchanges between international universities and counterpart museums.
Examples of senior academic management twinning arrangements in which South African expertise is
playing a key role were related to the mission team including one currently where South African academic
managers are assisting South Sudan in its efforts to build and re-establish a university system
in that country.
University of Johannesburg (UJ) 16
UJ is a comprehensive university and the mission’s meeting was with representatives of staff in the
university involved with cooperation programmes at an international level. The Head of Strategic
Partnerships and senior academic staff involved in community development activities in the Faculty of
Management (particularly training schemes, societal development and Emergency Care projects
centred around small business models). Interests in food security, water resource management (from
a chemical and nanotechnology research perspectives), alternative sources of renewable energy,
16 http://www.uj.ac.za
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cyber-security and business innovation schemes were articulated. The university wished to increase
the numbers of postgraduate students and courses and actively encourages staff-student exchanges.
The Department of Trade and Industry currently supports a large National Exporter Scheme whereby
township communities and the students of the university from such areas initiate and manage SMME
businesses in the informal, formal and corporate sectors. The university has much experience in
managing international cooperation schemes with universities in the UK. The Faculty of Science has
recently established a Science Centre which is open to school pupils and teachers to whom it provides
ideas for their own school curricula development efforts. The Centre is well patronised and the Faculty
of Education is involved in a close linkage with a teacher training college in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga
Province where it assists in lecturer training programmes. The UJ university-based services to society
activities and its apparently well-organised management of international academic cooperation programmes
make it a potentially attractive base for VLIR-UOS-funded university co-operations in the
future.
University of Witwatersrand (Wits), Department of Rural Health 17
Wits is one of only two universities in Africa ranked in two separate international rankings as a leading
institution in the world and is the only university in the country that features in the top 1% in the world
in seven defined fields of research, according to the 2007 ISI international rankings 18 .
A summary of the rural health programmes currently run by the Department of Rural Health was
provided to the mission by its Head, Professor Ian Couper, Chair of Rural Health in the Faculty and
principal specialist, rural medicine, in North West Province. This is the first such Chair on the African
continent. He provided outlines of the HR4RH (Human Resources for Rural Health), the STARS
(Support, Training, Advocacy, Research and Sustainable growth) and the WIRHE (Wits Institutional
Rural Health Education) programmes in which there is an emphasis of training rural health workers in
the rural areas from where they originate and where they are familiar with the languages and living
conditions of their own home environments. Many of the earlier formal university-based rural health
training programmes faced problems of graduates wishing to stay in the urban areas instead of returning
to their home areas so the emphasis of training shifted out to the rural areas so that the majority of
the health care training is carried out in these areas. Another programme – CHEER (Collaboration for
Health Equity through Education and Research) – is funded and run as a Health Systems Trust and
promotes clinical governance. The Wits Rural Health Department provides regional support to the
17 http://www.wits.ac.za/academic/health/centres/10723/centre_for_rural_health.html
18 http://globalhighered.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/the-2010-the-world-university-rankings-powered-by-thomson-reuters/
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University College of Beira (in Mozambique) and the College of Medicine in Malawi through the Primary
Health Care Consortium twinning activities under the Primary Health Care regional network
(FAMEC). Through the S-S-N cooperation, the impact of the developmental progress improved considerably,
as models that were developed in one site could be implemented in other places. An important
platform for the exchange of experiences have been yearly workshops. Although the contexts
are quite different in the different countries, similar strategies can be used with an emphasis on social
accountability and practice-based learning within a framework of “training complexes”. Challenges for
the future include increasing the human resource base required for delivering effective rural health
care in the rural areas of South Africa and in neighbouring SADC countries, development of new
curricula to adapt to changing needs, the establishment of clinical teams which can deliver a package
of maternity and child health care, the testing of Cuban-Brazilian models of family health care in the
SADC contexts, the establishment of training teams that can visit field clinics and upgrade medical
care delivery in respect of new products and new techniques. Other issues for the future involve how
family health care fits into the new private health care schemes to which 15% of the population in
South Africa is now contributing and whether or not health care interventions like hospital and primary
health care systems will have to be modified to suit this changing situation need consideration. Training
of home-based health carers is one approach which is being investigated through current cooperations
with the Emory University in Atlanta, USA and EU-based university consortium. These staff
and student exchange programmes involving nine South African universities stimulate new ideas on
how to match different primary health care models with the situations in Southern and Eastern Africa
especially in relation to the high incidences of HIV/AIDS and TB in rural populations. Representatives
from the International Office of UW were also present at the meeting and provided information on the
current international academic co-operation programmes in which the university is engaged.
South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) 19 and National Association
of Distance Education Organisations in South Africa (NADEOSA) 20
SAIDE is a non-governmental organization based in Johannesburg, conducting projects throughout
South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. SAIDE’s task is to contribute to the development of new models
of open and distance education practice, that accord with and take forward the values, principles, and
goals of the evolving education systems in Southern Africa (SADC). It has also paid particular attention
to the appropriate use of technology in education and most recently established a Kenya-based
initiative, OER Africa, to promote the development and sharing of OER on the African continent.
19 http://www.saide.org.za
20 http://nadeosa.org.za
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Launched in September 1992 by a group of prominent educationalists, SAIDE seeks to employ innovative
education methods in transforming education systems and redressing inequalities. SAIDE is not
an implementing agency, but rather it acts as an advocate, catalyst, and facilitator to bring about
change in existing educational practices. As an independent organization that is not in competition
with providers, SAIDE is in a unique position to facilitate networks and provide advice on the planning
and implementation of distance education and the evaluation, development and sharing of courses
and materials. Educational providers in South Africa and neighbouring countries have increasingly
sought SAIDE’s assistance in planning and evaluating their programmes, courses and systems and
supporting them by facilitating professional development for their staff. SAIDE is committed to the
process of transformation of education and training. It is guided by its mission of “increasing equitable
and meaningful access to knowledge, skills and learning through the adoption of open learning principles
and distance education methods”. SAIDE promotes open learning principles and quality distance
education in key policy areas and in different educational sectors. Activities include provision of support
programmes in sound and innovative course design, materials development, learner support,
management, and the use of technology, particularly for large scale provision; building knowledge
about sound and innovative methods of opening learning through research, the development of resources,
and the dissemination of information. Currently in South Africa, the University of South Africa
and North West University are major providers of DE having more distance taught than campusregistered
students. SAIDE collaborates with several of these DE providers like UNISA to deliver adult
education programmes. One example is in Household Food Security which is an accredited UNISA
Short Learning Programme (based at its College of Agriculture and Sciences) and made possible by
financial support from the WK Kellogg Foundation. It aims to add value in the form of new skills to
existing initiatives and also to help add value to the South Africa government’s efforts to improve
service delivery on the ground by further up-skilling Community Development Workers. SAIDE has
been involved in establishing an African Council of DE. Currently this initiative is in its foundation
phase whereby all shared resources are being collected together to be made available by open access
across the Continent. Broad band connectivity still hampers the access of communities and
institutions, including universities based in rural areas, to have sufficient band width to make good use
of open education resources (OERs). The TENET backbone and UNIROAM initiatives (in which 30km
wireless reach can be implemented to extend broadband frameworks) have improved the situation but
many localities are yet to be served with adequate bandwidth to make OERs widely applicable in
development of DE outreach throughout the country. Seven of the South Africa universities have
established separately DE modules for their degree programmes and many of these resources support
foundation studies in the early stages of the undergraduate degree programmes. There is an
immense potential for DE use in the teaching of Masters level postgraduate courses and for upgrading
the lecturing skills and pedagogic breadth of lecturers in both FET colleges and universities.
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Department of Science and Technology (DST) 21
The DST has helped develop for the country a ten-year innovation plan in which the National Research
Foundation is the implementing funding agency. The plan has as its main challenges in the
context of science and technology the following aims:
1. Human capital development;
2. Knowledge generation and exploitation (R&D);
3. Knowledge infrastructure; and
4. Enablers to address the “innovation chasm” between research results and socio-economic
outcomes.
It focuses on the following areas of development:
a. The “Farmer to Pharma” value chain to strengthen the bio-economy – to become a world
leader in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals based on the country’s indigenous resources
and expanding knowledge bases;
b. Space science and technology – to become a key contributor to global space science and
technology because of its growing significance in satellite technology and development of sophisticated
and accurate navigation systems;
c. Energy Security - to satisfy its current and future needs for clean, safe and reliable energy
supply. South Africa must be able to meet its medium-term energy supply needs while innovating
in clean coal technologies, nuclear energy, renewable energy and the long term prospects
of the hydrogen economy;
d. Global change science with an emphasis on climate change – the geographical position of the
country allows it to play a key part in climate change research;
e. Human and social dynamics – to lead global research into the factors influencing shifting social
dynamics and how innovation can play a key role in development.
To support such a programme of technological knowledge advancement, the DST will provide support
for research through funding more doctorate programmes, centres of excellence, professional development
programmes, including the creation of special academic positions of relevance to the plan
such as is already occurring in the creation and support for Special Research Chairs (so-called
SARCHi positions) in universities and national public-funded research institutions. Transversal enabling
initiatives (so-called knowledge infrastructure) will also involve the universities, state-owned
21 http://www.dst.gov.za
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programmes and global projects. An example of a successful initiative at stimulating innovation (called
FSITA) is a twinning partnership model, which has been on-going now for 15 years in the engineering
sector. This initiative financed partly by French industry and the Paris local provincial government is a
formalised long-term cooperation between French industry and universities linked to several key
universities in South Africa. It has been considered extremely successful having led to several important
patents and the Intellectual Property Rights’ income generation is reinvested in the enterprise,
improving sustainability. DST wishes now to establish several similar initiatives including one on Food
Security innovation called Agricultural Product Development (again with French connections through
universities like Montpellier in France but possibly now also, as a result of the missions interactions
and visit, with institutions in Belgium 22 ) linked to universities and the Agricultural Research Council
facilities in South Africa. The ARC was established in 1990 through the Agricultural Research Act 86 of
1990 (as amended by Act 27 of 2001) and is the principal agricultural research institution in South
Africa. Its primary mandate is to promote Agriculture and Industry, to contribute to a better quality of
life, to facilitate and ensure resource conservation and to alleviate poverty. Other enterprise initiatives
being considered along similar lines are in the domains of Waste Management (including sanitation
and water resource management) and Solar Power Generation Engineering. All these initiatives have
strong relevance to potential VLIR-UOS co-operations which might develop in the future between
Flanders universities and their university college associations, especially since they appear to have a
long term timeframe perspective.
Other enabling initiatives discussed centre around postgraduate training, stimulation and financial
support for more postdoctoral and emerging academic positions in the country. These new initiatives
will require a total DST/NRF budget of 45 million ZAR with 16.1 million set aside for support for doctoral
studies, 29.5 million for supporting M.Sc. programmes and 6 million for supporting emerging
academics at postdoctoral level. Clearly there is considerable potential for VLIR-UOS to enter into a
dialogue with DST and NRF in South Africa to formalise ways in which matched funding of initiatives
involving scholarships and research fellowships aligned with the innovation plan could be implemented.
University of South Africa (UNISA) 23
UNISA is a comprehensive university and one of the largest on the African continent having 400 000
registered students in 2012, the majority of which are carrying out their studies through open learning
22 A delegation from DST, South Africa will be visiting France in June, 2013 and has asked to also visit relevant institutions in
Belgium to discuss possible involvement in this enterprise. The possibilities and logistics for the Belgian visit are being taken
forward by mission members Christophe Goossens and Professor Patrick Sorgeloos.
23 http://www.unisa.ac.za
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and distance education. Having some of its students registered as resident in 130 countries, UNISA is
being rated as a mega university. In 2005, the integrated learning management platform called
myUNISA was launched and explored a range of Open Distance Learning initiatives already available.
According to its website, it continuously adapted and improved on its programme delivery and introduced
its so-called signature courses earlier this year. Signature courses comprise fully online modules
and are designed to engage students in an interactive and enriching learning experience. The
OER resources of the university play an important role in supporting modules of many of the university’s
Masters courses and basic courses recommended for its Ph.D. training. In light of the strength and
potential of the institution as well as the grand challenges identified by the Department of Science and
Technology, the following five broad research niche areas were identified in 2009 and are still relevant:
a) Knowledge generation and human capital development in response to the needs of South Africa
and the African continent;
b) The promotion of democracy, human rights and responsible citizenship;
c) Innovation and capacity building in science and technology;
d) Economic and environmental sustainability;
e) Open Learning Resources and Distance Education.
Discussions with the mission team centred around the relatively weak cohorts of postdoctoral scientists
in the South Africa university system and the dire lack of adequate numbers of supervisors sufficiently
trained to take on the planned and expected increases in doctorate level training. Distance
mentoring is one approach which would ease the supervision situation provided the processes and
procedures used were structured and formalised through agencies such as the NRF. With the forecasted
increases in vocational training needs there would also have to be increased amounts of
awareness on the part of universities for management of entry into open educational resources. Attention
would also have to be increased in quality assurance of diploma and degree programmes and
junctures at which diploma students could transfer over to a full degree programme. Much of these
quality aspects still needed to be developed and tested. UNISA has extensive facilities for outreach of
its OER programmes particularly for countries in Eastern and Southern Africa. Currently major initiatives
are under way for distance degrees with students based in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and
Kenya and many of these involve postgraduate degrees. With under 30% of academic staff in many
universities in South Africa and the SADC region there is a major need to allow existing academic staff
time and resources to pursue their Ph.D. training while still in post. These new initiatives will now
receive a total budget of 45 million ZAR with 16.1 million set aside for support for doctoral studies,
29.5 million for supporting M.Sc. programmes and 6 million for supporting emerging academics at
postdoctoral level.
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The Innovation Hub (TIH), Pretoria 24
The CEO of The Innovation Hub, Mr McLean Sibanda, described the background to the formation and
function of the facility which was established in 2001. It is a subsidiary of the Gauteng Growth and
Development Agency and is funded by the Provincial Government as a Science Park within easy
reach of the main campuses of universities such as UJ, Wits, Pretoria, TUT and UNISA as well the
scientific research centres of CSIR. It also attracts inputs and engagements with other more distant
campuses, e.g. Universities of Venda and the North-West and of the Vaal University of Technology.
The initial focus of the Hub has been on development of ICT innovations and currently there are eight
companies established as a result of the Hub’s early activities. There are also 23 pre-incubator companies
and a separate unit MLab close-by, where mobile apps are being designed and tested. The
focus on ICT is now being diversified into the areas of biotechnology, food and agrisciences, biofuels
and climate innovation. A project on Moringa spp has entailed the establishment of 100 ha of plantations,
the propagation and plantation management tasks creating jobs for youths and other member of
the rural populations in the vicinity of plantations. Many of the programmes involve masters and doctoral
students conducting their thesis projects within an innovation enabling environment (Coach Lab).
Many graduates perform favourably and become immediately recruited by the industrial enterprises
engaged in the Hub’s incubator activities. In collaboration with the University of Pretoria, the Hub
sponsors a seed fund of 20 000 – 1 million ZAR to support start-up initiatives with potential as innovation
drivers and it organises three innovation competitions every year to recognise the most promising
innovation drivers with a part cash and part funding for the development of a new initiative in the
business incubator facility. A linkage with EMRY University in the USA in which the ten most promising
ideas presented at a short workshop over a few days are jointly recognised to take forward as innovation
projects for subsequent development. The establishment of collaborative teams participating in
innovation panels is a new idea being supported by NRF funding and they involve projects with the
Water Resource Commission and the Space Agency in which the Universities of Pretoria and Witwatersrand
have linkages.
24 http://www.theinnovationhub.com/
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National Research Foundation (NRF) 25
The mission met Dr Thandi Mgwebi, Programme Director, Human Capacity Programme, Human &
Capacity Development at the National Research Foundation. NRF is the major source of government
funding for research undertaken in the public sector institutions of South Africa. Its mandate is “to
support and promote research through funding, human resource development and the provision of the
necessary research facilities on order to facilitate the creation of knowledge, innovation and development
in all fields of science and technology and thereby contribute to the improvement of the quality of
life of all the people of the Republic”. It has two organisational arms: the first, the National Research
Facilities that are custodians of large pieces of scientific equipment or large collections of data and
specimens and the second, Research and Innovation Support Advancement (RISA) which is a grant
and knowledge management unit.
The NRF invests its limited resources strategically according to the following broad principles:
a. Awarding funds on a competitive basis;
b. A healthy balance between strategy-driven and demand-pull funding;
c. Merit-based and rigorous peer review;
d. Ph.D.’s as a driver;
e. Cross-fertilisation of talent within the National System of Innovation (NSI);
f. Effective, goal-orientated resource allocation;
g. Fairness, transparency and accountability;
h. Transformation and excellence.
It has five broad investment areas: Next generation, Emerging researchers, Established researchers,
Strategic investment and Infrastructure. With respect to Emerging researchers, there are competitive
grants (from between 2-3 years) for unrated researchers, Postdoctoral Fellowships, Professional
Development Programmes, the “Thuthuka” scheme (aimed specifically at scholars from disadvantaged
sectors of society) for Post-Ph.D.’s and for a NRF Rating Track. Significantly the Professional Development
Programme according to eligibility tables in the documentation is not available to staff of
Higher Education Institutes – i.e. only State-run research institutions and not the universities!. For
established researchers there are many specific strategic programmes which can involve a wide range
25 http://www.nrf.ac.za
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of topic specialists and disciplines. The initiatives also include international research grants 26 which
are open to staff of Higher Education Institutes which includes both universities and FET’s. Special
funds are also available for a Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme (THRIP) in
which the proposed project must be of high quality science, engineering and/or technology research
with financial support from an industrial partner. The project must be capable of producing an innovative
(able to be commercialised) product/process/prototype, must involve technology transfer and must
produce additional value, causality and implementation potentials.
Clearly, there are many financial support opportunities for young and emerging researchers (coming
from different societal backgrounds) in the Human Capacity Development field in South Africa, provided
that they have good and defendable justifications for international research linkages. VLIR-UOS
could play a strong facilitation role in brokering such linkages so that a certain amount of matched
funding might be made available, subject to negotiation, from agencies like NRF for future joint research
initiatives with Flemish institutions. This is a wonderful opportunity for VLIR-UOS to “make a
difference” for young inexperienced researchers, particularly those from disadvantaged social backgrounds,
who might then be able to gain considerable leverage from such international linkages in the
indigenous research rating systems when they are subsequently evaluated for NRF support at their
respective institutions.
Stellenbosch University (SUN) 27
A visit was able to be arranged over a weekend to the Faculty of Agrisciences, which includes aquaculture,
accompanied by a senior Rhodes University staff member.
The Faculty provides a one-stop service to industries and clients and it works together in strategic
alliances which are able to function in an interdisciplinary environment. Much of its research follows a
systems approach in the analysis of and approach to environmental problems. The mission of the
Faculty is to be the preferred provider of world-class research, education and service to agriculture
and forestry in southern Africa. In this respect the outlook is particularly regional in scope. The mission
statement stresses that “it is hoped that the Faculty’s students will be a first choice for employers, and
that they are known as the shapers of opinion and that they are ready to step into leadership roles
whether locally or internationally”.
26 International Research Grants are only open to those scientists who have a research collaborator in the country that is
signatory to the bi-national or bi-lateral arrangements between the NRF and a funding agency in another country. It will be
important to establish if VLIR-UOS with DGD/BTC is a signatory to this type of international research support.
27 http://www.sun.ac.za
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SUN has a long history of student and staff exchanges with many international institutions. Technical
staff exchanges between SUN and universities in Leipzig, Brussels and Gottingen take place on an
annual basis in which Masters and doctoral students are involved also in their thesis work. This activity
has stimulated and continues to build strong and effective distance mentoring initiatives. It is hoped
that such distance mentoring approaches will be applied more and more to SUN registered students of
SADC and other African countries when they return to their countries to carry out field studies. Examples
of international exchanges are also available even in the undergraduate sector. By agreement
with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA, two third-year
forestry students from each institution may be selected as exchange students every years. The selected
students enrol and pay their tuition at their home university but attend classes at the host university.
A small selection of twelve current international research collaboration projects in which SU is linked
with institutions in countries including Belgium is as follows:
a. Promoting effective dispute settlement practices across all sectors of society and acting as a
thought leader in this regard (with Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and others);
b. To assist the College of Primary Care Physicians with establishment of postgraduate training
in family medicine (MMed) with partners in UGent, Zimbabwe and other university centres in
South Africa;
c. Contract Law in China and Europe with partners in China, KUL Faculty of Law, Scotland and
the Netherlands;
d. Enabling universal and equitable access to healthcare for vulnerable people in resource poor
settings in Africa with institutions based in Norway, Ireland, Belgium, Malawi, Namibia and
Sudan;
e. Erasmus mundus Phase 2 for South Africa collaborating with institutions in at least six EU
countries;
f. EUROSA II Partnership with institutions based in nine EU countries;
g. Framework for the Internationalisation of Doctoral Education under the FRINDOC programme
in collaboration with institutions based in Norway, Belgium, Italy and Hong Kong;
h. IAPP: Modelling installation effects in geotechnical engineering with institutions based in seven
EU countries;
i. INCO-NET: Asian Regional Capacity Development for Research on Social Determinants of
Health in cooperation with institutions based in eight EU countries and four middle- and fareast
countries in addition to China;
j. INCO-NET: Integrated Control of Neglected Zoo-noses – Improving Human Health and Animal
Production through Scientific Innovation and Public Engagement cooperating with institutions
in eight EU countries, Switzerland and eight Northern and Southern African countries.
k. International Society of Nephrology Educational Ambassadors Program – a teaching cooperation
between SU and institutions based in Nepal and Belgium;
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l. IRSES: Solutions for adapted forest management strategies under the threat of climate
change in cooperation with institutions based in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and Italy.
The extensive experience of international research and teaching co-operations demonstrate the strong
position which SUN has in the management of international university cooperation initiatives. The
same characteristics and strengths of the traditional universities are shown also by University of Cape
Town (see below).
SUN staff explained that their university was also twinning with local FET colleges in Western Province
to allow the tracking of its diploma and bachelor students into postgraduate programmes at SUN. This
opens up opportunities for the better diploma students to be able to progress to further degrees at
SUN by accumulating appropriate numbers of credits according to the National Qualification Framework
(NQF) 28 .
The number of credits is based on the workload of each course. The load is predetermined by the
South African Qualifications Authority in the NQF. One South African credit is equal to 10 notional
hours of full time study. This includes attendance of lectures, self-study, class preparation, assignments
and exams.
South African degree structures relate to the British model. Undergraduate full-time study assumes 30
weeks per year, which results in 120 credits per year. The standard workload for full time enrolled
students is 60 South African credits per semester. A student enrolled for a Bachelor degree must
complete 360 credits to obtain a degree. On completion of a Bachelor degree in most fields, students
would be required to complete an Honours or professional degree course in order to qualify for admission
to a Master's degree. The Master's degree generally consists of one or two years of research
beyond the Honours degree. Some Master’s programmes contain a coursework component. Master’s
degree programmes last a full calendar year, so the minimum credit value of a year’s postgraduate
study is 180 credits.
Many of the Bachelor degree courses taken are 'general', although there are also a wide variety of
professional degrees as indicated above. Honours degrees are awarded after a further year of study
beyond the pass or general, or professional Bachelor degrees. For this reason, Honours courses are
referred to as postgraduate degrees. Other qualifications known as postgraduate (Bachelor) degrees
include the B. Ed., the LLB and the B. Div. awards. A four-year LLB programme (undergraduate) has
also been introduced. Honours degrees are not available in all subjects. Some Bachelor degrees in
28 http://www.dhet.gov.za/portals/0/Documents/Higher_Education_Qualifications_Framework_Oct2007.pdf
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professional subjects are registered at Honours level (NQF level 8, previously 7) within the South
African NQF. The academic year consists of two semesters.
A suggestion for transfer of credits is as follows: 2 South African credits = 1 European Credit Transfer
Unit; 4 South African credits = 1 USA credit. The South African grading system is based on a percentage.
Students receive a class mark that contributes to the final mark. Students that do not obtain a
class mark of 40% will not have access to the exam.
Below a broad explanation of grades:
75% Cum laude
At SU, postgraduate diplomas are offered in Animal Sciences, Aquaculture and Forestry which allows
postgraduate students an option of continuing in the postgraduate track or opting out but with a postgraduate
diploma which stresses management and technical skills. A new M.Sc. degree in Sustainable
Agriculture is to be mounted in 2014 with collaboration with University of Wageningen academic
staff and technical specialists. The university is also targeting the SARCHi chair initiatives with four
new academic staff already filling these appointments in specialist research fields such as wine processing,
food processing and agriculture biotechnology.
Currently 60% of its masters students are South African and 40% come from SADC and other African
countries. There is considerable scope for developing joint masters and doctorate degrees for postgraduates
to undertake their studies in South Africa and in neighbouring SADC countries and even to
take part in research based in other countries of the world such as Vietnam and China (in the case of
masters programmes in aquaculture). This would make very good use and add value to existing
scientific collaborations enjoyed by both the Flemish and South African universities concerned. It
would also enrich the thesis research of the students concerned.
Other areas of concern for staff was the increasing leakage of postdoctoral staff to industry so that
more attention was being paid by SUN to improving the academic career track for emerging academics
by tapping more aggressively into the DST/NRF emerging academic initiatives like THRIP and by
development in a strategic manner a centre of research excellence in applied sciences in the fields of
Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry and Aquaculture. At least 34 academic staff of the university are
NRF-rated.
The strategy for excellence is community involvement in many of its field projects. Some impressive
examples of this type of interdisciplinary approach were presented on various abalone fishing projects
being developed around the South Africa and Mozambique coastlines by the aquaculture sections
SUN and Rhodes University.
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Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) 29
CPUT is the largest university in the Western Cape Province having around 32,000 registered students
located on five campuses. It has six faculties and currently ranked as second in the Universities
of Technology. The mission of the university is to be at the heart of technology education and innovation
in Africa. CPUT is one of four universities in South Africa which are partners in the DRUSSA
project on uptake of research results into society. The university has a Centre for Postgraduate Studies
and seven research focus areas including bio-economy and biotechnology, Space Science and
Technology and Renewable Energy among others. As a technology university CPUT is strongly
geared towards innovation initiatives and practices. It has formed four Technology Innovation Centres
to become a focus for innovation activities in e.g. Climate change, Education and Social Issues. The
close relationship which the university enjoys with industry means that most of its best students are
employed directly by industrial enterprises and other private ventures. This leaves the university short
of a good foundation of Masters and Doctorate students. On the Mowbray campus, the academic
activities concentrate on teacher training and research skills. In the fourth year of the course there is a
stream of teaching which concentrates on research aptitude. In this way the university is attracting
more graduates into postgraduate training. However there are problems with the transfer from the FET
College-based B.Tech. qualification to a postgraduate degree programme such that approaches such
as OLR are being used to support graduates with additional training before the start of the postgraduate
course programmes. As is common with many universities in South Africa there is a shortage of
full-time postdoctoral staff. At CPUT there are 10 postdocs supporting (with senior academic staff 974
registered postgraduate students. CPUT offers bursary assistance to its most deserving postgraduates:
3.5 million ZAR has been set aside to provide 80 such bursaries which normally go to the best
South African students. Students from other countries usually obtain their bursary support from their
own governments. There is also a similar amount of financial support for B.Tech graduates wishing to
undergo postgraduate courses at Masters and Doctorate levels. However a large number (5 000) are
still unable to be funded. CPUT has also created several support units for postgraduates manned in
many cases by older and more experienced students. Academic writing is considered an essential part
of every Masters or Doctorate degree. With M.Sc. degrees one full scientific article should have been
submitted and for a doctorate at least one full research article should have been accepted by a refereed
journal. To assist postgraduates in these tasks, an Academic Support Unit provides language
editors at a cost of 5 000 ZAR per thesis. With so much pressure on a large number of postgraduate
students to produce original publication works, plagiarism is becoming a more widespread problem.
29 http://www.cput.ac.za/
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Scientific and academic ethics is therefore becoming a more important training component of postgraduate
degree programmes.
False Bay College (FET College in Western Cape) 30
False Bay College is spearheading the development of the workforce to respond to the growth of the
economy. The college forms part of the band of education known as Further Education and Training
(FET). Its vision is to be the most successful, prestigious and respected public FET College in South
Africa and its mission is to develop people by serving as a gateway to employment, small business
development, and higher education for the community. it firmly believes that its students must become
an asset to society and have a lifelong access to education. False Bay College has five delivery sites
in the False Bay coastal region of Cape Town.
The FETs were originally set up as provincial educational colleges but have now been transferred as
from April 2013 to a national scheme coordinated by the DHET. The FET colleges have to grow rapidly
and this poses tremendous challenges not only for the administrations but also the academic staff
who will have to teach more students and transform their teaching curricula to suit the new functions of
the FET cohort in the country. Internationalisation of their academic teaching and research will be a
priority and upgrading of masters levels of qualification to doctorate level. The leadership of the colleges
is a critical issue since many of the original colleges were racially segregated under apartheid
and the transformation process takes a great deal of time to be achieved. There is also an increasing
role for the FETs to provide better access and opportunities to students with learning disabilities.
International linkages with USA (Seattle) and Norway (applications of ICT as tools in learning) are
appreciated for stimulating progress in this field. There are also student exchanges by small cohorts of
students: e.g. engineering students exchange with counterparts in Blackburn, UK.
It needs to be stressed that future collaborations must be based firmly on partnerships which must be
strategically aligned with the National Educational and Development Plans and these must have
mutual self-interests. The universities are much more autonomous than the FETs so alignment to
specific policies is always a critical issue since the DHET supports 80% of the running costs of the
Colleges while the remainder is made up from student fees and third stream funding sources. The
main problem for administrators is that academic staff are not appropriately qualified to carry out the
teaching and academic development programmes which they are now being expected to deliver. It is
likely that through OER and DE technologies and approaches the deficiencies will gradually rectified.
A Norwegian partnership is supporting 3-day teacher and lecturer conference at Stellenbosch in
30 http://www.falsebaycollege.co.za/
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September, 2013 to develop as uniform an approach as possible to dealing with the various challenges
facing the new FET college organisations.
University of Western Cape (UWC) 31
The University of the Western Cape is now concluding a 10-year VLIR-IUC programme with the overarching
theme the Dynamics of Building a Better Society (DBBS). It is a comprehensive university,
alert to its African and international context as it strives to be “a place of quality, a place to grow” and
is committed to excellence in teaching, learning and research, to nurturing the cultural diversity of
South Africa, and to responding in critical and creative ways to the needs of a society in transition.
Drawing on its proud experience in the liberation struggle, the university is aware of a distinctive
academic role in helping build an equitable and dynamic society. In particular it aims to:
Advance and protect the independence of the academic enterprise;
Design curricular and research programmes appropriate to its southern African context;
Further global perspectives among its staff and students, thereby strengthening intellectual life
and contributing to South Africa's reintegration in the world community;
Assist educationally disadvantaged students gain access to higher education and succeed in
their studies;
Nurture and use the abilities of all in the university community;
Develop effective structures and conventions of governance, which are democratic, transparent
and accountable;
Seek racial and gender equality and contribute to helping the historically marginalised participate
fully in the life of the nation;
Encourage and provide opportunities for lifelong learning through programmes and courses;
Help conserve and explore the environmental and cultural resources of the southern African
region, and to encourage a wide awareness of these resources in the community;
Co-operate fully with other stakeholders to develop an excellent, and therefore transformed,
higher education system.
A roundtable discussion involving representatives from the VLIR-IUC programme and representatives
from other sections of the university with activities in on-going international and national university cooperations
was held during the mission’s visit to the campus. This meeting showed the involvements
of UWC research and teaching teams in the development of national ICT networks for academic
31 http://www.uwc.ac.za/Pages/default.aspx
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purposes with five other universities (Pretoria, Durban, Limpopo, Durban University of Technology and
Witwatersrand). This initiative (Digital Inclusion and Social Innovation) addresses the divide between
the traditional universities and the other universities where computer facilities are not as functional and
accessible as they should be in any modern university. Activities of academic staff in the areas of
biodiversity and conservation, diversity and multilingualism in cities in transition, bioinformatics, food
security, e-governance and competence in government, poverty and agrarian development primary
health care, justice and law, among others. Teaching, learning and innovation activities within the
university concentrate on strategic partnerships, many of which involve long-term operations in which
a well-embedded trust factor has been in-built over time. This was considered, along with racial-led
decision making, a critical factor in making academic partnerships viable and successful. Three centres
of research at UWC are foci for future international co-operations and which are likely to foster
applications to the VLIR-RIP initiative in the post-IUC phase and will no doubt have promising potential
to initiate applications for TEAM and NETWORK modalities in the future. These are the following:
Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) with its strategic niche areas of social and historical
studies, language, multilingualism and literary/cultural studies, theology and social transformation
and geographical, environmental and urban studies.
Faculty of Economic & Management Sciences with its two centres of excellence: the Institute
for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS) and the African Centre for Citizenship
and Democracy (ACCEDE) with their strategic niche areas of accounting and business, economics
with particular focus on development economics and information systems;
Faculty of Community & Health Sciences with its two centres of excellence: the WHO Collaborating
Centre for Research and Training in Human Resources for Health and the Interdisciplinary
Centre of Excellence for Sport Science and Development (ICESSD). The centres’
strategic niche areas are in HIV/AIDS, Therapeutic, Rehabilitation and Sport Development,
Advanced teaching and learning practice in the Health Sciences and Child and family studies.
University of Cape Town (UCT) 32
UCT ranks 113 in the latest world times higher education university rankings 33 . This compares it
favourably with the highest Flemish Universities in the ranking (KUL at 58 and UGent at 93) as a
leading seat of learning, teaching and research. The mission met with the representatives of international
mobility partnerships and collaborations, postgraduate studies, Primary Health Care specialists,
32 http://www.uct.ac.za/
33 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking
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members of the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences with specific research interests in
dealing with the access of youths with disabilities to education in South Africa, human biology as well
as the Deputy Vice Chancellor Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo. One key subject for discussion was
the need to bolster supervision of postgraduates and to strengthen the roles of postdoctoral emerging
academic staff in increasing supervision coverage and enriching postgraduate research and learning
activities. One way forward is to organise complimentary forms of supervision involving cooperation
with other centres of research on a distance basis. This would help in many cases where postgraduate
training was being based in rural areas away from the university centres. The multiplier effect which
postdocs can have on supervision has implications for both doctoral students and Masters students.
For every active postdoc at an emerging academic staff level, at least three doctoral students can be
supervised and these in turn assist in the research supervision of many associates at the masters
level (a peer-assisted supervision model). The formation of postgraduate centres where students are
in close contact with each other during their research activities has from experience generally assisted
in organisation of supervision. UCT has 300 postdoctoral scientists in post but these in some cases
badly need supporting through some form of international fellowship schemes. An Erasmus mundus
collaboration with KUL has contributed to the research of the university in several key areas, particularly
primary health care. In this sector, the twinning project has now moved into upgrading health care
workers so there is a need for supporting diploma level qualification activities for workers based in the
field in Namibia and Botswana. The FET Colleges are expected to play a key role here (there are just
three physicians in the primary health care field in South Africa with degrees) but the colleges need
further support which might come through international partnerships in health care teaching and curriculum
development with institutions in Flanders and SADC countries, as has already been started
successfully with some of the University Colleges with VLIR-UOS support and interactions. Some joint
degrees are being piloted with institutions in the UK, France and Denmark and the experience of these
could guide any future proposals to offer joint degrees between UCT and Flemish universities.
Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) 34
The mission met with two representatives of the CHET who are based at the Further Education and
Training Institute at the University of the Western Cape. Subjects discussed included the needs required
for the differentiation processes going on in the South African HET sector and the affect that
post-schooling issues like deficiencies between the educational standards reached under basic education
and those required by the university and FET colleges. There is an ever increasing need to improve
the capacity of lecturers in both universities and the FET colleges. With all of the other changes
going on in the sector and with the intended expansions in student numbers this area was of major
34 http://chet.org.za/
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concern. Just obtaining a doctoral qualification by a part-time course of study (thus avoiding loss of an
academic member of staff for 3-4 years) is not the only solution since curriculum development was
also expected to take place at the same time. Currently there is a lack of capacity in the Ministry of
Higher Education and Training to accommodate planned processes of differentiation.
CHET is warning against the homogenisation of higher education systems in South Africa around a
single notion; differentiated higher education systems in which all four notions (universities as ancillary,
as a self-governing institution, as a development instrument agenda or as an engine of development)
are best accommodated to serve a variety of national needs and as such are more likely to
make a significant contribution to economic development.
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Annex 4. Pre-visit agenda: potential focus for discussions
Possible discussion points
Addressing some important constraints to Higher Education resource allocation: its relative distribution,
delivery and impact through (by way of example):
a. Community Service actions involving pastoral and academic mentoring by more experienced
undergraduate and graduate student colleagues in support of high school learners to reduce the
high dropout rates in undergraduate university streams;
b. Increasing support for improving teaching practice for HET lecturers who have never previously
taught, or for those wanting to refresh their teaching methods;
c. Reducing the strain on some historically black universities of being under resourced, with limited
access to good quality teaching and learning materials. Open educational resources (OER) partly
offer a solution to the lack of resources. They save costs if institutions resort to reuse of already existing
resources, or if lecturers decide to develop their own OER. When lecturers develop their own
OER, this forces them to think about effective ways of teaching, by reflecting on pedagogy in materials
design;
d. Exploiting the expertise of recently retired or internationally experienced professors for supervision
of postgraduate students;
e. Avoidance of the necessity for postgraduate students having to find work in order to support their
families and so not be able to study full time courses. Ensure adequate financial basis of scholarships
for Masters and Ph.D. studies, which will enable students to focus on their studies and so
complete, rather than having to worry about financial difficulties associated with study;
f. Substituting theoretical knowledge-based syllabuses with more relevant forms of syllabus so that
universities working with societal, vocational and commercial agencies improve the relevance of
HE education to life outside university;
g. Exploring technological and societal development research and curriculum development activities
which fall within four theme pillars (food security, sustainable natural resource management, primary
health care and societal development issues) which bring to HET co-operations combinations of
academic research and teaching objectives which help address complex issues of social and technological
relevance and which generate valuable relevant knowledge;
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h. Possibilities and formulae for matched funding schemes to increase opportunities for South African
scholars and staff to undertake research activities in Flanders and for Flemish academic counterparts
to visit, teach and undertake cooperative academic work in South Africa
i. Advantages, drawbacks and potentials of developing existing or forming new networks with institutions
located in neighbouring SADC countries; and
j. Any other matters not listed in which VLIR-UOS university co-operation activities could play a role
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Annex 5. Extract from South Africa Strategy Summary Status Report (March
2013)
During the 15 March North Seminar, presentations were given by South African and Belgian keyactors
in the cooperation with South Africa. A representative of the Department of Higher Education
and Training on the role of HEI in the national development of South Africa concluded that tertiary
education in South Africa is still poor with very low graduation outputs and a significant amount of
drop-outs, together with a shortage of researchers. This makes higher education one of the top-five
priorities of the development of South Africa. Cooperation with Flemish institutions is highly needed as
they can make a difference in specific niches of higher education related to education, research and
service to society. Representatives of the Belgian Federal Government (Directorate General for Development)
and the Flemish regional government (Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs) highlighted
the various milestones in their respective development cooperation plans with the South African government.
As such the Belgian direct bilateral cooperation with South Africa is mainly investing in safety
and security, health, land reform and service delivery; The Flemish development cooperation with
South Africa is concentrated mainly around the sectors of food security and agriculture, health and
combating HIV/AIDS and SME development. Finally, Flemish academics elucidated on their experiences
and good practices in working with South African HEI. Examples of the IUC programmes with
UWC and UL were described. This led the VLIR-UOS desk officer to conclude that cooperation with
south African HE institutions is still very needed even now that this country has become a Middle
Income Country. Especially the cooperation with comprehensive universities and the universities of
technology do create large opportunities notably for cooperation in the vocational training programmes.
During the Q&A sessions the following main conclusions were drawn:
1. It is important to identify common interests within the broader framework of the socioeconomic
development and higher education needs of the partner country in a win-win situation
for both North and South parties as basis for the VLIR-UOS new country programmes;
2. The respective socio-economic development plans of South Africa emphasize education and
knowledge as key to empowered and sustainable development and the fight against poverty;
3. The VLIR-UOS country programme is invited to contribute to the attainment of the development
and higher education goals of the country as operationalized in key indicators with targets
(e.g. the National Skills Development Strategy and the National Development Plan);
4. The South African Higher Education system still faces substantive challenges in terms of reform
to enhance its overall performance. In this reform process, the Flemish / Belgian partnership
is of special importance;
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ISSUES TAKEN UP IN THE VARIOUS DISCUSSIONS
During the group discussions of the seminar, the participants were asked to report on their experiences
in working with South African counterparts. General needs to be addressed in university development
cooperation programmes were pointed out as well as possible intervention types to address
these needs and potential partnerships with South African HE institutes. Part of the discussions dealt
with generic needs and opportunities for transversal support issues in the domains of multilingualism,
distance and lifelong learning and e-education. In terms of content, the presented strategic framework
of VLIR-UOS expertise in South Africa on the basis of current findings was largely endorsed. A variety
of broad overarching multidisciplinary themes are covered in the Flemish cooperation with South
Africa, but it is clear that Flanders could offer expertise that would seem to match the developmental
needs of South Africa. Three themes were put forward during the discussions. These were:
1. Biological and natural resources (including food security and water management),
2. Health (including rural development, HIV/AIDS and primary health care), development and society
(including democracy and good governance,
3. Multilingualism and the link with communication, migration, teacher education and local community
development.
Overall it was agreed upon that building up capacity is crucial when working with South African HEI. A
changing environment should take this into account. The universities in poor and rural areas should
therefore been made more attractive to students. On the other hand, stronger HEIs should not be
excluded from university cooperation with Flemish academic institutions as they can play an important
support and trainer function in support of the weaker institutions.
In terms of transversal issues, governance, anthropological approach, gender and diversity, and the
need to look into research methodology and the support of doctoral schools came up strongly. The
need to upgrade academic staff and mainstreaming of research is essential for the South African
higher education and the country looks to outside donors as VLIR-UOS to bring in the scientific expertise
both at policy and academic expertise level.
In terms of intervention strategy, it was stated that a country strategy for South Africa should include a
wide portfolio with a mix of interventions going from national theme-based initiatives, opportunities for
classical departmental/thematic initiatives and potential for network university cooperation with a
limited number of partners should also be investigated. Within this context, the importance of involving
Flemish university colleges was underlined since they have more practical expertise to offer and as
such do sign in very well to the outputs of higher education: service to society. The importance of
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vocational and entrepreneurial lifelong learning needs to be stressed in the context of higher education
cooperation.
The list of South/North partner institutions with sufficient cooperation potential was also discussed
during the group sessions and were largely endorsed by the groups. The programme for the identification
mission will need some further elaboration, but it is clear that Gauteng and the Western Cape are
worth visiting given the large number of HE institutions based there. However, there was no particular
area of interest articulated apart from rural areas that would benefit much more from university cooperation
for development with Flemish academic institutions.
CONCLUSIONS
The excellent relations in higher education built up over the years between Flanders (Belgium)
and South Africa provide for a solid basis of mutual trust for the preparation, design and operationalization
of a VLIR-UOS South Africa country strategy and programme;
The current VLIR-UOS interventions and mandate fit well into the National Development plans
and the Education plans of the government of South Africa, namely capacity building towards
more PhDs and where VLIR-UOS can play a more pronounced role;
Distance learning and open universities is mentioned as a challenge in HE in which Flemish
HEI can play a supportive role through their experiences in e-learning;
Themes should remain broad in order to remain multidisciplinary, with some special attention to socioeconomics
and climate change;
The strategy needs to make use of a balanced composition of VLIR-UOS cooperation modality tools
with further exploration and operationalization of the novel cooperation tool of network university
cooperation programmes;
The role of the universities of Western Cape and Limpopo after many years of cooperation are
likely to be more at the periphery of future cooperation but with an important function and role
as hubs for possible NETWORK instruments and thereby contributing to strengthening other
universities in their respective provinces and beyond, possibly to SADC country-based institutions;
Programme interaction with other key players (DGD, BTC, FWO, VVOB, etc.) is essential to
ensure that capacity is built efficiently;
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PREVAILING THEMES, TRENDS AND ISSUES
The four broad thematic areas identified as a result of the South Africa strategy development process
so far, are endorsed as the main pillars of the VLIR-UOS country strategy to be explored further. Also
potential partner HE institutes have been identified as well as possible modalities of university cooperation
for development. They are:
Food security and agriculture
Sustainable management of natural resources (climate change and improved adaptation
strategies, biodiversity, water resources, ..)
Economic and social development (urban and rural livelihoods, multilingualism, migration,
governance and local development)*
Medicine and Primary Health Care*
Crosscutting (transversal) themes identified included:
Institutional strengthening (including research policy), capacity building (including teacher
training), service delivery
ICT applications and modeling applications
Social and historical dynamics, land reform, democracy, governance, multilingualism
Improving vocational and skills-based training including language competence.
INDICATIVE MISSION PROGRAMME
The identification mission will be conducted from 8 March till 15 April 2013, with the local seminar
taking place on 12 April 2013. Based on the seminar and interviews the following institutions were
identified for a visit and/or invitation to the seminar in South Africa. During the mission, the following
HE institutions will therefore be contacted and/or visited:
University of Limpopo (Turfloop and Medunsa)
University of Western Cape
University of Cape Town
Stellenbosch University
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University of Pretoria
Tshwane University of Technology
University of Johannesburg
Other universities will be invited to the south seminar in Johannesburg on 12 April 2013, notably:
Free State University
North-West University
KwaZulu-Natal University
Rhodes University
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Annex 6: Programme for the South Seminar in Johannesburg
08:30 Registration of Participants
09:00 Welcome, Background, and Purpose of the National Seminar
Prof. Patrick Sorgeloos, Representative and Member of the Bureau of VLIR-UOS
09:10 Opening Remarks
Mr Patrick De Bouck, Development Counsellor, DGD, Pretoria
Mr David Maenaut, Representative of the Flemish Government in Southern Africa, Pretoria
09.40 VLIR-UOS: Introduction and background to the strategy formulation process, VLIR-UOS
intervention types and modalities
Mr Christophe Goossens Programme Officer VLIR-UOS and Coordinator South Africa
Question and answer session
10:00 Examples of international cooperation within South African Universities – informal inputs
from institutional representatives
11.00 Refreshment Break
11.15 The VLIR-UOS strategy formulation process for ‘Country’: emerging trends and strategic
clusters
Prof.Sinclair H. Mantell, International Cooperation Expert commissioned by VLIR-UOS
Mr Neil Butcher, National Expert commissioned by VLIR-UOS
Question and answer session
11.45 Workshop Session 1: National and regional focuses in tackling key constraints in HET
12.45 Report to plenary from work teams to identify needs in relation to HET and development in
the SADC region
13:00 Lunch
14.00 Workshop Session 2: Matching academic interests and needs of society, considering the
identification of cross-cutting issues and their coverage in multidisciplinary HET linkages
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15.30 Report to plenary on potential cooperation clusters within South Africa and between SADC
countries
16:00 Tea
16.30 Wrap up and seminar follow-up processes
Mr Christophe Goossens, Programme Officer VLIR-UOS and the VLIR-OUS Strategy Team
16:45 Closing
Prof. Patrick Sorgeloos, Member of the VLIR-UOS Bureau
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Annex 7: South Seminar with Higher Education Institutions and Stakeholders
a) Introduction
As part of its management of a government-funded programme directed at international partnerships
in the context of university cooperation for development, VLIR-UOS has focused attention on formulating
country strategies as broader frameworks for its academic cooperation modalities. As a key part of
this activity, a one-day country seminar was held on 12 April, 2013 at the Wanderer’s Club in Johannesburg
from 9am to 5pm. The seminar brought together representatives of the DGD, the Flemish
Government, South African universities, and other organizations in the higher education sector to
discuss development of a suitable country strategy for scoping VLIR-UOS actions in the future (see
Annex 5 for a full list of participants). A summary of the seminar proceedings is presented below. The
full programme of the South Seminar is presented in Annex 4.
b) Plenary presentations
The seminar was formally opened by Professor Patrick Sorgeloos, Representative and Member of the
Bureau of VLIR-UOS, who welcomed participants and provided a more detailed background on the
purpose of this national seminar. He set the context of geographical concentration of VLIR-UOS
activities globally and then described the VLIR-UOS approach to phased implementation of country
strategies (with South Africa being one of two countries to be added beyond the initial pilot phase of
country strategy development). He noted that the purpose of country strategy identification is to give a
voice to both local and Belgian partners to elaborate a strategy map for development cooperation in
higher education. He stressed further that Country Strategies are a strategic framework for cooperation,
which seeks to provide a strategic match between Southern demand and Flemish offers of expertise
and human resources. Such a strategy should have the following characteristics:
• Multidisciplinary and sufficiently broad to ensure a sufficient number of quality partnerships;
• Developmental relevance and sustainable capacity building;
• Timeframe of around twelve years, with a possibility of strategic revision every six years;
• Balanced through a good mix of interventions (national, institutional, etc.) and a wide portfolio; and
theme- or region-based
Building on this, he noted that various characteristics of a country strategy would be significant. Most
important of these is a strong sense of ownership both in the South and in the North. In addition, there
is a need for both institutional potential and basic capacity, while there are opportunities for joint
capacity building (for example, though credit exchange, double degrees, and co-funding). Country
strategies should build on existing linkages, without inhibiting new partner relations and new project
development. They should also have potential to link up with funding outside of VLIR-UOS.
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Following this overview, opening remarks were made by Mr Patrick De Bouck, Development Counsellor,
Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGD), and Mr David Maenaut, Representative
of the Flemish Government in Southern Africa. Mr de Bouck provided more detailed background on
Belgian direct bilateral cooperation with South Africa, which started in 1995 and has been through
many phases of evolution since then. He outlined activities in the key focus areas of Safety and Security,
Health, Land Reform, and Service Delivery Improvement. He also noted that a Joint Commission
is planned in 2014 to define the next phase of bilateral cooperation, which will take into account South
Africa’s higher level of economic prosperity, reduced dependence on external aid, and growing middle
class, while also acknowledging the high levels of poverty and inequality in the country. In moving
forward, he noted that the guiding principle is a shift from ‘money changing hands’ to ‘ideas changing
minds’, with the following being identified as important:
• Government partners as a facilitator, with implementation by partners (partner driven);
• More emphasis on capacity building and institutional support;
• Exchange of expertise via diverse actors;
• Support for civil society;
• Coherence between development cooperation and economic and cultural cooperation; and
• Regional cooperation.
Mr Maenaut provided further information on areas of work of the Flemish government in South Africa.
He noted five broad areas of work in sub-Saharan Africa:
6) Democracy and human rights;
7) Education, training, and research;
8) Inclusive and sustainable growth;
9) Public health; and
10) People to people development (culture, youth, etc).
Given the context of the meeting, he placed special emphasis on describing the nature of relations
between universities in South Africa and Belgium, outlining various levels of relationships. These
include: bilateral agreements at faculty or institutional level; development projects funded by the National
Research Foundation and the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO), amongst others;
initiatives of United Nations agencies funded by the Flanders; and European-Union funded programmes
such as Erasmus Mundus and the Seventh Framework Programme for Research (FP7).
He indicated that there are several priority areas for the future, including:
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• Increasing the level of academic qualifications of staff and students;
• Improved project management (to manage large grants and joint programmes);
• Provision of support to disadvantaged students through bursary schemes and effective mentoring;
• Retention of staff through appropriate incentives;
• Development of networks in Africa and the rest of the world; and
• On-going review of North-South and South-South relations in a rapidly changing global context.
From this, he made several suggestions for the future. First, all activities should be driven by mutual
self-interest. Second, it is important to emphasize knowledge for development, focusing on issues
such as technology transfer, exchange of know-how, mentoring of junior researchers, joint programmes,
and development of project management skills. Third, he identified the importance of institutional
partnerships, including twinning, joint initiatives, regional networks, thematic networks, mobility
of researchers, institutional development, and international exposure.
Mr Christophe Goossens, Programme Officer VLIR-UOS, then provided an introduction and background
to the strategy formulation process, while also describing VLIR-UOS intervention types and
modalities. He introduced many of the existing development cooperation initiatives in South Africa,
noting that there was currently investment of more than €1.7 million per year in South African higher
education. He re-emphasized several of the key tenets of country strategy development introduced by
Professor Sorgeloos, and described further some of the key modalities available for consideration in
the Strategy.
Following these introductory presentations, each institution represented at the seminar was provided a
short opportunity to describe examples of international cooperation with South African universities,
including – but not limited to – those with Flemish universities. Seminar participants were introduced to
a wide diversity of examples of international cooperation, which served to emphasize both the value to
date of collaborations that have occurred between Flemish and South African universities and the
many different forms that international collaboration can take. The presentations also provided some
clearer directions on the most useful forms of international collaboration, which fed into subsequent
plenary and group discussions. They signalled challenges in the flow of information about collaborations,
with members of the same universities often not knowing about each other’s collaborative efforts.
In summary, though, the presentations reinforced the value of international development cooperation,
suggested that there are many existing initiatives underway to which the VLIR-UOS Country
Strategy might usefully connect, and strengthened the case for collaborations based on mutual selfinterest.
Very importantly, they also demonstrated that a key requirement for South African universities
is to increase their academic capacity in the face of on-going pressures to increase enrolments across
all levels of study.
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Before proceeding into facilitated plenary and group discussions, Professor Sinclair Mantell and Mr
Neil Butcher, the experts commissioned by VLIR-UOS, provided a brief summary of preliminary observations
from the meetings during the mission. They noted the many positive developments and constructive
activities explored during meetings, as well as the commitments by the Department of Higher
Education and Training to create policies and frameworks to guide international development cooperation,
including – critically – a policy on joint degree programmes due for approval before the end of
2013. They noted that there appear to be many initiatives where funding is available to develop the
higher education sector, but additional capacity is required, highlighting this as a potential gap for
Flemish universities to fill. Specific challenges that had surfaced in the mission included:
• Capacity of academics, both in terms of actual availability of suitably qualified staff and in relation
to constraints on capacity imposed by heavy administrative and teaching workloads.
• The need for co-supervision of postgraduate students in order to expand the supply of qualified
people to move into academia;
• The importance of creating suitably funded and mentored vehicles for appointments of postdoctoral
positions (post-docs), as a critical first step in creating career pathways for future academics
(noting particularly the problem of an increasingly ageing academy);
• Growing demand for foundation programmes and extended degrees to accommodate students
whose schooling careers have left them under-prepared for university studies (while noting
that extending the undergraduate studies of many disadvantaged students is economically
problematic, as they are often under pressures to be able to earn money to support themselves
and family members); and
• The need for international exposure of different kinds, as a key incentive to entice young people
into academic careers.
Most importantly, the mission members noted a clear shift in the discourse with South African universities
away from traditional donor-driven initiatives towards internally driven activities, guided by both
national and institutional priorities. The sense of the mission was that this shift reflects South Africa’s
status as a middle-income country, which is increasingly self-reliant financially but still has clear capacity
gaps. The sense of the mission was that created opportunities for true international development
cooperation, where, as Mr De Bouck had earlier stated, there could be a clear shift from ‘money
changing hands’ to ‘ideas changing minds’. This introduced the possibility of a highly innovative and
mutually beneficial Flanders-South Africa Country Cooperation Strategy.
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c) Plenary and group discussion
The remainder of the seminar provided a sustained opportunity for participants to discuss the key
opportunities for development cooperation between South African and Flemish universities. These
discussions combined both plenary and group sessions, allowing maximum opportunity for brainstorming
and interaction between delegates. Discussions revolved around two key areas, drawn from the
above inputs, the experiences of the mission up to the point of the seminar, and the inputs received
from the Northern seminar held in March, 2013:
1) Higher education development needs:
a) Foundation Programmes and articulation between Further Education and Training (FET) and
higher education
b) Postgraduate training
c) Post-docs and young academics
d) Support for mid-level and senior academics
2) Thematic priorities:
a) Water resource management
b) Climate change
c) Food security
d) Health care (including medical care and community-oriented primary care)
e) New technologies
Below is a summary of the outputs of these group discussions, which provides a basis for further
development of a suitable VLIR-UOS South Africa Country Strategy.
d) Higher education development needs
These areas were analysed in terms of opportunities and challenges in each area. These are summarized
below.
Need Challenges Opportunities
Foundation
Programmes
and articulation
between
FET and
higher education
• Low levels of literacy and numeracy
of students
• Culture shock and student underpreparedness
for HE
• Presence of trade unions amongst
teachers in schools
• Lack of motivation in schooling
• Strong incentives for interinstitutional/
systemic collaboration
• Community engagement projects
• Support from HE sector to Basic
Education and Training sector
• Teaching improvement within universities
(holistic academic development)
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Need Challenges Opportunities
sector
• Develop different pedagogies and
• Poor learning environments in many
schools
alternative teaching and learning
methodologies to meet needs of students
• FET focuses remains too academic/
theoretical
• Introduce student peer-led learning
• Mismatch between student needs
and lecturer competence to provide
• Raise profile of FET Colleges and
universities of technology
required support
• Foster a culture of resource-sharing
• Growing demand generating increased
workload for academic staff
(open educational resources or
OER)
• Efforts to massify post-school education
will magnify challenges
• Adopt-a-school approach by universities
• Development of multiple literacies
Postgraduate
training
Post-docs and
young academics
• Weak honours-level programmes
• No policy provision for joint degree
arrangements
• Under-preparedness of students
(weak generic academic skills for
postgraduate level)
• Lack of effective course/programme
design, in which student realities are
not considered
• Pressure for throughput, which might
erode quality of graduates
• Insufficient supervision capacity
• Lack of incentives (both for students
to study and for academics to supervise)
• Funding constraints and lack of
bursaries
• Length of courses (often too long,
especially for disadvantaged students
under pressure to earn income)
• Lack of institutional support
• Lack of incentives
• Too much teaching load
• Poor career tracks for young academics
• Temporary status of positions
• Establishment of post-docs as
student positions creates status
problems (including tax problems)
• Lack of consistency within some
institutions in approach to creating
and sustaining post-doctoral positions
• Scarcity of post-docs in some disciplines
• Quality benchmarking
• Stricter access criteria
• Collaboration in supervision of
students, combined with capacity
building systems for supervision
• Pre-Master and pre-doctoral training
on research methods
• Strengthened Honours Degree
Programmes
• Strengthened Master’s Degree
designs (including possible taught
Master’s Degree), with emphasis on
methodology and use of new tools
• More inter-disciplinary activities
• Access to international academic
initiatives
• Valorisation of research completed
• Assist with raising bursary funds
• Create research culture at this level
• Provide early exposure to other
systems
• Seek matched funding and seed
money for positions
• Establish post-doc internships
• Joint publications
• Create enabling structures for postdocs
and young academics
• Improve career leverage of postdocs
• Involve post-docs in teaching Master’s
programmes
• Establish a funded post-doc programme
development initiative, located
within broader challenge of
succession planning
• Engage NRF in support in creation
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Need Challenges Opportunities
of new post-doc positions
Support for
mid-level and
senior academics
• Teaching and supervision overload
• Heavy institutional bureaucracies,
leading to overload in administrative
chores
• Inconsistencies between universities
and departments
• Implications of cooperation: often
exacerbates workload pressures rather
than solving problems
• Ageing academic population
• Staff inequities, both in terms of race
and gender
• Lack of commitment to long-term
development strategies
• Assumption that top academic
performance leads to top management’
leading to under-investment in
leadership and management development
• Silo mentality, due to competitive
nature of funding structures within
and between universities
• Risk averse institutions, requiring
evidence as a precondition for any
change
• Potential added value often not
identified, often because of historical
decisions (perceived as ideological)
and discriminatory restrictions
e) Thematic Priorities
• Rejuvenate staff (including development
of young staff – see previous
need)
• Improve environment for post-docs
(see previous need)
• Share inspirations, share problems,
find solutions
• Gender adjustment
• Mentoring and coaching for academics
• Advocacy-driven policy changes,
based on performance
• Create realistic working environments
(especially in relation to workload
expectations)
• Help institutions set up programmes
for leadership development, leading
to sustained leadership development
activities
• Bring diverse managers together
• Emphasize North-South-South
collaborative values
• Create local, concrete focus, aligned
to international expertise
• Embrace collaborative funding
models
• Embrace innovation, not a one-sizefits-all
approach
In addition to considering higher education development needs, participants also brainstormed some
key thematic priorities, and further needs/opportunities within each thematic area. The results of these
brainstorms are presented below:
• Water resource management
Quantitative and qualitative assessment
Comparing urban versus rural realities
Integrated recycling of water
Water and sanitation education
Management at all levels, from public awareness to catchment areas and including transboundary
considerations
Capacity development and retention, across all sectors
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Joint North-South capacity deployment in research and training (both vocational and academic)
Human rights’ relationship with National Water Act (focusing on implementation of Act)
Health issues related to water use and access
Environmental consequences (related to both quality and quantity)
Environmental flows
• Climate change
Shift of rainfall patterns and droughts
Pollution (particularly mines and commercial farming)
Networking between climate change experts
Indigenous Knowledge (need for research, medication, and food stuffs)
• Food security
Land reform issues:
* Ownership and collateral value of long-leased land for obtaining up-front bank loans/credit
facilities
* Training of emerging farmers
* Governance, service delivery, and management
* Social and economic development
* Access to land
Sustainable rural development issues
Access to sustainable and nutritious food:
* Cooperative systems
* Individual commercial farmers
* Farm as an economic unit
* Sustainability and economic viability (better income and better nutrition)
Climate change impact (see previous item)
Indigenous knowledge
Sustainable rural development (including disability issues):
* Land management
* Education and training
* Health and wellbeing of communities
* Local economic development
* New technologies and applied research
* Technology transfer and adoption
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* Job creation
• Health care (including medical care and community-oriented primary care):
Access to health care:
* Language
* Transport
* Attitude
Social determinants of health
Food security
Quality of health care
Training of community health workers
Indigenous knowledge integration
Implementation of new developments in medical care
Inequity
Mental health
Disability
Re-engineering primary health care
Need for inter-disciplinary initiatives
High-tech medical treatments (e.g. molecular biology, radiation medicine)
Biophysical expertise
• New technologies (applied to societal development issues):
ICT as enabler to bring disciplines together and promote activities within disciplines to respond
to local needs, including, for example:
* Mobile phones in rural communities
* App development
* Disaster management
* Basic education
* Skills to optimize and use information
* Advance marketing information
Biotechnology, nanotechnology, and food technology
* Improve livelihoods (increased income generation)
* Create new possibilities for SMMEs (small, micro, medium enterprises)
* Improve shelf-life of food
* Contribute towards solving gender problems (including involvement of females in SMEs)
* User-friendly technologies for disabled persons
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f) Closure
Having concluded identification of key opportunities for international development cooperation, the
seminar was formally closed. Mr Christophe Goossens who noted the following broad schedule to take
the process forward:
• Complete mission report by early May 2013
• Prepare VLIR-UOS Country Strategy Paper by Mid-May 2013
• VLIR-UOS strategy implementation and calls during the course of 2014
• Move From South Africa Country Strategy Paper to South Africa Country Strategy Programme
Professor Patrick Sorgeloos thanked all delegates for their participation, emphasizing that the discussions
had reinforced the importance of using the Country Strategy development opportunity to build
meaningful development cooperation opportunities based on mutual self-interests between the North
and the South.
Photograph of the South Seminar Participants and contact details
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Contact Organization E-mail address
Enrico Jacobs Belgian Campus enrico@belgiumcampus.co.za
Patrick De Bouck Belgian Embassy p.debouck@mweb.co.za
David Maenaut Delegation Flemish Government david.maenaut@flanders.org.za
Dr. J.P. Slabbert iThemba LABS (NRF) jps@tlabs.ac.za
Prof. Sinclair H. Mantell Nakhlatec sinclair.mantell@nakhlatec.se
Neil Butcher Neil Butcher & Associates neilshel@nba.co.za
Prof Victor Wepener North West University No Email Provided
Prof. Ian Rothmann North West University Ian.Rothmann@nwu.ac.za
Dr. Stanley Mukhola Tshwane University of Technology mukholams@tut.ac.za
Prof. M Momba Tshwane University of Technology mombamnb@tut.ac.za
Prof. P Jooste Tshwane University of Technology joostepj@tut.ac.za
Dr. N Beckett University of Cape Town nazlie.beckett@uct.ac.za
Theresa Lorenzo University of Cape Town theresa.lorenzo@uct.ac.za
Prof. Johan Van
Vuuren
University of Johannesburg
johanj@uj.ac.za
Dr Mabasa University of Limpopo No Email Provided
Jeffrey Mphahlele University of Limpopo jeffrey.mphahlele@ul.ac.za
Prof Sibara University of Limpopo No Email Provided
Prof. Ayisi Kingsley University of Limpopo ayisikingsley@gmail.com
kingsley.ayisi@ul.ac.za
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Contact Organization E-mail address
Carine Marais University of Limpopo Trust carina.marais@ul.ac.za
Jannie Hugo University of Pretoria jannie.hugo@up.ac.za
G. Mji University of Stellenbosch gumji@sun.ac.za
Leslie Swartz University of Stellenbosch lswartz@sun.ac.za
Salie Khalid University of Stellenbosch ks1@sun.ac.za
Christo Heunis University of the Free State heunisj@ufs.ac.za
Brian O’ Connell University of the Western Cape No Email Provided
Larry Pokpas University of the Western Cape lpokpas@uwc.ac.za
Prof. Christopher Tapscott
University of the Western Cape
ctapscott@uwc.ac.za
Abigail Dreyer
University of the Witwatersrand Rural
Health
cabigail.dreyer@wits.ac.za
Cornelius Hagenmeier Venda University cornelius.hagenmeier@univen.ac.za
Christophe Goossens VLIR-UOS christophe.goossens@vliruos.be
Prof. Patrick Sorgeloos VLIR-UOS patrick.sorgeloos@ugent.be
Hans Lambrecht VVOB South Africa hans.lambrecht@vvobsouthafrica.org
Mr J Chandia Walter Sisulu University No Email Provided
Prof. Jimmy Chandia Walter Sisulu University jimmy.chandia@gmail.com
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Annex 8: Post South Seminar feedback
At the conclusion of the seminar, participants were offered an opportunity to provide additional feedback
by completing a Seminar Feedback Form. Three responses were received, and the additional
suggestions proposed are listed below:
1) There is a need for both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to include disability concepts
in their curriculum. Institutions of higher learning should see disability as a human rights and
development issue. It is important to understand the link between disability, poverty, and development.
Consequently, disability issues should be integrated into both undergraduate and postgraduate
programmes. To facilitate this, units within universities are needed that can facilitate the
inclusion of disability and rehabilitation concepts in undergraduate and postgraduate studies. As
part of the work, it would be important to ensure that all students graduate with an understanding
of disability concepts with the aim of application and integration of these concepts both in the
workplace and the professional arena.
2) Consider including teacher education among the selected areas, given that pre-service teacher
training is entirely organized by universities in South Africa, and so many new teachers lack practical
teaching skills. The way that teacher education is organized in Flanders by the university colleges
could provide a very relevant and useful area of collaboration.
3) Consider the issue of Biotechnology and Sustainable development in Africa. The Council of Ministers
of the SADC region decided in 2002 to establish a sub-regional advisory committee on biotechnology.
The work of this committee was to enable SADC countries to develop a proactive
strategy to respond to issues raised by biotechnology. This proposal was to establish a high level
African Panel on Biotechnology under the auspices of NEPAD. This panel was to provide comprehensive
advice on policy issues associated with ethical, social, regulatory, economic, scientific,
environmental and health aspects of biotechnology. This is thus something that VLIR could keep
in mind from a North-South collaboration perspective.
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Annex 9. Pre-mission questionnaire: articulation of problems, challenges and
possible solutions to the constraints in the HET sector in South Africa
National needs
a) Many seasoned researchers are nearing retirement age and there has not been adequate
training of younger researchers to take over leadership roles in many disciplines. The position
is worse in all the historically disadvantaged institutions throughout the country. The gap
needs to be filled as a matter of urgency to avoid disruption in postgraduate training.
b) Continuous training of existing academic and managerial staff for skills enhancement. This is
required to keep abreast with new technological developments in the current globalised world.
c) Creation of more academic positions to keep up with the demand of student training in specific
areas.
d) Postgraduate skills development: The need to train more postgraduate students both in number
and quality is paramount for our institution. Output of Ph.D. graduates at UL is low and
this should increase to meet national demand. There have been increases in the Masters
output in recent years but moving upward to the Doctoral level has been suboptimal. The
problem needs to be addresses to create a healthy pyramid.
e) Provision of adequate and essential resources and academic infrastructure will be essential.
This includes research laboratories, experimental farm, research facilities and vital research
equipment.
f) Appointment of experience staff members to run delicate research equipment or training of
younger research technicians to handle such equipment is necessary. Sometimes research
equipment is either not utilised or is seriously underutilised due to the above constraint.
g) Administrative support for Postdoctoral Fellows at UL is not conducive enough to attract a
good calibre of candidate. Intensive use of Postdoctoral Fellows to address staff shortages
and research pitfalls had not been optimised. The experience of current staff to manage the
postdoctoral students is limiting. Further training in this area is required.
h) Academic writing skills for staff and student which extends to grant proposal and publications
for scholarly articles. Furthermore, staff member should be motivated to write to improve their
skills in this area as training alone will not be adequate to addressing the problem.
i) Flexible hours to accommodate government workers in upgrading their skills. The current
fixed hours of teaching and training is not flexible enough to accommodate enthusiastic and
aspiring government workers who desire to further their studies. After-hours classes or other
arrangement to accommodate such personnel can help increase enrolment at the university.
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Challenges
a. There is currently lack of requisite capacity to train future researchers at the historically
disadvantaged institutions. The majority of these institutions are not even able to attract
talented foreign scholars and researchers because of their location and lack of requisite
infrastructure. Improving our ranking academically through good publications, coupled
with good Public Relation strategy can help address the problem.
b. There are plenty of opportunities for our partners to add value to our current discourse
in rural development: health, agriculture, finances, etc.
c. Limited funds to hire new staff, train staff and develop research and teaching infrastructure.
1) What are nationally underserved themes, topics and regions around which the development
community should profile itself
a) In most cases, there is overall little capacity to address areas of rural development and periurban
environments: economically, socially and education.
b) Regions that are severely disadvantaged are rural provinces like Limpopo and Eastern Cape
c) The current municipality and local government arrangements and administration are not in
good shape and need to be overhauled and re-capitalized.
Basic education
An important national need is to focus on primary and secondary education to adequately prepare
students for tertiary education. This is particularly important for us at the University of Limpopo as
a large proportion of the students who are enrolled at the university come from rural communities.
The level of training in these communities is not always optimised and sometimes compromised
due learning infrastructure constraints and poor staffing among others. An atmosphere where all
children have access to quality education needs to be created. This can be accomplished by building
school infrastructure, training teachers and providing the resources that schools need.
Planned refresher courses for the primary and secondary school teachers and workshops on key
issues such as positive discipline in schools, management of school resources and the making
and use of teaching and learning materials is essential to addressing the problem. This will go a
long way in breaking the cycle of poverty and offer inspiration and opportunity to Africa's future
generations
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2) What could be opportunities to add value to building (academic) capacity by means of
creating linkages among academic partners and/or other stakeholders
a) Research must be problem-driven and linked/communicated to policy makers to contribute to
policy formulation that will address developmental needs;
b) The creation of centres of excellence that will project the image of the University of Limpopo to
be relevant to our immediate environment as well as nationally and internationally. The existing
VLIR and RVAC Centre at the university can serve this purpose. The Risk and Vulnerability
Assessment Centre (RVAC) is primarily an information technology platform, designed to facilitate
the uptake of information for use in policy formulation and other relevant applications.
The information is generated through staff and postgraduate research of the host institution
and related collaborative research with other institutions. Currently the centre focusses on
global change research. Further assistance and support of the centre will contribute to the diversification
of research to meet wider needs of policy makers, municipalities and the general
communities. This would result in the university having a positive impact on decision making;
Well defined career path that links teaching and research to the needs of industry and labour
market is essential.
3) With reference to the above, what contribution could be offered by your institution in
terms of alleviation generic needs or addressing underserved needs and topics for academic
capacity building at the national level
a) UL has been involved in a number of longitudinal health and agriculture studies, water research,
biodiversity conservation studies over a long time and can contribute significantly
in these areas. RVAC can help link up with the different departments;
b) There are plenty of opportunities for our partners to add value to our current discourse in
rural development: health, agriculture, finances, etc.;
c) Exchange visits for staff and postgraduate students as is currently happening under the
VLIR programme needs to be expanded;
d) Collaborative research projects among staff, government and other research institutions in
the country such as CSIR, MRC, ACCESS, ARC, other local and international universities,
etc. is critical. Some of this collaboration, besides the VLIR programme, is already in
place at UL.
e) The existing infrastructures and facilities made available under the VLIR and RVAC initiatives
will be able to host visiting partners.
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VLIR-UOS supports partnerships
between universities and university colleges
in Flanders and the South
looking for innovative responses
to global and local challenges