All SA's higher education institutions, including public universities and private higher education institutions, participate in the same quality assurance regime and are held to the same quality standards.
Recent articles and debates in the media alluding to the poor quality of higher education in public universities, and making comparisons between the quality of higher education in public universities and private higher education institutions — apparently based on anecdote and perception rather than on clear evidence — are concerning.
They create misconception and division and detract from the real task we have: building a quality higher education sector that is accessible, including to the most marginalised groups in society; that provides meaningful opportunities for success; and that enhances the life chances of students who pass through it.
The higher education sector in South Africa is subject to a rigorous quality assurance regime, in which the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA), professional bodies, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and the institutions themselves all play complementary roles.
All higher education institutions, including public universities and private higher education institutions, participate in the same quality assurance regime and are held to the same quality standards.
Before public universities or private higher education institutions can offer higher education qualifications, they have to meet specific requirements:
- Private higher education institutions must be registered by the DHET. The registration process includes due diligence on the capacity of the institution to provide quality education. Registration can be cancelled when institutions become unsustainable and when quality is compromised. There have been several deregistrations of private higher education institutions over the years.
- A university is required to apply to the DHET for inclusion of a new programme or qualification on its programme qualification mix before the institution can offer the programme. Here, due diligence focuses on whether the qualification or programme is aligned with the mission of the university, social and/or economic needs, and whether the university has the capacity to offer the programme or qualification.
- Professional qualifications offered by public or private higher education institutions that lead to registration for professional practice need to be approved by the relevant professional body before they can be offered. Again, the professional body, in its review of the application, will take account of the demonstrable ability of the institution to offer a quality programme. In addition, professional bodies undertake regular reviews of how the institution is offering the programme, and there have been instances where professional bodies have rescinded their recognition and endorsement of programmes in both public and private higher education institutions.
- The programmes and qualifications of higher education institutions, both public and private, must be accredited by the CHE. This involves a stringent review process undertaken by external peers to determine whether the programme meets the CHE’s accreditation criteria. The CHE also regularly conducts qualification reviews and institutional reviews. These processes can lead to the withdrawal of accreditation if quality is found to be compromised. There have been several instances in which this has happened.
- Programmes and qualifications of higher education institutions must be submitted for review by SAQA before their registration on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), and oversight here ensures compliance with the requirements of the NQF.
The CHE has recently concluded an institutional quality audit of all the public universities, and the executive summaries of 25 institutional audit reports can be found on the CHE’s website.
The focus of the institutional audits was to establish whether the universities have functional internal quality assurance systems in place, which assist in ensuring the quality of the academic activities of the university. The audits found that most universities have functional systems in place. There were strengths and outstanding practices in many areas, but also areas that needed to be strengthened.
Improvement plans
The institutions are responsive to the issues that have been identified through the recommendations in the reports and are implementing improvement plans that will be monitored by the CHE until successful completion. The institutional quality audits of private higher education institutions are now under way.
Recent research studies, including research undertaken by the CHE, do provide some evidence-based insight into the quality of higher education and the contribution that higher education is making.
The CHE and the Human Sciences Research Council undertook a study on the state of quality in higher education. A just-published report arose from this study, titled Stakeholder Perspectives on the Quality of Higher Education in South Africa.
The study revealed a generally positive outlook among stakeholders, particularly regarding improvements in equity, diversity, inclusion and the quality of academic staff and their involvement in quality assurance.
However, opinions were more mixed on whether higher education adequately responds to socioeconomic needs, including curriculum relevance, skills development, industry connections, graduate employability, online learning quality, infrastructure and university administration.
Several areas were viewed negatively, such as insufficient student financial support and its administration, inadequate social environments and campus facilities, limited academic and mental health support, and unresponsive governance structures, especially in addressing student concerns.
Nonetheless, there was widespread appreciation for the sector’s increasing internationalisation, with students and employers highlighting the importance of university rankings in evaluating institutional quality.
Graduate employability is increasingly being viewed as an indicator of the quality and external efficiency of higher education, even as it must be borne in mind that the role of higher education is not only to provide job-ready graduates. It must also be appreciated that there are many factors that impact graduate employability, outside of the control of higher education institutions, such as an underperforming economy that inhibits the absorption of graduates, even though there may be a critical need for them.
There are, however, also factors that do fall within the sphere of control of the sector, such as creating better alignment between the skills produced by the sector and the skills needed in the economy and society.
The CHE recently undertook research and produced a report titled Higher Education and the Labour Market: Assessing the Nature and Extent of Graduate Unemployment in South Africa. The study found that the overall graduate unemployment rate in 2023 was 10.6%, far lower than the general population unemployment rate. This implies that the higher education sector in South Africa has a relatively high level of external efficiency.
The study, however, also showed that the graduate unemployment rate is creeping upwards, and that 18% of the employed higher education graduates were in positions and/or occupations that are lower than what their qualifications ordinarily would enable them to access.
A need for ongoing attention
These are matters that need ongoing attention. Further research is being conducted into this issue to corroborate and to more deeply understand the trends. This includes research into the graduate employability practices in public universities and private higher education institutions being undertaken in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
The graduate employability study also includes digital maturity as an element of both graduate employability and the administrative efficiency of institutions.
In a 2023 research article titled An assessment of the economic impact of South Africa’s public universities, by Ahmed C Bawa and Anastassios Pouris, published in the South African Journal of Science, the authors provide an analysis that concludes: “As an economic sector, higher education contributes more to South Africa’s gross value added than other economic sectors such as wood and wood products, textiles, clothing and leather goods, or paper and paper products.
“It is comparable to sectors such as gold mining, and beverages and tobacco. Taking into account a number of assumptions, which are explained in the text, for 2018 the total economic impact was estimated at about R513-billion. Governmental expenditure on higher education in that year was R66-billion. These figures produce a cost–benefit ratio for the sector of 1:7.7, considering only these four university activities” — the four activities being university exports, research at universities, the production of graduates and universities as business entities.
Quality assurance exercises like institutional audits/reviews and research provide an evidence-based view of the quality and contribution of higher education. This evidence challenges the notion that either the public higher education subsector or the private higher education subsector has better quality or has greater impact.
To call for the closure of public institutions without acknowledging this evidence is irresponsible. Rather, there are institutional and intra-institutional quality variances in both subsectors. There are strengths and there are areas that need improvement across all.
Claims that one subsector may be better than the other do serious harm to the national agenda to build a single quality higher education system that is able to provide access to meaningful learning opportunities for our youth, who desperately need these opportunities.
It also harms the opportunities for articulation of students across these subsectors.
Rather than asking the question whether quality is better in one or the other subsector, the question should be: How can we harness the strengths of the entire higher education sector, public and private, to provide quality higher education in scope and scale, suitable to the needs of the country, and how can we collaborate to do so?
This will take South Africa forward. DM