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African Affairs 97:5-7 (1998)
© The Royal African Society
TRANSFORMATION: THE CHANGING CONTEXT OF ACADEMIA IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA
Pierre Hugo is Professor of Political Science in the University of South Africa, Pretoria
The transformatory paradigm of post-apartheid South Africa has left few of the country's institutions free of critical scrutiny. Higher education has been no exception. As elsewhere in Africa under new post-colonial governments, South African universities have a relatively high profile on the agenda of change. This interest has been spurred not only by the ANC government's awareness of its large share in the funding of universities but also because of the political imperatives engendered by the disaffection against the historically white universities (HWU's) among its youth constituency. This article assesses the current interplay between universities and their new environment and focuses on the following issues central to the debate on university transformation: the higher education heritage of apartheid; the impact of the changing racial profile of students at HWU's; perceptions of the role of universities; affirmative action staffing policies; competing claims by universities, the government and the private sector on scarce black and especially African human resources; the negative implications of the African brain drain from universities on civil society; and the question of Afrocentrism versus Eurocentrism. Where relevant these issues are examined against the backdrop of the African experience. In doing so a number of yet to be resolved problems are highlighted.