This study investigates South Africa's policy governing the institution of higher education as set forth in the context of the country's transitional constitution of 1993; gains understanding of the framework in which the country's Ministry of Education interprets and implements the policy; and probes the implications in specific educational contexts.
This research is conducted using hermeneutic inquiry, theoretical framework as informed by Hans-Georg Gadamer. For data collection and analysis Jurgen Habermas's theory of communicative competence is used. The framework which undergirds this entire ethnographic study is Paul Ricoeur's theory of text, including mimesis 1, 2, and 3.
During the summer, 1996, I conducted this research in South Africa through hermeneutic conversations with ten people representing primary stake holders in higher education. Conversations were taped, transcribed (fixed in writing) as text, and analyzed within the above theoretical contexts.
South Africa's National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE) was assigned to study higher education and advise the Ministry on the goals for higher education. NCHE's report provides the basis for interpretation and implementation of the nation's higher education policy. Students, the largest constituent in the higher education sector, were not sufficiently included in NCHE's investigation.
Consensus among conversation partners is there is little change in higher education since 1993. Students, who historically were discounted and denied, want change now, at any cost, including violence. Autonomous university/technikon councils, the decision-makers in higher education, have retained their authority, resisting change.
Change and the process of change become the issue. Transformation and reform must occur among students and autonomous councils to ensure the institutionalization of democratic participation. All constituents, on a deeper, moral and individual level must realize the inter relatedness of humanity, recognizing the irreplaceable value of each other in the process of coming together toward common ground, mutual respect, understanding, and change. Change is possible through understanding, and understanding, at its best, happens within the medium of language.
