Case, J.M., Marshall, D., McKenna, S. & Mogashana, D. (2018). Going to University: The Influence of Higher Education on the Lives of Young South Africans. Cape Town: African Minds

• Main Author: Reviewed by Liezel Frick
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Journal of Student Affairs in Africa 2018-07-01
• Series: Journal of Student Affairs in Africa
• Online Access: http://www.jsaa.ac.za/index.php/jsaa/article/view/3071

Higher education in South Africa is in a state of turmoil. Student protests, increased state intervention, uncertainty and surprises around government funding of the sector amidst increased massification of universities, pressure on institutions to insource staff, calls to diversify both student and staff bodies, demands for decolonisation of university curricula (or Africanisation, as Msila and Gumbo (2016) choose to position these debates), and substantive changes in national policy directives have created a sector in constant flux.  It is thus no surprise that a variety of authoritative authors within the South African higher education context have taken a rather dim view of the current situation. While Adam Habib (2016) focuses on re-imagining the future of the South African university, he acknowledges the stark current reality that the South African university system is not on par with its counterparts in other developing countries and that it shows limited transformation after more than two decades of democracy in South Africa. Cloete (2016a) similarly points to inefficiencies within the system (particularly at the undergraduate level) that are amplified by under-funding of the system as a whole.