Proceedings of the Focus Conference (TFC 2024)

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Challenges and opportunities in the context of South African Higher Education: Towards a research agenda

Authors
Arthur Reynolds1, *, Vusani Moyo1
1University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa
*Corresponding author. Email: arthur.reynolds@univen.ac.za
Corresponding Author
Arthur Reynolds
Available Online 31 December 2024.
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-630-7_9How to use a DOI?
Keywords
Decolonisation; Disadvantaged Students; Higher Education; Transformation
Abstract

Higher education in South Africa has rapidly changed in the past eight years. The #Feesmustfall movement in 2016 has highlighted structural issues within the system, and some changes are already seen within higher education institutions (HEIs). HEIs such as universities and colleges have had to rapidly adapt to the new demands. However, evidence points to slow transformation and murmurs of unhappiness amongst students and the private sector. There is, however, an opportunity to outline the specific issues that need to be addressed by HEIs. The study identifies and outlines the major and important challenges faced in higher education. Furthermore, it proposes possible solutions and directions on how to track the progress of implementation to outline only the most pertinent issues from the extant literature. The purpose is to generate a research agenda for future studies on contemporary issues in higher education. This article utilizes a systematic literature review and thematic content analysis to identify contemporary issues and potential solutions in the South African higher education context that should be focused on. The overview landscape is vast, so the focus was on identifying critical issues. Multiple issues were identified from the systematic literature review. These issues were categorized into five distinct groups, namely, accessibility, support, quality assurance, transformation, and work readiness. Several practical solutions were found within these groups from the systematic literature review. These strategies could assist HEIs in focusing on those areas regarding resource constraints.

Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the Focus Conference (TFC 2024)
Series
Atlantis Highlights in Social Sciences, Education and Humanities
Publication Date
31 December 2024
ISBN
978-94-6463-630-7
ISSN
2667-128X
DOI
10.2991/978-94-6463-630-7_9How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2024 The Author(s)
Open Access
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Cite this article

risenwbib
TY  - CONF
AU  - Arthur Reynolds
AU  - Vusani Moyo
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/12/31
TI  - Challenges and opportunities in the context of South African Higher Education: Towards a research agenda
BT  - Proceedings of the Focus Conference (TFC 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 152
EP  - 173
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-630-7_9
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-630-7_9
ID  - Reynolds2024
ER  -