Beyond “Good” and “Evil”: a critical exploration of the impact of recent changes on the different estates in the Higher Education workplace.

Vicki Scholtz, Faculty of Humanities, University of Cape Town

Hein Kleinbooi, UCT Employees Union, University of Cape Town

“Transformation” in the context of the South African Higher Education system encompasses two very different dimensions – the “marketisation” discussed by Bertelsen (1998), and that linked to the national liberation / social redress project, including employment equity, affirmative action, and related social justice policy implementation.

The discourse of neoliberalism, the ideology which infuses much of the practice of “managerialism”, is essentially a discourse of the Right; yet, owing to the peculiar confluence of the two “transformations” in South African Higher Education, this discourse is often presented as “progressive” and uncritically espoused by those purporting to be on the Left, creating a confusion of agendas and alliances in the HE workplace.

This paper builds on previous work (Scholtz 2004) on the impact of “Managerialism” on the different estates of the University, specifically striving to overcome the simplistic polarity (“managerialism bad, collegiality good”) by exploring the nuances of recent workplace changes in Universities from the perspective of the “winners” as well as the “losers”.

References:

Bertelsen, E. (1998) The real transformation: the marketisation of higher education, Social Dynamics, 24(2), 130 – 158

Scholtz, V: (2004): Managerialism and its Discontents Paper presented at Reinventing the University Conference, Rhodes University Grahamstown, December 2004