Department of Comparative Education

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    Facilitating educational change: academic development in a university setting
    (University of the Western Cape, 1997) Baijnath, Narend; Meerkotter, Dirk; van den Berg, Owen
    ln this thesis my project is to examine the academic development programme (ADP) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) as a project of possibility mirrored against its basic premises and the practices which flowed from its implementation. The central proposition I develop is that the ADP at UWC was predisposed to have a limited impact on the development project at UWC for several reasons. The first of these is that the ADP's initial conceptualisation was driven primarily by the political considerations of equity and access. This political impetus behind it set it in tension with the avenues for improving higher education which are used at universities elsewhere in the world, which have been driven primarily by a concern to improve quality. The effect was to shift the critical gaze away from the quality of educational provision and the institutional conditions at UWC which affect quality. The main evidence I provide in developing the thesis is a narrative account of my own practice as an AD practitioner within the economic and management sciences faculty at UWC. I offer accounts in the areas of student development, curriculum reform and staff development as case studies which I make the objects of my extended analysis. I also argue that the access imperative failed to give adequate attention to the possible consequences of changing the access policy without anticipating the impact it would have, and how it would be influenced by, the material conditions prevailing at the University. I argue in the light of this that planned change in curriculum, staff development, and staff development, as well as the service sectors of the University are the sine qua non of changed access policy. From the analytical thrust of my thesis, I develop the proposition that for the AD enterprize at universities to become institutionalised and sustainable on the long term, it is best undergirded by a wider discourse of quality improvement, which makes legitimate demands on academic staff to pursue development objectives and programmes which are consonant with those of the ADP. ln this way the resistance which accompanies an ADP driven primarily by the access imperative is obviated. ! maintain that the higher education policy terrain nationally, and the policy environment institutionally have not been conducive to a coherent approach to the challenge of facilitating access. In particular, I explore how this lack of an enabling policy environment at an institutional and national level impacts on the AD programme within the University. The methodological position from which I develop my thesis is that a study of the nature I have undertaken must take account of historical and contextual factors with an overall cohering influence provided by the narrative. I begin with a historical perspective on change within universities in South Africa and locate the advent of AD within this broad canvas of educational change. My proposition in this regard is that it is in the genesis of the higher education system in South Africa over several decades that the roots of the current problems and challenges are to be found. I provide an account of how racially based schooling has impacted on the education of blacks and produced the AD challenge. Thereafter I episodically construct a narrative of the change process which I experienced focusing on the individual, departmental and institutional levels. !n doing so, I try to illuminate the inherent complexity of the change process by critically analysing the multiple factors which influenced its texture. ln addition to this, t gave attention to my positaonality in the change process, accounting for my assumptions about AD, addressing the vexing issue of representation, and developing a methodologically justifiable position for using the narrative as PhD genre. I propose ways of reconceptualising AD so that more focused attention is given to student, staff and curriculum development. I suggest how the role of agency in curriculum development may be enhanced. ln addition, I argue that curriculum development can only be systematised through the establishment of an appraisal system which provides incentives or pressures for improvement. ln the area of staff development, I advance an argument for a reflective practitioner model. This should be supported adequately by policy, incentives and rewards which elevate and emphasise the value of good teaching. ln short, I develop my thesis along a trajectory which enables me to answer the question: What can be learned about educational change in the university setting from this experience of facilitating AD?