By Beverly Thaver and Laila Ganie

　

Beverly Thaver is a senior researcher in the Education policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), and Laila Ganie is a senior lecturer of the Faculty of Education at UWC. Both Beverly and Laila are SYLFF fellows who answered the call for an article on leadership that appeared in the first issue of The SYLFF Newsletter.

　

　The Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund Program's mission emphasizes the development of leaders for a rapidly changing global world. This mission is consistent with a higher-education transformation agenda that is now underway in South Africa. A key component of this transformation is the development of leadership capability for an emerging democracy. Consequently, in this article we explore some of the imperatives for developing leadership in South Africa and the attendant challenges and opportunities as they unfold at one SYLFF site, the UWC. Our intention is to generate further debate and discussion.

　Eight years after the establishment of political democracy in South Africa, higher-education institutions are finding their place within a regulatory environment increasingly being driven by the imperatives of fiscal constraints and globalization. Within this context, higher-education institutions are having to shift from the fragmented and segregated system that prevailed under apartheid to a more unitary, albeit differentiated system, under democracy. This political transition (within higher education) is characterized by a key source of tension, namely, the shift from forms of knowledge production dominated by a racial ideology to one that is non-racial. Within this framework, higher-education institutions are faced with several challenges necessary to sustain our democracy as we head into the 21st century.

　One of the main challenges is to develop black and female leaders who are in tune with a democratic order. We contend that this is an important challenge that the nation needs to confront, because the profile of leadership in higher-education institutions (as a consequence of the apartheid legacy) is predominantly white and male. Although the past eight years have been marked by changes, there are indications that the move has been largely toward white-female representation. We contend that this is an untenable situation insofar as the student profile has undergone major changes that have not been accompanied by appropriate shifts in the staffing profile to one that is demographically more representative.

　A variety of factors result in the above situation being untenable. First, for any democracy to be sustainable, the workforce within higher-education institutions needs to be diverse enough to be able to understand the historical and life experiences of the student population that it is serving. In other words, given that the student profile is now predominantly black (a generic term for Africans, "colored" people, and Indians), the academic workforce needs to reflect this demographic shift.

　There also are other factors that provide an imperative for this shift, namely, the notion of role-modeling (the need for black students to experience firsthand a stratum of leadership that can relate to their life experiences). Given the lack of black role models in higher-education leadership positions, it is important for the students to experience how black academicians have been able to develop under conditions such that the "odds were stacked against us. "

　Another factor that makes for change is the need for knowledge production to be more equitably distributed across the society and not, as is now the case, primarily concentrated in one social grouping (white academicians). The legacies of apartheid include not only a skewed perspective (i.e., that of only one social grouping) but also a consequently artificial notion of knowledge, because white academicians have spoken on behalf of society. The desired shift in the profile would mean, therefore, that a more diverse profile of academicians would be able to speak for the whole of society. In other words, as more black and female leaders enter the higher-education system, the market for ideas will become more dynamic and more robust. In this way, the knowledge-production process will assume a form that reflects both the complexity and diversity of South African society.

　Clearly, in South Africa we are faced with enormous challenges to redress the legacy of apartheid. Toward this end, several initiatives have been implemented so as to contribute to the development of a layer of leaders who appropriately match our democracy. These initiatives have been taking place at the levels of foreign aid (e.g., Sasakawa fellowships), as national measures (through legislation), and as institutional responses (equity plans and accelerated promotions). We will now briefly discuss each of these.

　Several donor agencies have played important roles in meeting the specific human-resource needs of this country by building capacity in areas that have been weak. For instance, the SYLFF Program at UWC has specifically contributed to the development of a cohort of leaders who have subsequently become involved in prominent leadership positions in government, higher education, and other related areas. Thus far, 25 women and 14 men have benefited from SYLFF awards to pursue post-graduate studies that have equipped them for leadership positions. This process is in line with UWC's mission, which is to nurture and seek racial and gender equality and to help the historically marginalized students to participate fully in the life of the nation. However, one of the challenges related to this is how to manage the tension between the function of the mission and national and institutional imperatives in relation to redress and equity.

　As mentioned earlier, the South African government is committed to developing new leaders against the backdrop of the apartheid legacy. The Employment Equity Act (EEA), No. 55 of 1998, gives expression to the principles of the Constitution of South Africa (1996), such as the promotion of rights, equality before the law, and democracy. Some of the key functions of the EEA include implementing employment equity and the attainment of a diverse workforce. Equity interventions are aimed at "designated groups," which refers to black people, women, and people with disabilities.

　The EEA contains four substantive sections. The first, which concerns the prohibition of unfair discrimination, requires employers to take steps to promote equal opportunity by eliminating unfair discrimination in all employment policies and practices. The second, which concerns affirmative action, requires employers to establish measures by which to achieve such objectives as promoting diversity and equitable representation in all occupational categories and levels in the workforce. The last two components concern the establishment of appropriate structures to implement the EEA.

　As a legislative instrument, the EEA is applicable across workforce sectors. Hence, higher-education institutions' policies and practices must comply with the EEA. Toward this end, institutions have developed equity plans. Besides being required to comply with the EEA, higher-education institutions are further regulated by the recent National Plan for Higher Education, which requires that the predominantly white (male) staff profile in higher-education institutions be changed to one that is more representative of the nation's population. Consequently, the key social function of these state interventions is to establish appropriate mechanisms for facilitating the development of a higher-education leadership layer that does not reflect the previously embedded racial (and gender) stereotypes. As was mentioned above, the apartheid framework had generated a staffing profile that was and still is predominantly white and male. The policies are thus intended to break the previous cycle. The question to be answered is: What is the relationship between the macro policies and institutional practices? To answer this question, we will now discuss the case of UWC.

　In line with the aforementioned legislation, UWC has developed an Employment Equity Plan (EEP) in which numerical targets have been set for each faculty Although there is political will to implement this process, several difficulties are beginning to emerge. One such difficulty revolves around implementation of equity principles within a context of limited resources. What this means in practice is that insofar as the university cannot offer tenured packages it is not able to attract well-qualified black academicians. Hence, black academicians are placed in either short-term or long-term contract positions, a practice that mitigates against their long-term involvement and commitment to knowledge production in higher education.

　The development of appropriate leadership capacity is a rather complex phenomenon. In South Africa, the onus is on us to develop leaders who can take appropriate positions not only locally and nationally but also at the global level. We believe that SYLFF is playing an important role in contributing to this process.

　Further research is necessary in order to identify the barriers that negatively impact the implementation of equity and redress in the higher-education workforce. Given the complexity of the situation in South Africa, it is important to conduct a comparative study of other countries that also have sought to develop leadership within the context of a changing higher-education system. We believe that we, as SYLFF fellows, can play an important role in this regard.

　

　How is leadership being developed in other countries, especially where higher-education systems are also in the process of transformation? What roles can SYLFF fellows play in developing leaders? How is leadership being conceptualized and operationally defined?

　Are you interested in contributing to this Dialog topic in the June 2002issue of this newsletter? If so, please contact us by e-mail at scholarship@tkfd.or.jp not later than April 1, 2002.