Abstract:
This article focuses on the governance of the interface of student organisations
with public higher education institutions in South Africa. It appraises relations
between institutional leaders and student organisations, given the current turmoil
in the institutions of higher education in South Africa. Institutions are products of
mankind and their operations and evolution tend to portray the underlying human
personalities and personal traits of those who hold power in key stakeholder positions.
Higher education institutions have various stakeholders who are required to pursue
common vision, mission and goals. Legislatively, stakeholders should ensure that
they promote co-operative governance; however, the institutional interfaces of the
leadership and student organisations in higher education institutions are riddled
with protracted conflicts. The article asserts that shoddy transformation is stifling
good governance of relations between leadership structures of higher education
institutions in South Africa. As a result of position-making and the making of positions,
which are broader characters of the South African society, albeit democratic,
compromises are hard to establish in circumstances wherein stakeholders unidimensionally
pursue rigid mandates driven by powerful interest groups.
