Policy targeting as a strategy to increase access to higher education

Abstract

In an era of reconstruction of the educational landscape, South African higher education’s contribution to social and economic development has been concretised through policy targeting and reforms in four cardinal planks and mission. These include Teaching, as this contributes to the development of human capital, Learning which invigorates the order for human capital to develop through knowledge, Research which builds the foundation for the development of sound knowledge bases and Social Responsiveness which becomes the cornerstone for the dissemination and application of knowledge across the educational and social platform. The article proposes that South Africa must address the quagmires experienced by the poor and the marginalised. The political re-draw of intentions that is emerging under the new administration presents the country with an opportunity to issues pertaining to higher education as a people-centred activity rather than a marketcentred commodity. The article further contends that as a necessary pre-condition for policy targeting to become a channel for deliberative discourse, it is apparent that higher education authorities must have the requisite capacity for these strategic policy initiatives in a synchronised policy-targeted manner.