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.
