Higher education's responsiveness to community engagement : a case of one higher education institution in KwaZulu-Natal.

Abstract

The post-apartheid education transformation agenda set a platform for higher education in South Africa to demonstrate and contribute more meaningfully towards the holistic development of communities. The White Paper on Higher Education (1997) identified three critical pillars central to the role of Higher Education in this country. These were: teaching and learning, research and community engagement. It demands of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to demonstrate social responsibility by availing expertise and infrastructure for community service programmes. This legislation laid foundations for making community engagement an integral component of higher education in South Africa. The Council on Higher Education (CHE) stipulated in its Institutional Audit criteria (2004) quality issues on community engagement that HEIs should be measured against. The purpose of this study is to explore the responsiveness of higher education’s to community engagement, using a case study of one institution in the province of Kwazulu Natal. This qualitative research draws on interviews from 12 respondents (selected from all sectors of the university) and on documents analysis. The intention is to help analyze how community engagement is implemented using the experiences of this particular institution.