Professionally oriented curricula design: a uot1 case study.

Abstract

This thesis presents a critical interpretive analysis of the transformation of undergraduate professionally oriented curricula (POC) at a transitioning UoT, foregrounding the integration of general education (GE) as both a catalyst and a site of institutional and curricular change. Situated within South Africa’s differentiated higher education landscape and the broader global context of polycrises, characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), the study explores how curriculum reform operates as a space for institutional identity-making, ethical engagement, and pedagogical renewal. It interrogates how internal institutional dynamics intersect with external socio-economic, political and geopolitical, technological, and ecological forces to reframe the purposes and practices of POC, with the goal of cultivating T-shaped graduates who combine deep disciplinary expertise with broad, interdisciplinary, and civic competencies. Adopting a qualitative single case study design, the research focuses on two faculties, Engineering and the Built Environment, and Health Sciences, which were selected for the scale and significance of their curriculum change. Framed within a critical interpretive paradigm, the study draws on institutional and faculty level document analysis and semi-structured interviews with executive management and academic staff identified as curriculum champions. Data generation was shaped by the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring adaptive strategies to ensure breadth and depth of participation. Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA), initially supported by NVIVO software, was employed to surface key themes and synthesise findings, enabling a rich interpretation of how actors navigate curriculum change in a complex institutional ecology. The study draws on multiple theoretical lenses. Two central and interrelated theoretical frameworks, namely, currere and instituere, are deployed to conceptualise curriculum and institutional identity as dynamic, reflexive, and political processes of becoming. Currere conceptualises curriculum as a lived, ethical and disruptive project. Instituere theorises the institution as always in the process of becoming, shaped by sociopolitical, historical, and ideological forces. These frameworks are complemented by the notion of university chronotopes, the Force Field Model and the African philosophical lens of ubuntu and glo-ubuntu. Together, these framings provide the theoretical scaffolding to explore the structural, ideological, and experiential dimensions of change. They allow for a critical reading of the UoT, in the global South, as a dynamic institution grappling with tensions between its Technikon legacy and its aspirations toward a socially engaged, future-facing identity. The findings reveal persistent tensions between global and local imperatives, professional body requirements and shifting institutional identity, mediated by the agency of leaders, curriculum champions, and faculty cultures. While GE was embraced as a means of broadening POC, its conceptualisation and implementation varied considerably across programmes, reflecting divergent understandings of its purpose and value. The analysis highlights how curriculum reform in this context is simultaneously a compliance-driven exercise and a space of possibility for rethinking the purposes of higher education in the Global South. Drawing on the dual conceptual lenses of currere and instituere, the study advances the Synaptic Currere framework as both a metaphorical and theoretical contribution to reimagining the relationship between professional and general/liberal education in sub-Saharan Africa. Conceived as a relational, ethically charged, and interdisciplinary process of institutional and individual becoming, the framework promotes holistic, contextually grounded, and transformative curricula that transcend entrenched dichotomies, align with glo-ubuntu and rhizo-currere principles, and prepare graduates to be critically engaged, adaptable, and socially responsible glocal citizens. In doing so, the study contributes to the theorisation of curriculum transformation in differentiated higher education contexts, and in the Global South, affirming the UoT not as a lesser imitation of traditional universities, but as distinctive, becoming institutions capable of reimagining higher education in response to glocal imperatives. The study calls for curriculum transformation as an ethically grounded, contextsensitive, and future-facing practice that foregrounds both professional relevance and broader societal purpose.