Chapter 1

ICTs and Higher Education Systems

 ICTs, Social Change and Emerging Trends 

The questions identified for this discussion paper – as listed above – pose very particular research problems, because there are several limitations to the value of either primary or secondary research in this area. ICTs, even in their most basic manifestations, are very recent inventions in the timeline of human societies. Development of ICT applications is possibly most notable at a macro level for the extent to which it has ushered in rapid changes – or the perception of change – in so many facets of life. Unfortunately, though, this change is not clearly defined. There are no clear parameters around the change taking place, nor is there yet clarity about where it is leading (or how fundamental/superficial some of the changes are). While many people have written very eloquently and persuasively on how these technologies will change – or are already changing – various social processes (including higher education), their long-term impact is still largely a matter of conjecture, and will only really start to become fully clear over the next fifteen to twenty years. This makes it particularly difficult to establish frameworks to regulate the systems into which they are being integrated. 

Despite this, there can be little doubt that the rapid growth and convergence in functionality of ICTs have initiated certain trends, and that the functionality they provide is being harnessed (for better or worse) by a growing number of higher education systems and organizations around the world. In particular, growing use of ICTs internationally has initiated the following trends, amongst others: 

•          It is allowing for exponential increases in the transfer of data through increasingly globalized communication systems. While this has tremendous potential, proliferation of data transfer does not equate with improved quality of the data itself, with the result that transfer of poor quality information (where quality is defined in terms of its applicability and usefulness to the recipient rather than a so-called ‘objective’ measure, which simply does not exist) is also growing exponentially. More worrying, though, from a higher education perspective, is that being cut off from this ongoing flow of information through lack of or inadequate access to Internet applications will progressively cut off the lifeblood of higher education institutions. 

•         As has been mentioned above, ICT networks have significantly expanded the potential for organizations to expand their sphere of operations and influence beyond their traditional geographical boundaries. This has positive implications for South African higher education institutions, in that it creates opportunities for new kinds of partnerships less bounded by geographical constraints (both within the country and internationally), but it also means that the country is progressively less able to exert any control over who is allowed to enter into competition with South African higher education institutions. How does one regulate a web-based course offered by an American university? If one attempts to control growth of private education providers, what prevents those providers from setting up operations in partnership with international organizations to enable them to continue functioning? 

•         It is expanding the range of options available to education planners in terms of the teaching and learning strategies they choose to use, providing an often bewildering array of choices in terms of systems design options, teaching and learning combinations, and strategies for administering and managing education. This creates exciting opportunities, but also significantly increases risk of investment, as more choice introduces new possibilities for making poor decisions. As importantly, introducing technology into environments where poor education is taking place is much more likely to magnify their weaknesses than to solve them. Further, explosion in the range of options makes regulation of education activities much more difficult, as traditional regulatory frameworks are simply not designed to incorporate the full range of combinations and options currently open to education planners (let alone the options that will arise as ICT development unfolds). 

•       Systemically, it is tending to accentuate social disparities between rich and poor, rather than to reduce them. This is because access to the technologies themselves is an obvious prerequisite (although certainly not a sufficient condition) to be able to harness the afore-mentioned trends to individual, organizational, or social advantage. It is not unreasonable to suggest that this is possibly the most serious concern facing South African policy makers, as perpetuation and/or growth in social inequities is a major threat to social stability (as recent events in Zimbabwe have demonstrated) and create all manner of opportunity for exploitation by the unscrupulous. This problem is not just about internal inequities, but also relates to inequities between South Africa and other countries. ICT use has contributed to the establishment of some highly problematic self-reinforcing cycles of inequity growth, which we illustrate in greater detail below. As use of ICTs by developed countries and developed sectors of South African society cannot reasonably be expected to slow down over the next five to ten years, ignoring these trends in policy only contributes to perpetuating the cycles emerging. The only area in which national policy-makers have any sphere of influence is in South Africa, so using policy to slow down developments in ICT application within the country’s borders is likely only to exacerbate these equity gaps between South Africa and more developed societies. This means that the only viable option is to engage in proactive strategies to harness the potential of ICTs in service of reducing social inequities. 

•       It is reducing barriers to entry of potential competitors to higher education institutions, by reducing the importance of geographical distance as a barrier, by reducing the overhead and logistical requirements of running education programmes and research agencies, and by expanding cheap access to information resources. This point is obviously directly linked to the previous point, but should not be confused with it. One of the challenges facing higher education is that competition for providing its services or fulfilling its functions is no longer coming just from organizations that are structurally similar to higher education institutions. On the contrary, it is plausible that the most likely long-term competition to higher education will come from organizations with fundamentally different organizational structures, such as research agencies, training departments in large corporations, or workplace-based training opportunities at small businesses (which people might come to find to be much more compelling than long, residential degree programmes). Likewise, small NGOs or consultancies with extensive, virtual research networks might be able to perform many of the traditional research functions of universities much more efficiently than universities themselves. While the above examples are not about ICT use per se, the operations of these types of competitors, which are generally more flexible than the average higher education institution, are very well placed to harness ICTs to enable them to perform their functions more cost-efficiently (and possibly better, but also possibly worse) than universities and technikons. There is no attempt in the above to suggest that these forms of competition will necessarily perform better than higher education institutions, although we believe that current structural inefficiencies in the organization of higher education institutions leave those institutions ill-equipped to cope with serious competition. We are, however, convinced that these types of competition are already starting to divert activities away from the higher education system, and hence are eroding its income base. This is a far more serious threat to higher education than any perceived reduction of funding from the national fiscus. 

Our descriptions above suggest both that trends initiated by ICT use offer unique opportunities to higher education and that they pose several threats. For this reason, it is critical to turn our attention to the current policy environment, to determine the extent to which it has prepared the higher education system to exploit these opportunities and to cope with the threats. While the observations below are not necessarily specific to higher education, they are as relevant to that sector as any other.

 Regulatory frameworks and complexity 

South Africa is at a critical moment of reviewing the progress it has made as a fledgling democracy, seeking to consolidate its gains and extend these by analysing where intention has been misguided or has not been matched by the practicalities of implementation. This applies particularly to the education system, which is widely acknowledged as a central pillar of any effort to ensure the country’s economic competitiveness and its capacity to deliver on promises of redressing historical imbalances and creating a better life for all. This helps to explain why the education sector has been the focus of so many intensive policy processes over the past five years. 

Nevertheless, despite significant achievements in creating a new policy environment, we believe that this intensive attention and activity has not necessarily all had its desired effect. The country’s education policy processes have been the location of some of the most creative ideas internationally, ideas that have been drawn from extensive research and from detailed discussion and debate involving a wide range of interests. Unfortunately, though, it has to be added that – in sum – these good ideas have created a policy environment that is weighing down effective, large-scale delivery of high quality education because it has become far too complicated for a system the size of South African education and has created unrealistic demands in terms of speed of delivery. 

Various features of the South African education landscape have exacerbated this problem, and continue to do so in higher education as much as any other sector. Below we describe some of the most relevant.

Attempting to solve all problems simultaneously

Developing countries share at least one common problem; there are more urgent social problems to solve than there are time or resources to solve them. Faced with so many urgent problems, it becomes very difficult – some would argue almost impossible – to establish priorities, as focusing on one course of action over another often involves taking decisions that may be construed as ignoring fundamental human rights or even – at its most extreme – leading to loss of life (through poverty, disease, unemployment, and other core social problems). This makes it increasingly tempting to want to solve all problems together, as prioritization simply forces decisions that are too difficult to take. Education policy reflects this dilemma. In a very short space of time, South Africans have sought to develop policy solutions to almost every conceivable educational problem. Unfortunately, though, we have also discovered that the resources simply do not exist to solve all these problems, with the result that a scarce resource base has been stretched over an impossibly diverse range of implementation processes. 

This has at least four consequences:

1.       It heightens awareness of problems amongst education practitioners, leaving them feeling increasingly concerned about the scale of educational problems and increasingly powerless to solve any of these problems. This occurs not only because education policy raises awareness about specific problems, but also because it places responsibility on these practitioners for implementing policy. Thus, policy commitments are not only commitments on the part of government, but also set the direction for all members of the system for which the policy is intended. The burden simply becomes too great for people to bear. Thus, even those fully committed to educational change and provision of high quality education lose focus and the will to continue the good work they are doing.

2 .      It spreads resources – human and financial – across many problem-solving exercises, with the result that very few problems ever actually get solved in a sustainable way. Because people are working frantically to solve so many problems in education and implement so many new systems, success is very rarely achieved. Not only does this lead to massive loss of productivity, as these efforts and activities are spread so wide that they very seldom lead to results, it also fosters disillusionment amongst those who perceive there to be no progress in educational delivery. This helps to explain why the process of breaking the cycle described in the previous section has not occurred. In the face of so many problems, we tend to lose focus, which in turn inhibits our capacity to act on anything.

3.     It erodes opportunities for professional development. A feature of the South African education sector is that a small number of skilled people are responsible for the bulk of work in that sector, most of whom are working unusually long hours simply to deal with their workload. This workload proliferates as policy seeks to tackle more and more educational problems. As policy proliferates, the opportunities available for these skilled people to support the professional development of others – which, in whatever form and structure such professional development takes place, remains the only way to build the capacity of other people and the country as a whole – is eroded. This is a very dangerous self-reinforcing cycle, as well as a major threat to meaningful affirmative action aimed at redressing racial inequities in the country.

4.     Strategies to harness ICTs effectively are generally moved to the bottom of priority lists by default. This is not because decision-makers do not appreciate the importance of such strategies, but rather because, in the face of so many pressing short-term problems, it becomes difficult to find time and mental space to engage with the complexities surrounding effective integration of ICTs into national education systems. We wish to stress that we are not intimating that there are no strategies to integrate ICTs into education, but rather that urgency prevents these strategies from being conceptualized and implemented effectively. We believe this is at least one key reason why so many ICT-related projects focus almost exclusively on the somewhat easier, but on its own, futile task of purchasing and installing ICT infrastructure.

Policy as the response to educational problems

Another feature has contributed to the policy landscape we described above, and that is a tendency, when identifying an educational problem of any kind, to want to develop a policy solution to it. Obviously, this leads to proliferation of policy instruments. As importantly, many of these policy instruments are developed with only the problem they seek to solve in mind, thus leading to the danger that they might create tensions with existing policy positions. For example, this has become a particular issue in the area of schooling, which is now split across two policy implementation areas, GET and FET. The result has been a sense of confusion about the relative status of different policy pronouncements pertaining to these different areas and how these pronouncements affect a sector undergoing rapid transformation. 

More importantly, though, they leave the problem identified unsolved, as policy only sets a framework for solving problems, it does not solve the problems in itself. Here, we are not intending to suggest that all policy falls into this category; indeed, much of South Africa’s education policy has been a critical element of education transformation. We do, however, believe that (a) there is, in some circles, a mistaken belief that policy actually solves problems and (b) some policy delves into operational issues, for which practical solutions, rather than policy pronouncements would be more appropriate. 

There is a real danger that response to the kinds of challenges presented by ICT use might follow this kind of pattern. A simple example of this might be to establish a policy pronouncement on the importance of integrating data warehouses into institutional and national decision-making systems, when actually an implementation strategy is all that is needed. A more worrying example of such policy might be to prevent institutions that have already made developments in these areas from being allowed to continue this work unheeded, because it is felt that they are gaining ‘unfair’ advantages over other institutions. This type of thinking only erodes the capacity of the entire system, without making any meaningful contribution to building the capacity of historically disadvantaged institutions. In this example, a more sensible strategy would be to work proactively to share the benefits of lessons of successful application of ICTs in supporting management decisions across the whole system, an activity that requires no policy pronouncements to be successfully implemented. Given the nature of the field, it is also an activity for which funding can easily be secured. Its success, however, does depend entirely on the creativity and passion of the people responsible for implementing it, so innovative strategies for securing the right human resources would need to be found.

Solving the policy proliferation cycle

In summary, then, we believe that South Africa’s policy implementation environment is caught in a self-reinforcing cycle that looks something as follows

 

It is important to stress that the above diagram is not intended to describe the only possible systemic cycle for policy development, it simply outlines current cycles. This is important because we are not suggesting that policy is problematic per se, only when it contributes to the above self-reinforcing cycle. In South Africa, this has emerged in large part not because the policy framework itself is problematic, but rather because the timeframes for its implementation – set in acknowledgement of the urgency of the problems it seeks to resolve – have created impossible demands on the system and its human resources. 

As we have outlined above, proliferation of policy and regulation, as well as of the structures established to implement them, poses serious risks to the capacity of the higher education system to administer itself effectively and to cope with growing competition from different sources. It also undermines the possibility of being able to harness ICT applications effectively in support of these goals. However, we have also acknowledged that each individual policy and/or regulatory instrument in itself is not the cause of the problem. Many of these instruments are based on sound thinking and good ideas. Of course, the intuitive solution to problems pertaining to the size and shape of higher education is to regulate this more closely. We believe, however, that this would perpetuate the cycles described above. Often, the most appropriate solution to problems of this nature is to take a counter-intuitive measure, which the Size and Shape Task Team is ideally placed to recommend. Below we provide some ideas of what this might entail.

Too many education policy structures

A key consequence of the above-described policy landscape has been proliferation of policy implementation structures. By this, we refer to agencies or units that have been established with the specific intention of giving practical weight to a policy position. Possibly the most central policy implementation structures in South African currently are those related to the National Qualifications Framework and to the Skills Development Act, such as the South African Qualifications Authority, National Standards Bodies, Education and Training Quality Assurers, Standards Generating Bodies, and Sector Education and Training Authorities.[1] There are, however, many others, at both national and provincial level, some of which have been established since 1994, others of which are a legacy of the apartheid education system. 

The problem, simply stated, is that there are too many policy implementation structures pertaining to South African education, both in terms of the conceptual and bureaucratic complexity that each adds to the system and in terms of the resource requirements of implementing each successfully. Most policy implementation structures, when viewed on their own, have well considered rationales and reasons underlying their establishment. Taken together, however, they are placing too great a strain on the systems they are intended to serve. South Africa simply cannot afford to have such a major percentage of its available human resource involved in establishing and administering policy frameworks, given that this moves people away from the day-to-day implementation of education itself. 

Further, the system as a whole is simply not prepared for the level of complexity demanded by many of these policy frameworks. Many of these systems are based on highly complex educational concepts, difficult enough to implement in a single programme or institution let alone an entire national system. Further, South Africa has drawn strongly on systems being put in place in developed countries, where the conceptual complexity embedded in policy implementation systems has evolved over many years in systems that have had the benefit of reasonably lengthy political and social stability. Although most of these concepts make educational sense, their conversion into national policy implementation systems over only a few years does not. Again, its impact is to overburden the limited resources in that system. 

Hard as it may be to do, therefore, we believe it is necessary to take hard political decisions to slow down – or even halt – certain policy implementation processes, as they are creating unprecedented demands on the country’s public education systems, demands which those systems simply cannot meet. The reader will note that we have avoided any intimation thus far of which policy structures should be viewed as higher or lower priority, which should be maintained and which either frozen or dismantled. This is not because we do not have opinions of the priorities, but because they will have to be established through political processes and specific critical review processes (such as the one currently being undertaken for on how best to manage the size and shape of higher education). It would be unhelpful to preempt these processes by suggesting which policy structures should be dismantled to create additional space for successful implementation of those that remain.

At a high level, though, decisions have to be taken to halt or significantly slow the pace of certain policy implementation processes, with a view to giving the education system additional space to solve a small number of fundamental problems thoroughly and sustainably. This decision-making process will have to include decisions to dismantle – or temporarily freeze – identified policy implementation structures to create more distinctly phased implementation of policy frameworks. This raises a real concern for the Higher Education Size and Shape Task Team, as the proposals contained in its discussion document are likely, if anything, to add even more structures and policy processes to the existing system.

Too many regulations

Flexibility is becoming increasingly important as education systems are becoming expected to serve an ever-growing diversity of needs and target groups of learners. It is also fundamental to harnessing ICTs to support education systems effectively, as integration of ICTs into systems inevitably creates ongoing pressures for change to the structures of those systems. The more complex policies and procedures become, the less flexible they become and the less flexibility they allow in the operations of people and organizations governed by those policies and procedures. There is also a serious risk that, by creating regulatory frameworks that are too complicated to be administered effectively, one opens the door to serious subversion of the system, as rapid growth in ‘fly-by-night’ education has demonstrated. The simpler policy and regulatory frameworks are, the better, both in terms of flexibility and quality assurance. 

South African policy seeks to regulate far too many aspects of education in its efforts to assure quality and expand the size of the system. This regulatory framework is becoming highly constrictive, and is also significantly too complicated to be administered effectively, particularly given the country’s human resource constraints. While the intention of most of this regulatory framework has been to improve quality, it is instead opening huge spaces for poor quality education practices, because regulatory frameworks are too complex to be administered effectively. 

At a high level, decisions have to be taken to massively simplify regulation of education, so that it can focus on ensuring that a few basic aspects of education are implemented effectively and accountably. These decisions should involve focusing attention first on ensuring that money allocated to different education functions is spent on those functions, rather than on cross-subsidizing other practices. Once accountability in this area has been significantly improved, it will become possible to add other regulatory layers that focus on building quality and ensuring better planning.[2]

Policy implementation

South African education is faced with an additional problem related to policy implementation. South Africans have grown extraordinarily accustomed to heavy-handed regulation as a norm for policy implementation, a legacy of a society run as a police state for many years. Unfortunately, though, while the police state has been dismantled, the underlying social desire to regulate all aspects of life has proven harder to abandon. This becomes clear if one attempts to take a bird’s-eye view of education policy. While each individual policy instrument appears reasonable in its own right, their sum is a highly complex, detailed set of regulations that seeks to cover almost every aspect and detail of education implementation. While there is no evidence that any individual piece of policy has sought to become controlling in this way, it is becoming clear that the complete framework ends up attempting to ensure quality by controlling every aspect of education implementation. 

This problem has been massively exacerbated by the agencies responsible for implementation of policy, which are still very much driven by this mindset of excessive regulation. Many of these agencies are still almost the same as those responsible for administering apartheid education, but even many new agencies staffed by people who had nothing to do with apartheid education are driven by this mindset (showing how deeply embedded the apartheid system has become in all South Africans). The result of this has been totally unexpected proliferation of administrative bureaucracy that significantly burdens education practitioners at several levels throughout the system. Thus, while the policy framework itself reflects many changes from that which governed apartheid education, its implementation is still very reminiscent of apartheid education systems. This has stifled individual innovation and creativity, as well as perpetuating a mindset in which individuals assume little or no responsibility for their own actions, instead holding ‘higher authorities’ accountable for problems in the system. The current policy implementation environment still encourages this culture of non-accountability, precisely because it seeks to provide detailed regulation of almost every aspect of education implementation, rather than a simple regulatory framework that focuses on ensuring accountability in only a few critical areas of implementation. We regard this as essential not because we believe that all responsibility should be decentralized, but rather because we believe that, when central agencies seek to control all aspects of education provision, the systems of accountability will become too complicated to monitor effectively. Hence, we propose reducing the number of areas in which this accountability to central authorities is expected, so that these areas can be effectively monitored and improved. 

It is important to stress that, in making these comments, we do not intend to advocate decentralization of authority. There are critical roles for central agencies to play in ensuring quality of education provision. We are, however, suggesting that the number of areas and elements of education provision that need to be centrally regulated is far fewer than those currently being regulated. Attempts to regulate too many aspects of education implementation make it impossible to regulate anything effectively, as resource constraints and the complexity of detailed regulatory frameworks will derail such efforts. We do believe that regulation is important, but are arguing that there need to be only a few, simple and clear indicators of quality that ensure accountability. They should focus on fewer aspects of quality, and ensure that they are met. Implementation of such regulatory frameworks should remain the responsibility of central government agencies. 

Further, it is important to differentiate between regulation and support. Regulations set rules that people must follow or face legal action of some kind, while support creates no such obligations. Detailed support should not be confused with a detailed regulatory framework, as it creates no expectations that people must use the support services offered or make changes because of them. It aims simply to create an increasingly supportive education environment. The draft paper of the Size and Shape Task Team is an interesting example in this regard, as it reflects an attempt to use regulation to establish the boundaries of institutional operations, rather than seeking to work with individual institutions on a case-by-case basis to support their own development of realistic missions.

Policy implementation and ICTs

Throughout this paper, we have stressed that integration of ICTs into higher education is largely uncharted territory, and that the only meaningful way to learn how best to manage this integration is to support well-planned exploration and develop a system where lessons learned from such exploration is systematically integrated into new projects. We have also argued that this iterative process is one that the South African higher education system cannot ignore, as to do so will only render the system as a whole less competitive and more vulnerable to the vagaries of global trends in educational ICT use. 

Unfortunately, however, a regulatory environment such as that described above is not conducive to such exploration, nor is a policy environment in which new policy instruments are continually overlaid onto existing policy. Such environments simply introduce too many inflexibilities and bureaucratic requirements to enable the benefits of such exploration to filter through into the system

Why is this relevant to use of ICTs?

Throughout our analysis of the policy environment, we have attempted to include observations that highlight how these problems affect the integration of relevant and effective ICTs into the higher education system. In summary, though, there is a real danger that attempts to regulate the size and shape of higher education may simply become another ‘sophisticated’ educational layer or controlling regulatory framework to South African policy implementation, adding further strain to an already overly complicated policy environment. We have noted similar trends with concern around the implementation of outcomes-based education (where the ever-growing diversity of concepts and high-level educational ideas has made policy unintelligible to the average educator). 

In the context of this paper, it is a matter of particular concern that attempts to deal effectively with the challenges posed by ICTs could further exacerbate the above trends. As we have noted, ICTs introduce significant new opportunities for organizing and providing education (more of which are described in more detail in the following section), and there is little doubt that current policy frameworks do not provide an adequate framework for regulating some of the changes they facilitate or of which they are part. The most notable examples in this regard are probably:

•     Growth of distance education practices at traditionally contact institutions (which usually involves ICT applications, even if only at the level of making it easier to produce printed materials and develop administrative systems for larger numbers of students);

•     Provision of education programmes by international providers, particularly those simply offering web-based courses without establishing any physical presence in the country;

•     Growing involvement of the private sector in higher education provision, and increased potential for public-private partnerships in higher education. 

One response to these types of challenges, as well as many others that will no doubt emerge, would be to establish new policy and regulatory frameworks for each of these areas. For example, in the following section we describe weaknesses inherent in the traditional distinction between distance and contact education, one of which is that integration of ICTs into teaching and learning environments has made the notion of distance increasingly difficult to interpret because it now covers so much variance of education practice. This also explodes the traditional notion that ‘distance education’ is cheaper than ‘contact education’, although this notion still forms the basis of national funding formulae. In terms of the above, the danger would be realized if a new policy framework to govern ‘ICT-based education’ were developed, while leaving the existing policy frameworks for governing contact and distance education untouched. 

As we have noted above, though, we believe that South Africa is already straining under the weight of too many policy frameworks and structures. It is essential that attempts to regulate the way in which ICTs are used in education focus first on resolving these problems. Thus, in the example above, a better solution would be to create a single, streamlined policy framework covering all educational delivery strategies – focused more closely on systemic outputs and how to assure their quality and financing mechanisms. 

There is, of course, another dimension to the problem. This is that the growing policy complexity described above adds growing burdens to the country’s management information systems, as it demands growing amounts of statistical data about more and more areas of education provision (the data requirements generated by SAQA is a good example of this). As these demands grow, the possibility for obtaining better management information is also compromised, as it becomes progressively harder to maintain increasingly complicated ICT applications and systems. The creative process of developing new ICT applications to support effective strategic decision-making depends on not overburdening existing ICT systems in this kind of way. Consequently, another benefit of streamlining policy and regulation will be that it contributes to breaking the decision-making systems cycle outlined above. This is because management information requirements at national level can also then be streamlined, creating a cascading effect through the system, as each management information system at different levels in higher education will have fewer demands placed on it from higher-level systems, enabling sleeker design and more attention to functionality that the system provides for the level at which it is operating.

 Some practical applications 

ICTs and decision-making

Above we have described some of the more obvious trends emerging from growing ICT use around the world, primarily in the form of the challenges they pose to South Africa’s higher education system. Before we attempt to indicate how these challenges can most effectively be met, it is useful to give further illustration of systemic cycles in operation. This is presented not as research fact (as we have noted above, this is simply not possible in this field), but as potential scenarios that we believe policy makers should actively seek to combat. 

A key development in ICT applications has been growing use of electronic management information systems to inform strategic decision-making. This application has grown fastest in the private sector, as people have sought to leverage value out of the databases that they have developed to support their day-to-day operations. Most recently, investments have gone into building data warehousing systems, [3] which extract data from these operational systems and convert it into analytical reports that can inform strategic decisions. As these data warehouses become more sophisticated and are implemented for longer periods, they also permit more detailed historical analysis and comparison of data, also with a view to supporting decision-making. 

Thus, there is major potential to use ICT applications to support the creation of self-improving systems. This is because well-designed management information systems can make it easier for system managers to identify emerging trends, to monitor historical shifts, and to gauge the impact of changes much more quickly. These types of functionality make it easier to analyse weaknesses in decisions that have been taken and to change strategic direction based on this analysis. In part at least, this helps to explain why ICTs have led to growing perceptions of rapid change. 

Obviously, the success of systems of these kinds depends entirely on how well they have been designed and the quality of the data that goes into those systems. As a global trend, however, it is fair to suggest that the effectiveness of these kinds of operations is generally improving where they exist, and, as a broad trend, ensuring that decisions are based on more accurate information. It is not unreasonable to speculate that systems which develop and harness these applications most effectively stand to make the quickest improvements in their operations, while those that do not will tend to remain the most static, least responsive to any change, and hence the least competitive. 

From this perspective, it becomes clear that deploying electronic management information systems to support strategic decision-making has serious potential to create the following dangerous self-reinforcing cycle.

The above cycle provides a partial explanation for why ICTs might be accentuating disparities between rich and poor, as better resourced systems are generally (although not always) better equipped with the necessary infrastructure and expertise to implement such self-improving systems. More importantly, though, the above cycle suggests that the better a system functions, the better resourced it will tend to become. While such an explanation is obviously not a complete explanation for why any given system will function effectively and become better resourced, it does provide clear direction on how it can become possible to break the cycles that entrench and extend social disparities. 

As we have noted earlier, ICT applications are only as effective as the creativity of the people who design them. So, spending large sums of money on ICT infrastructure and even on building applications provides no guarantee of effectiveness, it only adds more of the conditions necessary for success. Unless these are being harnessed effectively, adding more of them will have no new impact. Conversely, with creativity, it is possible to begin building ICT applications that can have notable effects with limited budgets, provided minimum barriers to entry have been met (and we would argue that the ICT infrastructure in South Africa, as well as the skills base, meets these minimum barriers to entry). So the key to breaking the above cycle is to develop clear vision on how ICT applications could be deployed to support strategic decision-making and to begin building and implementing these applications. 

There is, however, a danger implicit in this, and that is the desire to find short cuts for building and implementing ICT applications that facilitate the emergence of better systems. This is that, particularly in resource-scarce environments, it is always tempting to ‘borrow’ the best ideas and applications from well-functioning systems as a short-cut to solving the problems raised above. Unfortunately, this logic omits the reality that well-functioning systems function well precisely because they are designed for the context in which they function. ICT applications supporting such systems inevitably also work successfully because they are designed specifically to support such systems. Thus, transporting applications from one system to another is not a meaningful strategy for breaking the above cycle. Such applications have to be designed specifically for the context in which they will be used (although it will, then, of course, be possible to integrate specific tools and components of other applications into this overall design). Again, a clear vision of how the applications will improve decision-making is critical. 

There are significant opportunities for doing this successfully in this country, but these do not yet appear to have been taken yet. The most obvious symptom of this is the difficulty the country still faces in generating data from Education Management Information Systems (EMIS)  about statistical trends in the system.[4] As we have noted, South Africa has the necessary infrastructure and skills to harness ICTs to support more effective strategic decision-making, but still lacks the clear vision of how to deploy these effectively. This is partly because many of the decision-makers responsible for ICT-related decisions pertaining to South African higher education lack any real vision of how the technologies could be deployed more imaginatively. International scarcity of ICT-related skills has also left many institutional IT departments and government EMIS units severely depleted. It also does not help that one software company holds a virtual monopoly in provision of management information systems to South African universities and technikons, thus providing little motivation for creativity coming from outsourcing arrangements.

Supporting management and administration

If senior management is not functioning effectively, this significantly complicates the challenge of providing high quality education. In such examples, there is a strong case to be made for restructuring and improving senior management – and building mechanisms to ensure its accountability, both upwards and to its employees – before pouring large quantities of funding into training of middle- and lower level employees in an education system. In terms of chronology – many interventions aimed at improving education implementation will be wasted until management problems and weaknesses are solved. 

There are strong links between management and administration, but the two should not be confused. Effective management does not necessarily lead to efficient administration, particularly if that management is working in an environment that demands a range of unnecessary and laborious administrative functions to be undertaken to fulfil the requirements of central bureaucracies. Management at higher education institutions can also be supported by strategic investments focusing on streamlining and simplifying administration. 

In both cases, we believe that there are very strong cases to be made for using ICTs to support the development of more effective management and administration of higher education, using the kinds of ideas we have presented in the previous section. As an aside, it is probably worth noting that any attempt to restructure the size and shape of higher education – no matter what recommendations it contains – will be doomed to failure unless these ideas are successfully implemented. This is because implementation of policy in areas such as this inevitably has a range of unintended consequences.[5] The effectiveness of any policy in forging change is constrained by the fact that policy is implemented in a social context, and human behaviour is unpredictable. Moreover, where policy interfaces with reality, in real contexts, there are real interests at stake. The way in which human beings and institutions respond to policy where their interest are at stake is a very real issue that policy-makers have to take into account. Further, whereas there is a clear limit to the scope of specific policy, the space in which that policy is implemented is often shared with other systems and policy. These systems interface and overlap with each other. Finally, the relationship between policy and time is important. On the one hand, the consequences of policy interventions often only become apparent after a long period of time has elapsed. On the other, policy is developed as a response to a system as it is at a particular time. If the system changes but the policy remains, it is doubtful whether the intended outcomes will be achieved. 

Effective management information reports and historical snapshots of key trends captured in analytical reports can be used to manage these kinds of problems, and to shift implementation strategies as context changes. Using these kinds of functions, it will also be easier to target problem areas in the system and focus efforts on getting these functioning effectively, rather than implementing blanket solutions to perceived problems. 

Regretfully, however, these types of suggestions cannot be de-linked from the overarching point about management and administration. As there is no point in introducing elaborate restructuring of systems where management is not equipped to deal with the implications of such restructuring, there is equally no point in attempting to integrate more effective management information systems into higher education at national and institutional level unless this happens as part of a broader process of developing the system’s overall management capacity. Thus, while ICT applications can undoubtedly contribute to solving key administrative and management problems, there introduction can also run the risk of perpetuating those problems because of the way they are introduced. This is not a Catch-22 situation; it simply requires creative implementation strategies, realistic timeframes, and a supportive approach from national level.

ICTs and communication

Free flow of information is a cornerstone of any successful democracy. It is also essential to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of any system, particularly systems of the scale of those responsible for higher education in South Africa. The best policy documents in the world have no value if they are not understood and their visions shared by those responsible for their implementation. In this regard, sharing information from the centre to local implementation sites is not sufficient. Cheap, speedy mechanisms for communication, problem-sharing, and discussion are fundamental to building shared understanding and ownership of policy visions. Education transformation becomes almost impossible if two-way communication is not reliable and speedy, if people at different levels in the system feel excluded from the flow of information or unable to contribute to or question it. It will be thwarted at every turn if people at these different levels then use the information they receive as a strategy for consolidating their own little education empires. 

Possibly most worrying is problems around communication at national and provincial levels. There are two notable trends in this regard. First, many bureaucrats, themselves confused by the bewildering array of new terms and concepts pervading current policy, have projected this confusion onto those constituencies they are meant to be serving. Thus, when real understanding of the underlying educational meaning of these terms is absent, people revert to literal definitions of different terms, using these to ‘explain’ policy to those with whom they engage. This problem is widespread, and severely retarding effective education implementation.  

Second, when communication systems are not working effectively and allowing free flow of information, the possibility of people using information as a strategy for maintaining ‘territorial’ power bases is massively increased. Many people in positions of power deliberately use information as a strategy for maintaining a perceived power base. Obviously, this problem is neither limited to education nor to South Africa. However, territorialism of function, both within the Department of Education and between the Department of Education and other government departments remains a major impediment to effective implementation. Current power struggles existing in education between directorates, between national and provincial competencies, and between the Department of Education and other government departments are negatively affecting development and attainment of a common vision and purpose. We are not intending here to suggest that this problem is recent. On the contrary, territorialism was a key feature of education structures governing apartheid education. However, unfortunately little progress has been made in the last five years towards solving this problem, which has now become deeply entrenched within the new education system. Such territorialism becomes much harder to sustain where communication systems allow free two-way flow of information.  

Equally regretfully, such territorialism is equally rife within and between higher education institutions. There are at least three reasons for this:

•     Poor internal management. Most higher education institutions we have worked with are staffed by people who feel bewildered and isolated from the changes taking pace nationally and restructuring taking place institutionally because they are not part of ongoing communication around these changes. Such problems could easily be resolved by establishing more effective communication systems, stimulating flow of easy-to-understand information on changes from management to employees and channels of communication to discuss concerns and misunderstanding.

•     Staff members function as individuals, not as part of an organization. This problem is particularly pervasive in universities, where the ethic of the academic working in isolation is still dominant. While there are no doubt certain types of work where this model is still most effective, as a strategy for creating a coherent, sustainable organization able to compete effectively with organizations from increasingly diverse sectors, it is disastrous. Thus, building an ethic of information-sharing and communication remains a major challenge for higher education systems.

•     Public higher education systems are still primarily competing with each other. Above, we have noted many forms of competition that we believe pose very real threats to higher education, and all of them have been from outside the public higher education system. We have also argued that such competition cannot be curtailed through regulation, as it will simply mutate to bypass that regulation. Regretfully, though, public higher education institutions still see themselves as primarily competing with one another – for students and research grants – with the result that the system as a whole is becoming progressively less competitive. At least one reason for this is that it increases inter-institutional suspicions, hence minimizing flow of information between institutions. 

At the same time as most current communication systems are not efficient enough, they are also very expensive, relying primarily as they do on physical circulation of large quantities of paper, much of which never reaches its intended destination. Worse, these paper-based systems rely heavily on the goodwill of a massive human chain for communication between the centre and local sites of activity to work effectively. When taken in combination with problems of territorialism, this spells disaster for effective communication.  

For these reasons, establishment and maintenance of cheap, reliable systems of communication should be identified as a primary priority for the Ministry of Education. Measurable goals should be established to ensure that progress is made quickly in this regard, with clear rewards and penalties for not achieving agreed goals. These could focus on many areas, but should certainly include strategic investments in use of e-mail should be made to facilitate communication. Already, most key players in management and administration in South African higher education have access to e-mail facilities, so these investments should not be limited to widening infrastructure. They could include distribution of regular, open subscription e-mail newsletters targeting different themes (as well as active recruitment of e-mail addresses to be added to these lists, as even South Africans with e-mail addresses are not yet particularly proactive in searching out information). They could also include establishment of chat forums to explain and discuss key policy positions. Support could also be provided to individual institutions to help them streamline and improve their own communication systems. 

They should, however, also incorporate strategic investments in new information technology infrastructure, as well as negotiations with telecommunications providers (Telkom and cellular providers) to widen access to e-mail facilities and make this cheaper and more reliable. These latter investments and negotiations could be undertaken in partnership with the Department of Communication. More detailed ideas are contained in The Feasibility of Establishing a Dedicated Educational Broadcasting Service in South Africa, a policy research document on technological convergence recently completed for the Departments of Education and Communication. 

Establishing electronic communication systems is, however, only as useful as the information that flows through those systems. Thus, implementation of strategies to use ICTs to support more effective communication have to be linked to strategies to improve the quality of management information systems, as described above.

 Conclusion 

This section of the report has focused on ways in which ICT applications affect higher education systems in South Africa. It has attempted to engage with several underlying trends characterizing integration of ICTs into higher education, while also posing several key challenges to policy-makers at national and institutional level. Importantly, it has developed a consistent theme throughout that focuses on the importance of using ICTs to support the development of better quality management information systems. This focus has been deliberate, because discussion about ICT use in education so quickly devolves to micro-level analysis of how these technologies can be used to deliver education to learners. Thinking about ICTs to support teaching and learning is a false starting point, as it assumes effective underlying systems. We have, therefore, attempted to steer the argument in favour of applications of ICTs that seek to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of these systems. 

We would argue that this point is not, however, simply about systemic or management issues. At heart, it is, in fact, about the effective implementation of the core functions of higher education. As we noted earlier, for example, we believe that effective use of ICTs in the domain of teaching and learning flows much more easily when systems have already integrated effectives use of ICTs into their managements and internal communication systems. Without this base, use of ICTs to support delivery of education to learners will always be unsustainable. With this in mind, we now turn our attention to ICTs and teaching and learning.

 Footnotes 

[1] As a simple illustration, many people now refer to one or more of these structures by their acronym only. If we had, written the above sentence in such a way, we would have referred to the NQF, SAQA, NSBs, ETQAs, SGBs, and SETAs, a combination daunting enough to unnerve the most seasoned of educators.

[2] We have avoided specific examples where we believe such simplification could take place, although we believe there are several areas that emerge as obvious candidates. We have deliberately avoided such detail, because we are aware that implementing this recommendation will be a politically sensitive process, and believe that this process would only make that political process more difficult by raising levels of defensiveness in certain areas of educational implementation before political consensus on where to simplify regulation has been reached.

[3] A data warehouse is a central repository for all or significant parts of the data that an enterprise's various business systems collect. The term was coined by W. H. Inmon. IBM sometimes uses the term "information warehouse." Typically, a data warehouse is housed on an enterprise mainframe server. Data from various online transaction processing (OLTP) applications and other sources is selectively extracted and organized on the data warehouse database for use by analytical applications and user queries. Taken from (2000). Whatis.com, Data Warehousing Definition,. http://www.whatis.com/,19/05/2000. 

[4] A good example of this is the recent example that has emerged of large distance education programmes ‘stealing’ students from historically disadvantaged students, a concern that at least partially appears to have prompted the current moratorium on new distance education programmes at traditionally contact institutions. Analysis of this particular concern would tend to suggest that it is unfounded, but there is totally inadequate statistical data to demonstrate either its correctness of incorrectness. By virtue of the dominance of full-time contact tuition, historically disadvantaged institutions typically attract younger students studying before beginning their careers. Conversely, the big new distance education programmes all tend to fall in fields such as Nursing and Teaching, and to be aimed at working students. The age profile of such students would then seem to be significantly different from those who might have attended historically disadvantaged institutions. Unfortunately, though, without up-to-date, accurate management information, it is not possible to determine the validity of these observations.

[5] Appendix two provides a brief description of how policies often have unintended consequences.