The advent of democracy opened learning opportunities for all students and racial segregation no longer characterizes institutions of higher learning in South Africa. The racially diverse student body confronts universities with the challenge of racial tension amongst students as well as staff. Recent protest movements such as #Rhodesmustfall and #FeesMustFall have highlighted uneasy race relations in South African universities. Although such incidents are crucial, equally important are the everyday realities of race relations that continue to define the lives of students in these institutions. The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth understanding of student leaders‟ experiences of race relations at a South African university. A qualitative research approach was adopted to shed light on these experiences. Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit six student leaders of various races. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. The analysis of the interview material revealed that the history of South Africa as a racially segregated, unequal society affects race relations. Racial discrimination and distrust hamper racial integration in the student body and external factors such as politics also affect student leaders‟ experiences of race relations. Even though friendships afford opportunities for good race relations, they are largely class dependent. It is recommended that the university invest into personnel diversity training and the creation of platforms for intercultural and interracial exchanges within the university. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Psychology / MA (Research Psychology) / Unrestricted

Doctor Educationis / The #FeesMustFall (#FMF) movement which began in 2015 and continued in 2016 was initially a call for free tuition, but soon grew to include substantial academic demands, quickly spiralling into violence and destruction of property. This required university leaders to step into roles for which they were largely untrained and inexperienced –– even for those who were once among the ranks of the protesting students. Neither the operational systems nor the personnel had ever conceived of or anticipated such an unprecedented revolt, and the leadership had to summon all their intuition and acumen to navigate, deciding whether to merely defend their institutions or to concede to students’ demands. Did they manage the moment or lead it, and did they steel their institutions against similar future confrontations? This study used an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) approach to answer the primary research question, and to understand the lived experiences of the participants, which aligned with the interpretive paradigm. Leadership theories and chaos and complexity theories were employed and provided the lens through which the data was collected and analysed. Semi-structured interviews were used as data collection methods with 29 participants. University leaders and staff who did not belong to the leadership band of universities, from six universities participated in the study. The findings revealed that South African university leaders are not adequately trained to lead during crises, and that leadership-enhancement programmes need to be developed to include this component in the training of future leaders for the higher education sector. It further revealed that the Department of Higher Education and Training should take a proactive role in training and supporting university leaders, as well as developing a national communication strategy. This research makes a contribution towards crisis leadership in the South African higher education sector by providing insights for both university leaders as well as the Ministry of Higher Education and Training, as well as proposing a model of crisis leadership.

Magister Artium - MA / The #FeesMustFall (#FMF) movement is an important moment in South Africa as it provides insight into the evolution of the relations between state and civil society. An inquiry into the 2015/2016 student protests at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) shows the contradictions that persist in South African society twenty years after apartheid. The study examines the reaction of the state to the dissent embodied by #FMF demands. Drawing on Gramsci and Althusser the study develops a framework against which #FMF is assessed, in order to test whether the movement was counter-hegemonic, if so, to what extent. The assessment is done using a qualitative approach to the research; i.e. auto-ethnography, which relies on the experiences of the author, as a tool of data collection. The selection of this technique is informed by the proximity of the author to the protests, and scarcity of prior research done on the UWC #FMF case. Also, the study uses primary data such as media statements, media articles, YouTube videos, speeches, interviews and personal communications as a means to triangulate the auto-ethnographic data. The data gives insight into the origins of the movement at UWC, the motivations of, and the tactics employed by the leaders. The movement at UWC shuts down the campus, blocks national roads, marches to the airport and even disrupts exams in attempts to see its mission through; a mission of Fee Free Education. Finally, drawing on the framework from Gramsci and Althusser this study notes the persistence of contradictions such as access to higher education in democratic South Africa. It shows the battle for hegemony between the state and civil society and identifies the dominance of the state, and how it deals with those who challenge it. To this end, #FMF does embody some counter-hegemonic quality. However, the study also reveals how #FMF carries out its actions in the boundaries of hegemonic institutions such as the constitution and the university. Hence, the extent of #FMF’s counter-hegemony went as far as affecting the operations of the university and not the structure thereof. As such, #FMF, like other radical civil society agents of its kind, is an example of issue based and temporary counter-hegemony. Although significant, it is not necessarily that which would see the complete overthrow of the university, or the state for that matter.

Masters of Art / Nandi, Java and Uuka are students at a Cape Town university, where they are enrolled in a film making course. Adela, their lecturer, will supervise their screenplay and film on a story which depicts the experience of the loss of land in South Africa. They are however also deeply involved in student protests for free university education for all. When the #feesmustfall protests reach a deadlock at their university and the university is temporarily closed, they decide to leave for the Eastern Cape to look for a story. There they stay with Uuka’s grandparents and spend their time trying to understand the family history and the family’s ownership of land, as well as the broader history of land dispossession. They do not only discover more about Uuka’s ancestors and about distant history, but also about themselves. As the characters delve more deeply into the past in their search for a story for a screenplay, the margins between their own stories and the screenplay shift and merge, as do the forms of novel and screenplay

The aim of this study was to determine the quality of work-life (QWL) of nurse educators at South African universities. The objectives of the research was to describe the demography, home, and work factors of these nurse educators, and its effect on their experience of QWL. It also entailed triangulation of these experiences with the perceptions of the heads of nursing departments (HODs) for a thorough understanding, and designing guidelines to address the situation. A mixed methods methodology was followed, with a partly mixed sequential equal status sampling design and equal weight to the first quantitative and second qualitative phases. The population for the first phase was all the nurse educators teaching at South African universities, who on invitation completed an electronic questionnaire. The data obtained was analysed by utilising both descriptive and inferential statistics. The population for the second phase was all the HODs of the nursing departments of the 22 South African universities. The qualitative data obtained in the second phase was analysed with the Atlas.ti 8 program. The results of the study indicate that nurse educators’ QWL is influenced by meso, macro and micro environmental factors, with work, home and individual situations that are contextual to the African and specifically South African positioning on the globe. A conceptual framework improving on Easton and Van Laar ‘s (2007) model are v proposed for the African higher education edcuation (HEI) context, to better understand these influences. Recommendations to address the situation include: • Mitigation of international, national and provinical influences through attention to curriculisation and improved governance and funding • Strengthening the structure across the HEIs by improved governance, consideration of salaries and benefits of all staff to be fair and equal, investing in good technology for better output, developing methods to distribute the workload fairly, and support to staff for research • Support of nursing departmental output by addressing the needs of HODs, line managers, the nurse educators themselves, supportive staff and students, with the focus on personal and individual factors that influence physical, mental and social health, inclusive of the support of family life The developed guidelines flows from application of industrial psychological principles to propose improving both the QWL and symbiotically, the output for HEI nursing departments. / Health Studies

M. Tech. (Department of Accountancy, Faculty of Management Sciences) Vaal University of Technology. / Efficient planning and effective budget and cost control are key to the financial survival of universities in South Africa. Given the #FeesMustFall, students and their parents, starting in 2018, no longer contribute to the development of new infrastructure, payroll expenditure, maintenance and other daily operational expenses of public universities in South Africa. A new funding model for higher education calls for even stricter planning and allocation of budgets to departments within an institution of higher education. Evenly important, stricter control over the actual spending of these allocated funds needs improved planning and implementation of more effective policies and procedures to answer to the needs of the post #FeesMustFall funding model. Public universities will then be even more greatly funded by taxpayer’s money via government grants. There is this constant factor of the current situation of the South African economy, which will always bring the need for best possible use of scarce resources of funds. To eliminate the abuse of funds and elements of corruption, internal control strategies and systematic automation of controls need to be employed and even more rigorously enforced. The current phenomenon of different political parties’ that interfere with autonomous public universities to use #FeesMustFall and free education as a political “play-ball” is in full swing. These political structures and unions will in all probability have a huge impact, largely on the principals and methods used to plan an annual budget and the procurement policies and procedures of operational needs and on the expenditure control in public universities in South Africa. This study investigates the budgetary planning processes and expenditure control in universities in Gauteng, South Africa. This research is done by means of a detailed empirical study of the budgeting processes, cost and expenditure control processes, procedures followed and the internal control mechanisms at some universities in Gauteng. The empirical study was conducted with public universities in Gauteng and applicable research online questionnaire were used to analyse. The primary objective of this empirical study was to investigate what budget model and budgetary processes and principles regarding decision making to allocate budgets to specific allocations in the budget. Furthermore, the research study investigated how cost management and expenditure are controlled and how internal control mechanisms are applied in higher education institutions that formed part of this study. This study investigated the manner in which the budgets for annual expenditure are planned and how the internal controls are employed to ensure effective control over expenditure at public universities in Gauteng, South Africa. This research is supported by a literature study into the role of higher education in South Africa, the different controlling bodies in South African Higher Education, funding of South African public universities, budgetary planning and earmarked spending, procurement and expenditure control and reporting by universities in South Africa.