Review
David Cooper and George Subotzky (2001) The
SkewedRevolution:trends in South African higher
education: 1988-1998. Bellville: Education Policy
Unit, University ofthe Western Cape
Trish Gibbon
‘Empiric’, Peter Burke reminds us, was ‘a traditional English term for
practitioners of alternative medicine, men and women innocentof theory’
(2000:16) whobasedtheir practice on the observation ofsymptoms. Dismissed
by Aristotle as mere description that could not rise to the level of true
knowledge, it took Francis Bacon to elevate empiricism to the status of a
serious scientific method, a method which followed‘neither the empiric ant,
mindlessly collecting data, nor the scholastic spider, spinning a web from
insideitself, but the bee, who both collects and digests’ (Burke 2000). This
also provides the terms within which Cooper and Subotzky’s detailed
empirical study of changes in the South African higher education system
over the decade 1988-1998 must be assessed. Whathas been collected, and
how hasit been digested?
    The authors describe their work as ‘a reference handbook of higher
education in South Africa based on detailed analysis ofselected SAPSE data
over the past decade’ (viii). In this, it is also a final salute and farewell to
SAPSE, the South African Post-Secondary Education data base of the
Department of Education that has now been replaced by the somewhat more
sophisticated Higher Education ManagementInformation System (HEMIS).
The two areas on which the authors focus attention are student enrolment
patterns and staff employment trends and it becomes immediately and
abundantly clear that the real focus is on whether equity, a major
transformation goal ofthe new South Africa, has been achieved in these two
critical areas.
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     To revealthe patterns of enrolment, Cooper and Subotzky presenttheir
data in terms ofinstitutional andhistorical type: universities and technikons
are the primary categories, which are then broken down into theirorigins in
the racial dispensations ofwhite, African and non-African(the institutions
specifically designated for Indian and coloured students). 1993 is taken as
the key median point, and racial and gendershifts are often analysed from
a pre- or post-1993 perspective. At the most generallevel, in terms oftotal
populationratios, the data show that white and Indian students are still over- .
represented, coloured and African students under-represented in the higher
education system. Nonetheless, Africans commanded over 50 per cent of
enrolments in 1998 froma mere 21 per centin 1984. Trends vary considerably
over the sub-types during the period examined, with all the six African
historically disadvantaged universities (HDUs) expanding up to 1993 and
then experiencing a sharp decline in enrolments, while the Afrikaans
historically advantaged universities had a huge surge in African enrolments
post-1993, The authors are quick to point out what is now generally well
known, that many ofthese enrolments are in undergraduate teacher diploma
qualifications offered in partnership with private providers. By contrast, the
five African historically disadvantaged technikons (HDTs) grew steadily
over this period, while the previously white historically advantaged
technikons (HATs) experienced tremendousgrowth, particularly in African
enrolments, a phenomenonthat has begun to reverse the ‘inverted pyramid’
oftertiary enrolments (invertedin favour ofuniversity enrolment)identified
in the 1996 report ofthe National Commission on Higher Education (NCHE).
Overall, African headcount enrolmentin technikon programmesincreased
from 2 000 in 1984 toa staggering 127 193 in 1998.
    From broad institutional enrolments, the enquiry movesto enrolment by
qualification level and field ofstudybased on six primary CESM (Classification
ofEducational Subject Material) groups and 22 first-order CESM categories.
The finding that more than half of all masters and doctoral enrolments are
at the ‘big four’ universities ofPretoria, Stellenbosch, Cape Town and Wits
will not surprise anyone familiar with this system. African enrolments arestill
concentrated at undergraduate levels with marked gender skewingin favour
of male students at postgraduate levels across all race groups. At the
universities, African students are enrolled predominantly in social science
and humanities programmes, particularly at the six African HDUs. In this
respect, the technikons have been more successful at enrolling greater
numbers of African students in science and technology programmesthan
the universities.


                                                                       Review
   The authors conclude that there has been a significant revolution in
student enrolment, albeit a skewed one. The changes in staff employment
patterns are predictably far less dramatic: students form a constantly
shifting, transient population allowing for fairly rapid change over short
periods oftime, while staff are inevitably more settled and permanent with
longer career trajectories. There have, nonetheless, been someshifts with
increasing numbers and proportionsofAfricansin all personnelcategories,
changing ratios of professional to non-professional categories, and
widespread outsourcing of non-core activities.
   The few observationsreflected here represent a drop in the ocean ofdata
presented in this book. The authors have attempted to organise their vast
quantity of material in three categories, offering readers options as to the
depth or detail they wish to explore: ‘At a Glance’ presents the data in the
readily assimilated form ofgraphs andtables,‘In Detail’ providesa descriptive
outlineoftrends and pattern and ‘Key Points and Commentary’ summarises,
analyses and offers possible explanations. Orso the theorygoes.In fact, the
book is divided into so many sections and subsections that the reader
struggles to come away with any coherentpicture of the system. It suffers
at once from too much detail — a typical sub-heading is ‘Comparison of
African and White Lower Postgraduate FTEsat the Six Afrikaans and Four
English HAUsacross Fields of Study’ — and from toolittle information in
related data fields. Another reviewer (Bunting 2002) comments that Cooper
and Subotzky have used only twoof the 21 complextables available in the
SAPSEsystem,and althoughthe authors explicitly say that ‘other important
aspects of the student and staff data have necessarily not been addressed’
(viii) one cannot help but ask why not, especially as these include student
throughput, success rates and graduation rates which are critical to any
serious assessment of the achievementof equity.
   This is notto underestimate the difficulty ofembarking upon an assessment
ofthis kind. Thebriefhistorical introduction providedin thefirst chapteris
a salutary reminderofhow youngthis higher education system is, andofits
complex political roots— circumstances, one could argue, thatmake assessment
moreprovisionaland speculative than in older, more settled systems. We are
remindedthat up until the end ofWorld War, there was only one examining
and degree-awarding university in South Africa, the University ofthe Cape
ofGood Hope, to which a numberofuniversity colleges wereaffiliated. This
is probably the closest to being a ‘single, co-ordinated system’ that South
African higher education has ever come, only to proliferate and fragment
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Trish Gibbon
into the 36 institutions that cameto constitute the system by the late 1980s.
In other words, many of these institutions are less than 50 years old, and
change has swept through them, particularly in the period underreview,at
a dramatic pace. Nonetheless, as soon as the authors’ account of these
changes moves from the descriptive to the analytical, it becomes
uncomfortably speculative in its need to draw on explanatory framesthatlie
beyond the parameters of its own empirical base.
    This dissonance is felt most acutely in the ‘Conclusion’ where the reader
is suddenly confronted with class analysis as the explanatory frame to
account for the findings of the empirical study which has been based
narrowly and exclusively on race and gender. The argumentis broadly
captured in the following passage:
          In the absence of the widely anticipated state-driven redistributive
       transformation, the class-based stratification of South African society
       has persisted, althoughit has been partially deracialised along with the
       institutions of state and civil society.
          The fundamental revolutionary change anticipated by the left has
       therefore been replaced by a partial, skewed transformation comprising
       the deracialisation of the ruling elite and the middle class....
          These conditions at once frame the transformation ofhigher education
       and are replicated within it. (232-3)
    The writers do not go so far as to suggest that a ‘straight’ revolution
(rather than the ‘skewed’ one ofthe title) would have corrected all the
imbalances that their study has thrown up, but this remains a (highly
questionable) implication oftheir argument. Would RDPrather than GEAR
really have effected a complete transformation of the schooling system,the
inadequacies of whichlie at the heart of higher education’s woes? Would
it have made a significant difference to the numbers of African students
entering higher education and the fields and levels at which they studied?
These seem unlikely scenarios, and while the intention hereis not to engage
in counterfactual argument, it is important to stress that the complex
problems of the South African education system are not adequately
confronted by such broad brush strokes.
   At other levels, more modest and apt explanations for some of the
phenomenadescribedin this book are ignored. The authors claim thatthere
have been‘no levers for the effective steerage of policy and practice’, and
that the ‘goals of the NCHE and White Paper have so far remainedlargely
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                                                                            Review
at the level ofvisions and frameworks’ (233). This is part ofa larger argument
that holds that there has been inadequate capacity for the implementation
of policy. There is some truth to this argument, thoughit is insufficient, on
its own, to account for what has happened.It fails to acknowledge, however,
that one very significant policy instrument, individual redress, was
implemented within monthsofthe accession to powerofthe new government.
The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS)asit is now known,
provided bursaries to thousands of students, giving them both access to
higher education and mobility (Bengu 2001, Van Rensburg 2001). Yet
nowhereis this invoked as an explanatory cause for student movement in
the system. Similarly, the accurate observation that inter-institutional
competition is driven by ‘the new market ethos in higher education’ also
obscures the role of the state in driving competition throughits continued
implementation of the old funding formula that bases subsidy of public
institutions on general student enrolments (Cloete 2001). In a context of
declining student numbers, this inevitably pits institutions against one
another.
    It is at the explanatory level that this book is most unsatisfactory. The
empiric ant and the scholastic spider continue to operate in spheres that
remain relatively discrete from one another, never quite achieving the
metamorphosis into the synthesising bee of Bacon’s analogy.Its wealth of
information and the fascinating view it allows of shifts in the system,
however,will still be ofgreat interest to policy makers,institutional planners
and readers with a general interest in changes in higher education.
References
Bengu, S (2001) Interview. www.chet.org.za/reflections.asp
Bunting, I (2002) ‘Review of The Skewed Revolution:trends in South African higher
     education 1988-1998’ , Social Dynamics (forthcoming).
Burke, P (2000) A Social History ofKnowledge. Cambridge: Polity Press/Blackwell.
Cloete, N (2001) ‘New South African realities’, in N Cloete, R Fehnel, P Maassen,
     T Moja, H Perold and T Gibbon (eds) Transformation in Higher Education:
     global pressures andlocalrealities in South Africa. Lansdowne: Juta.
Van Rensburg, I (2001) Interview. www.chet.org.za/reflections.asp
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