International Journal of
Educational Administration and Policy Studies

  • Abbreviation: Int. J. Educ. Admin. Pol. Stud.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 2141-6656
  • DOI: 10.5897/IJEAPS
  • Start Year: 2009
  • Published Articles: 245

Article in Press

Partners in a slow dance: Towards transformation of governance at South African Universities

Felix Omal* and Amasa Philip Ndofirepi

  •  Received: 08 August 2017
  •  Accepted: 26 October 2017
In South Africa, councils in comprehensive universities are embroiled in a struggle on how to govern with different institutional stakeholders to create institutional transformation. This paper reports on findings from a study at one Historically Black University (HBU) in which a sequential-exploratory mixed methods approach was used to collect a range of documents, conduct interviews with university council members and conduct a survey with university students and staff members, both academic and non-academic. The analysis of documents led to the identification of reasons for university council-instability. When these reasons were subsequently ‘tested’, firstly in interviews with council members and subsequently in survey questions responded to by academic and non-academic staff and by students, there was a high level of agreement within each of the four groups of informants but considerable differences in the perceptions of each group about what would constitute good governance.

Keywords: University council, institutional governance system of the university council, good governance, university transformation.