Decoding South African lecturers’ frustrations with neoliberal governance approaches
Transformation in Higher Education
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Decoding South African lecturers’ frustrations with neoliberal governance approaches | |
| Creator | van Vuuren, Nicolene | |
| Description | Corporate norms and values, characterised by an enterprise ethos, became the new parameters that defined the academic environment. Academics are increasingly becoming concerned about the commodification of higher education and its impact on academic quality and the standards of quality graduates. The voices of South African academics and their experiences within the neoliberal university governance remain underexplored in the current literature. This study aimed to enhance understanding and contribute to knowledge by exploring lecturers’ experiences within a corporatised academic work environment. This study took place across public and private higher education institutions in South Africa. A cross-sectional, qualitative, interpretative phenomenological research design was employed. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with a diverse sample of 20 lecturers. The data analysis followed the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis. The findings of the study identified three key areas that triggered feelings of frustration with management: (1) participants experienced a lack of management’s understanding of governing academic work environments, (2) an erosion of their collegial culture, and (3) a lack of transparent communication.Contribution: A key contribution of this study, which set it apart from other studies, was lecturers’ perceptions that their professional identity, collegiality, autonomy, and academic freedom were in crisis. | |
| Publisher | AOSIS Publishing | |
| Date | 2024-07-24 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/the.v9i0.404 | |
| Source | Transformation in Higher Education; Vol 9 (2024); 9 pages 2519-5638 2415-0991 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/404/709
https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/404/710
https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/404/711
https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/404/712
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