The Emergence and Formation of Universities in South Africa: Shifting Social Compacts

This book considers the formation of South Africa’s universities, more specifically those that evolved as colleges, taking a panoramic view over two centuries, from colonialism to democracy. The book will interest scholars across of higher education, political studies, sociology, anthropology, history, decolonisation, and African Studies.

Beverley Thaver, BA History (UCT), MA African History (York, UK) and PhD Adult Education (UWC) is Professor Emeritus, Higher Education Studies, University of the Western Cape. She started out her academic professional career at Khanya College established for detainees from Robben Island in the late 1980s, then, in 1990 moved to the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education, UWC. Following this, she moved to the Education Policy Unit, UWC which at the time was deepening its research into education policy development for democracy. She has held the portfolio of Deputy Dean of Research in the Faculty of Education. She has taught at undergraduate and postgraduate level in adult and teacher education, holding a strong research portfolio that includes supervisions and publications. The broad focus of her research is on transformation dynamics of universities in South Africa, with a specific emphasis on the deracialisation of the academic staff profiles, affirmative action, institutional culture, conducting research at both systems and institutional levels. She has also published in private higher education. She has served as a Ministerial appointee to the Council on Higher Education, for two terms, 2011 - 2018. She is currently active in the Public Participation and Civil Society Network under the auspices of the Public Participation Office, South African Parliament.

Lionel Thaver, BA (Sociology, History, Political Studies-Majors), BA Honours (Sociology), MA (Sociology Cum Laude), PhD (Sociology) UWC. He is a longstanding member of the Sociology department at UWC, whose teaching specialisation is in Contemporary Sociological Theory with a particular focus on African Philosophy, and Epistemology and its bearing on the decolonization and Africanization of the discipline. In addition, he specializes in the Sociology of Technology which covers broad theoretical frameworks probing the relationship between society and technology, the history of technology and specific technologies such as the Internet and Social Network Sites and its bearing on Social Movements, the Digital Divide and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. At the postgraduate level he focuses on Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology and the Sociology of Higher Education and has published and conducted research in the aforementioned fields of study. He has led several forums at universities, nationally, on Institutional culture including the Ministry of Higher Education.