Professor Charles Maimela, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law and Coordinator for the relaunch of University of Pretoria’s (UP) Curriculum Transformation Drive, together with the Vice-Principal: Academic at UP Professor Norman Duncan recently hosted a webinar which was the sixth instalment in the UP Curriculum Transformation Lecture Series.

Opening the webinar, Prof Duncan thanked the UP Faculty of Law for hosting the series and noted that it is aimed at encouraging debate around topical issues of curriculum transformation. “Thanks to Prof Maimela for driving this journey, it is important to place curriculum transformation under magnifying glass. We are reimaging curriculum at UP and thanks to all faculties and departments that continue to participate in these webinars,” he said.

The series is also dedicated to taking stock of initiatives taken by faculties five years after a policy document on curriculum transformation was adopted and approved by the UP Senate.

At this webinar attendees were addressed by Professor Ahmed Bawa, Chief Executive Officer of Universities South Africa (USAf), who spoke about the importance of universities in their role as “social institutions created by societies to serve multiple functions”.

“Universities are also special institutions, they are knowledge-intensive institutions, driven by the challenge of providing the basis for multi-layer democracies, and complex economies to function,” said Prof Bawa. “Democracies and economies require social institutions that feed knowledge and information into the political, economic and social system. Universities are charged with the responsibility to produce intellectuals, experts, professionals, and all these are required by societies. More importantly, universities engage in intensive research.” 

During his address, Prof Bawa shared USAf’s position and insights on curriculum transformation.

“Universities do not exist in a vacuum, they are captured in a historical narrative, and they are constantly pushed and pulled by political narratives. When we think of the transformation of universities and their responsiveness we have to take it into account that they are part of the political structures in which they find themselves.

“More importantly, they are both intensely local and international,” Prof Bawa said, explaining that that they are knowledge-intensive institutions places them both in the local and global context. “Universities have a responsibility to play a role in that regard,” he said.

Prof Bawa further added that it mustn’t be forgotten that universities exist in the midst of a society with growing inequality, violence and poverty. “We are also seeing the erosion of democracy, the degradation of ethical society, and this is across the world. And all this is happening as we are going through new technology and reimagining things.

“When I think of a decolonised university it is about the transformation of our structures, it is about the knowledge project.”

Speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected the South African higher education sector, Prof Bawa highlighted that when disruptions caused by the pandemic hit the sector in 2020, it was on the back of countrywide student protests in 2015.

“That was a major disruption in the higher education system, and there were lots of lessons to be learned from there,” he said. “COVID-19 was a test and we had to think and act fast in order to save the academic year in 2020.”