The Department of Leadership and Transformation, in the office of the Unisa Principal and Vice-Chancellor, will host its 2023 Transformation Conference under the theme The SA higher education transformation journey: Analysis of the present, informed by the past from 4 to 6 October 2023. 

The first university in South Africa has a long history. Unfortunately, that history is full of contestations with regard to which knowledges are valuable. As we celebrate 150 years of Unisa’s existence, we do so with a keen awareness of how transformation efforts remain elusive for many and how gains made in some areas are being clawed back because of backlash, including corruption, continuing entrenchment of knowledges from the Global North as normative, continuing violence against black women in particular, reduced funding for higher education, and exclusion of the poor and working classes. 

As we ponder how Unisa has contributed to transformation of the higher education sector in South Africa and the continent, we find that this question is fundamental for the entire South African higher education sector. As we look to our futures, we are invited to look to the past and reflect on what has been our efforts and challenges in transforming the sector.

Keynote speakers from left: Professors André Keet, Nhlanhla Maake and Nokuthula Hlabangane

The following panellist will grace the opening of the conference on 4 October under the theme Transformation: Then and now”

Prof André Keet, speaking on The state of transformation in South Africa

Keet currently holds the Research Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) and is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Engagement and Transformation at the Nelson Mandela University.

He is a former Visiting Professor at the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality, Carnegie School of Education, Leeds Beckett University, UK, and the 2018 Marsha Lilien Gladstein Visiting Professor of Human Rights at the University of Connecticut.

Keet served as Director and Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) and on the Commission for Gender Equality before joining the university sector. Since entering the higher education field, Keet has held professorial positions at the universities of Pretoria, Fort Hare and Free State. He has served as a transformation advisor and practitioner in various capacities in the sector. Keet’s research and postgraduate supervision focuses on critical approaches to the study of higher education.

Prof Nhlanhla Maake, speaking on Higher education principles and models for transformation of an organic microcosm

Maake is a Roving Mentor on the Doctoral Programme of the NIHSS (National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences). He is a language activist, former high school teacher, one-time actor with Phoenix Players at Dorkay House, and grandfather. He has published more than 20 non-fiction and fiction books in Sesotho and English, several articles in accredited journals, radio plays, study guides, poems, academic, polemical and position articles. He has won several literary awards and has held fellowships, and academic and managerial positions at a number of universities locally and abroad.

Maake has served in several governmental task teams on language, and a task team for Restructuring of the Judiciary, as well as a panel member of several book awards.

Prof Nokuthula Hlabangane speaking on "Dig a hole!": Managerialism and the tyranny of Taylorism in the corporate university

Hlabangane is currently seconded to the position of Quality Assurance and Enhancement in Unisa’s College of Human Sciences. She was awarded a PhD in Anthropology by the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. Hlabangane’s thesis is titled The political economy of teenage sexuality in the era of HIV/AIDS:  A case of Soweto. It was through this work that the journey of engaging in the philosophy of knowledge production and its attendant politics began. Hlabangane draws from transdisciplinary literature to think about phenomena in all their complexity.

She has written on subjects as diverse as social and epistemic justice, community and youth wellbeing, and says that she is currently seized by a need to re-member by drinking from the gourds heretofore forgotten.

The 2023 Transformation Conference will provide academics, researchers, transformation managers, higher education practitioners and leaders, representatives from government, and graduate students with a forum to exchange ideas relating to transformation of the higher education sector.

Registration for attendance is now open for the 2023 Transformation Conference: Click here to register

Visit the 2023 Transformation Conference webpage: www.unisa.ac.za/transformation2023

* By Gugu Masinga, Marketing and Communication Specialist, Unisa Department of Leadership and Transformation