This article aims to understand how access, equity and redress challenges are addressed at South Africa's public universities based on their current funding frameworks. Relying on a pragmatic research approach combining desk-research literature review and secondary data analysis, government funding and tuition fees were found to be the primary…

Globally, the increasing cost of university education, growing student enrolments and weak economic of nations have caused a reduction in public funding for university education. This decline in public funding seems to have increased tuition fees, caused deterioration of infrastructure, thereby affecting student access to university education. In…

This paper is a personal reflection that seeks to capture most of the observable changes that have taken place in South Africa and in its public university system as a consequence of the sudden and global spread of the novel coronavirus. The purpose for doing so is to provide a record of how the South African university sector has responded to the…

Social demand for higher education has more than doubled in the past 20 years. However, only one-third of all countries' higher education systems are enrolling more than 50% of the traditional age cohort. Despite major advancements in achieving higher levels of access and participation, inequalities and inequities in higher education persist and…

This report forms part of an international project, led by UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), on higher education's role in supporting "flexible learning pathways." Flexible learning pathways (FLPs) in higher education provide routes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills at different life stages, to…

Tuition fees and the use of student loans to complement government's allocations have become unavoidable because of increasing competing new priorities for funding. This article addresses the funding sources of public higher education through tuition and loans. We explore the effects of shifts from first-stream income (government appropriations)…

Securing the future of the human race will require an improved understanding of the environment as well as of technological solutions, mindsets and behaviors in line with modes of development that the ecosphere of our planet can support. Some experts see the only solution in a global deflation of the currently unsustainable exploitation of…