The reactions of student organisations at the former Rand Afrikaans University to the restructuring of higher education.

With the demise of apartheid the higher education landscape of South Africa (SA) had to change as well. As a guiding document, the Restructuring of the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 (RSA 1997) sets out the programme for the envisioned new higher education system. Among some of the changes envisaged by this Act was that higher education needed to be responsive to the broader process of SA’s socio-economic and political transition. Of note is that, by virtue of the history of the higher educational landscape in SA, the changes were experienced in two phases. The first phase just after 1994 was characterised by debates on the restructuring centred on the changed political environment. This was a period where issues such as equal access to higher education institutions and opportunities for staff and students across race and gender lines, unequal funding, appropriateness of curriculum, shortages of graduates in the fields of science, and inefficiency and ineffectiveness of university management were attempted to be addressed. The second (current) phase is the “globalisation of education” – market principles are introduced into education, with a resultant rise in study fees; academic training is being steered more by market forces than by government; and incorporations and mergers of higher education institutions are being enforced to ensure efficiency, amongst other things. My intention to undertake a study on the restructuring of higher education was because the subject has raised different views and different reactions from different stakeholders. There are authors who are against the manner in which the restructuring of higher education is being formulated and implemented, especially in this second phase, i.e. the globalisation of higher education. Such authors include Komane (2002:7), Goedegebuure, Kaiser, Maassen and De Weert (1994:3), Berstelsen (1998:130), Kgaphola (1999:19) and Clark (1998:5).Ms. Carina van Rooye