The institutional crisis of the University of the Transkei

The principal thesis of this article is that the University of the Transkei's (UNITRA's) institutional crisis can best be understood as a product of the dialectical interplay of structural and agential variables. The primary structural factor informing this crisis is UNITRA's location in the institutional landscape of higher education - a location that confines it to servicing financially poor and academically disadvantaged students. Agential variables include among others, managerial failures to develop a strategic plan and establish administrative and financial systems of control, and the omissions and commissions of other stakeholders like council, staff, students, the Department of Education, and the Chancellor of the institution. Agency behaviour and decisions are seen to entrench UNITRA's structural location in the landscape of higher education, thereby precipitating its present crisis and institutional malaise.