The academic staff profile of Geographers at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa: the challenges for transformation

ABSTRACT

South Africa’s first national democratic elections in 1994 marked a turning point in the history of the country. Since democracy much of the focus of African National Congress (ANC)-led government has been on redress and transformation across all spheres of society, including higher education. This paper examines one important aspect inherent in transforming higher education; that is, changing the academic staffing profile of its institutions to more accurately reflect the demographics of the country. Specifically, we examine the academic staffing profiles (gender, race, and rank) of Geographers employed at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa and compare these statistics to national academic staffing trends. Results indicate that Geographers in South Africa are most often white and male although these findings mirror national percentages. We also found a paucity of black African Geographers at more senior academic positions as well as a lack of black African female Geographers. Racial inequities in the distribution of academic staff were noted with white male Geographers disproportionately located at historically white institutions while black African Geographers are disproportionately located at historically black institutions. We discuss these, and other results, in the broader context of the transformation of the discipline of Geography in South Africa.

KEYWORDS:

• South Africa
• transformation
• higher education institutions (HEIs)
• geography
• academic staff

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. “Historically Disadvantaged Individual (HDI)” means a South African citizen –who, due to the apartheid policy that had been in place, had no franchise in national elections prior to the introduction of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1983 (Act No 110 of 1983) or the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993 (Act No 200 of 1993) (“the Interim Constitution”); and/orwho is a female; and/orwho has a disability.

2. By Geography, we refer to the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments (National Geographic, 2020). Geographers teach about the physical properties of the Earth’s surface and/or the human societies that are spread across it.

3. The South African population is still officially classified into racial groups. Black Africans represent the descendants of western and central African populations. The “white” population group represent the descendants of mainly Western and Eastern European populations. The “Indian” population group represent the descendants of south Asian populations. The “Coloured” group comprise a mixed population including the descendants of the indigenous Khoisan population, imported Malay slaves, and people born out of mixed-race relations.

4. “New and merged” universities consist of universities that have been created since the democratic transition in 1994 as well as universities that have merged during the post-apartheid period. Mergers most often involved the merging of “traditionally white HEIs” with “traditionally black Africa HEIs” such as the merging of the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (traditionally white) with University of Bophuthatswana (traditionally black African) to form North-West University in 2004. For a full list of the university categorizations feel free to contact the authors.

5. We obtained the race, gender, and rank profile of Philosophy academic staff for all 26 universities in South Africa through an exhaustive search of university departmental, school, and faculty websites. There was no purposeful reason for the selection of Philosophy as a comparative discipline other than the fact that it is most often in another Faculty or School as Geography at South African universities and only 3 of the 26 universities did not have a dedicated Philosophy department

6. In fact, at least 80% of the positions must be allocated to black African and/or women South African citizens