Search results

Student support in higher education (HE) is a matter that has received, and is still receiving, rigorous attention in the research environment. HE faces challenges related to the throughput rates nationally and internationally and, as a result of that, most African countries have prioritised support in HE institutions, particularly universities. Amongst the groups of students targeted to receive student support are the marginalised students,¹ particularly students with visual impairments (SWVI). Developed countries have tirelessly attempted to ensure that SWVI are supported through aggressive policy positions and technological interventions. This chapter seeks to provide insights on the support programmes for SWVI in HE institutions in Africa. The chapter follows a qualitative approach and uses the social justice theory (Rawls, 1971) as a conceptual lens. Drawing on this theory, it can be argued that the support programmes and services provided to SWVI in Africa limit their participation in HE and constrain effective learning and, ultimately, perpetuate social injustice.

Higher education as a field of study has been relatively ignored by social scientists. Yet it is a growing area of research, especially applied research, as higher education itself becomes more visible and important within advanced ‘knowledge economies’. Higher education is seen by some to hold the key, at least in part, to the achievement of both greater wealth and greater social equity; the former through the creation of new knowledge and the production of new ‘knowledge workers’, and the latter through the provision of opportunities for all to develop, contribute to and benefit from the greater wealth. For others, however, the role of higher education is seen to lie more in the reproduction of existing social inequalities.

Changes in the freedoms of individual academics and universities have been gathering apace across the western world since World War II (e.g., Altbach, 2001; Karmel, 2003, p. 2). Such changes have compelled the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to alert the world community to the link between freedoms experienced in the university sector and those in wider democratic systems. In 1998, UNESCO held a World Conference on Higher Education with a specific focus on academic freedom and university autonomy. An international charter resulted, detailing mutual rights, obligations and monitoring mechanisms. The International Association of Universities (IAU), the group responsible for convening the UNESCO debate, emphasised that academic freedom and university autonomy were essential to be able to transmit and advance knowledge:For Universities to serve a world society requires that Academic Freedom and University Autonomy form the bedrock to a new Social Contract – a contract to uphold values common to Humanity and to meet the expectations of a world where frontiers are rapidly dissolving. (cited in Ginkel, 2002, p. 347)