Perold and Omar Communityty Service Concept Paper
Perold and Omar Communityty Service Concept Paper
Perold and Omar Communityty Service Concept Paper
Higher Education
A concept paper
September 1997
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. 1
l. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 13
7. Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 99
Appendix
Rahmat Omar
Project coordinator
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Within the ambit of this broad definition, this concept paper attempts to
illuminate and focus the discussions and debates about community service
by,
• Describing some models used in other countries and drawing out the
main trends in the international context;
Workstudy programmes
These programmes draw their financial support from a number of sources - including
contributions by the institution, support from parastatal institutions, private sector
grants or foreign donor support. These activities are seen as directly related to the
mission of higher education in terms of a commitment to quality teaching,
scholarship and research which is responsive to the developmental needs of society.
Responsiveness to societal needs in this approach is expressed through the main
functions of higher education (teaching, scholarship and research).
This contrasts sharply with the approach that sees `community service' as a
distinctive, third leg of higher education's mission (along with teaching and research).
With the latter approach, responsiveness to societal needs can become an add-on
activity, peripheral to the main functions of teaching and research. However, in both
approaches, service delivery is not seen as a distinctive function of higher education.
Although these are distinct programmes they involve the higher education institution
in a more enduring relationship with specific communities. The link between these
programmes and the mainstream activities of higher education institutions has the
potential to transform relationships between higher education and the broader
society.
Curriculum-related programmes
Placements
Internship has for many years been a feature of mainstream teaching in higher
education institutions. It integrates practical or experiential learning into the
curriculum, but traditionally does not aim to provide service to a community
or to the organisation in which the student is placed as a primary or secondary
goal. Placements are a requirement of the course and their primary purpose is
skills development for individual students. These programmes provide a
mixture of academic and experiential learning and help to improve the work
preparedness of graduates. However, in the face of financial difficulties faced
by higher education institutions and rationalisation measures introduced by
employers, placements and internships have become increasingly difficult to
organise on a large scale. The number of students who can be admitted to
these courses is limited in some cases by the number of internship positions
available. Placements of interns in this category are not regarded as a form of
community service in this study.
A SURVEY OF SERVICE PROGRAMMES IN NINE COUNTRIES
Although the programmes surveyed may have changed in the past five years,
and details of the analysis may not be current, the international experience
provides useful lessons for South Africa and forms a basis for the comparisons
made in section 4.
An analysis of the stated goals of the programmes shows that they address, or
seek to address, a number of complex, interrelated goals. National development,
unity and the development of civic commitment is one category of goals which
most of the programmes share. Other goals are to bring the university closer to
the community, to improve curricula and to enhance students' learning through
opportunities for practical experience and personal growth.
The literature indicates that the reality of compulsory service is often more
complex than is initially anticipated: in many countries programmes may not, in
practice, include every student because of lack of financial resources to operate
the programmes and/or corruption or cheating in programme requirements.
In programmes where students undertake community service during their
studies, the policy on payment varied from statutory prohibition of
payment (eg. in Costa Rica) to payment of stipends at the level of a
subsistence wage (eg in Nepal). In programmes deploying graduates, as in
Ghana or Nigeria, graduates were generally paid less than their expected
earnings in nonservice positions. In the Americorps programme, graduates
receive a modest living allowance and health cover during the programme
and earn an education award after completing their service which can be
used towards paying off student loans or financing further studies.
The literature indicates that the impact on social and national development
needs has been difficult to establish since the few evaluations which have
been done do not provide quantitative data and their claims are often
unsourced. Claims concerning the impact of national service programmes
should therefore be treated with caution. However, on the basis of available
evidence they argue that service programmes have: boosted the pace of rural
infrastructural development (Nigeria); significantly increased rural school
enrolments and literacy levels and improved living conditions (Nepal); made
`substantial' contributions to rural welfare and development in medicine
(Mexico); helped to deliver the national health service plan by providing
qualified personnel for permanent and mobile clinics in the rural areas
(Nigeria); delivered direct and measurable results in the areas of education,
public safety, human needs and the environment (Americorps); and served as
an important feedback mechanism for university planners, teachers and
government in respect of rural needs (Nepal).
CONCLUSIONS
On the basis of the research and the analysis, the concept paper draws six
conclusions about community service in South Africa:
INTRODUCTION
2Information gained in a meeting held by members of the research team with the Ministry
of justice planning unit on 23 July 1997.
3A spokesperson for the Wits University nursing department, quoted in the Sunday
Independent of 27 July 1997.
However, while the concept is eliciting greater interest in South Africa,
it is unclear what is meant by `community service'. The term evokes an
ideal without defining it sufficiently closely. For example:
Community service may have all these goals, but they are not always
mutually compatible. This raises the question of how the purpose of
community service is to be assessed, whatever its design.
Conceptual boundaries
Within the ambit of our definition, this concept paper attempts to deepen
the discussion about community service and to illuminate and focus the
emerging debate by:
• Describing some models used in other countries and drawing out the
main trends in the international context;
The lack of empirical research and social science literature on the experience of
community service in South Africa has already been noted. To ground this
concept paper in a clearer understanding of the community service programmes
being run in the higher education sector, the research team undertook a limited
scan of the field in July and August 1997.
• Those that take place before higher education, during higher education
and after higher education. This analysis has focused on projects that
take place during and after higher education;
• Programmes could also be divided into those that are mainly intended
to provide financial support for students; those that are mainly
intended to amplify the higher education curricula in different fields of
study; and those that are mainly intended to build a greater sense of
community commitment among the participants;
The analysis and observations that follow are based on the outcome of this
short research process. Given the limited time available for this project, the
information base is sketchy and somewhat incomplete, but the research
team believes that some of the main trends have been identified. Should
there be a serious interest in community service, it is recommended that further
research, analysis and evaluation be undertaken so as to document current
practice. The higher education institutions are well-placed to assist in this work,
and a range of funders may be interested in supporting these efforts.
2. Overview of findings
The research process surveyed the activities of four student volunteer service
programmes: the University of Pretoria-based Southern African Student
Volunteers' Organisation (Sasvo), the University of Cape Town's Students'
Health and Welfare Centres Organisation (Shawco), the Ujima Fundraising
Organisation based at the University of Cape Town (Ufundo) and the
University of Stellenbosch Clinics Organisation (Uskor). On the basis of the
information collected in this short research period, four features have been
identified. They are examined below.
Most of the programmes are student-initiated, and programme goals range from student
development to community development.
Three of the four programmes (Ufundo, Shawco and Uskor) were initiated by
students and in two cases (Shawco and Uskor) by medical students
specifically. The Sasvo programme was initiated by staff at the Centre for
Human Rights at the University of Pretoria. Although two of the
programmes were started in the past four years (Sasvo in 1993 and Ufundo in
1995), two have been running between 33 and 54 years: Shawco has been
running since 1943 while Uskor was launched in 1964.
The goals of the four programmes fall into two categories: student
development and community development.
Shawco functions on a larger scale than Uskor, but both have been
operating for years. This gives their service delivery something of an
institutional nature within the communities in which they operate. It
would seem that the employment of permanent staff is an important
factor in the long-term development of the two organisations' activities
and in the meaningful involvement of the volunteers.
The organisations enjoy a loose relationship with the host institutions, but do not draw much
institutional support of the land which is intrinsic to the higher education mission (eg, teaching
and research).
Shawco and Uskor have a loose relationship with their host institutions,
using the university's office space and financial, human resources and
other support systems, but functioning independently in other ways.
Two of the organisations also employ full-time staff - Uskor has eight
staff members while Shawco has 50 staff members, most of whom are
hired from the local community. Shawco also draws on the services of
one university lecturer (a social worker) on a part-time basis and one
administration staff member seconded by the university on a full-time
basis.
2. WORKSTUDY PROGRAMMES
Overview of findings
These broad categories of workstudy show that students have not been
employed on campus to do certain categories of work such as cleaning,
technical maintenance, gardening, canteen duties, etc. The main reasons
for this are to avoid displacing workers and in response to perceptions of
students' attitudes towards certain types of work. In particular, black
students (regardless of socioeconomic background) are perceived as
being reluctant to do domestic work, as a reaction to racial and gender
stereotyping. However, this area has never been properly studied and
requires attention.
There are a number of reasons for the on-campus concentration of
workstudy in the Western Cape. Firstly, there has been reluctance on the part
of the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust to spread its increasingly limited
resources in new directions. The retention of a focus on institutional capacity
building (especially at the historically disadvantaged institutions, which
receive the bulk of the trust's funding) has been an important factor in this
respect. Secondly, there has been relatively little 'buy-in' from the tertiary
institutions with concerns being raised about capacity (in the institutions, the
Desmond Tutu Educational Trust and in the outside organisations) to run
off-campus projects, especially with large numbers of students.
While the main goal of these programmes has been to provide financial
assistance to needy students, two other goals have also informed their design:
student development and institutional capacity building. In the case of
historically disadvantaged institutions such as the University of the Western
Cape and the Peninsula Technikon, workstudy has become an essential
feature of the institutions which have come to rely on student work to carry
out a range of essential services. For example, if workstudy students were not
employed at Peninsula Technikons, the library would have to close at 8pm
instead of 10pm. It is noteworthy that when workstudy funding from the
Desmond Tutu Educational Trust was significantly reduced, both the
University of the Western Cape and the Peninsula Technikon were obliged
to draw on their own funds to sustain key areas of workstudy because
students were undertaking core functions at the institution. Thus workstudy
is used to address student financial aid, student development and institutional
capacity building. In contrast, the workstudy focus at the University of Cape
Town through the curriculum vitae-building programme has been primarily
towards individual student development and financial aid. Although this
programme was not able to function in the first semester of 1997 owing to
the unavailability of Desmond Tutu Educational Trust funds, the university
has since agreed to support the programme from its own funds.
Overview of findings
This contrasts sharply with the approach that sees `community service' as
a distinctive, third leg of higher education's mission (along with teaching
and research). In this alternative approach, responsiveness to societal
needs can become an add-on activity, peripheral to the main functions of
teaching and research. However, in neither of the two approaches is service
delivery seen as a distinctive function of higher education.
The link between these programmes and the mainstream activities of the
higher education institutions has the potential to transform relationships
between society and higher education. Although the community outreach and
extension services are distinct programmes, they involve the higher education
institution in a longer-term relationship with specific communities.
The University of the North West aims to involve all its faculties in the
development of the university's surrounding community. The purpose of
involving students is to give them practical work experience and to expose
them to community issues. Community service is compulsory for all students
and is completed in different ways. For example, one of the department of
chemistry's projects involves 25 students in three related activities: performing
a chemical and biological analysis of rural water supplies in the Molopo region
of North West province; correlating the analysis results to the health of
community members and disease profiles; and running intervention and
education programmes for the 12 villages in the region. The project is a
partnership between the University of the North West and the Water Research
Commission. The water commission operates in the province and aims to
create the links between research, teaching and community service that enable
the university to be responsive to the broader community's needs.
The work of the rural facility is closely tied with the curriculum as students
and faculty staff use the facility to take their academic work (research,
scholarship and teaching) to new levels.
The University of Venda's Legal Aid Clinic is one of about 18 legal aid
clinics attached to universities around the country. It seeks to give form to
that aspect of the mission of the University of Venda which commits it to
serve the community alongside its teaching and research priorities. The
goals of the clinic are to provide practical experience for senior law
students, to train attorneys and to serve the community by making legal aid
available to indigent people. The clinic is run by the law department which
provides specialised staff input. Final-year students receive academic credit
for the 32 hours of practical work each does in the clinic and there are 63
students involved in the programme this year. The candidate attorneys (11
in 1997) also receive accreditation for the training they receive in the clinic.
The clinic ensures that it reaches unemployed or low-income members of
the local community by applying a means test, and this year and in the
period July 1996 to June 1997 it processed an average of 270 cases a month
(the total for the year was 3 234). Funding is obtained from the university,
the Attorney's Fidelity Fund and the Legal Aid Board, but funding is one of
the areas in which the programme is most vulnerable.
4. CURRICULUM-RELATED PROGRAMMES
Overview of findings
In 1996 the university set up a pilot study in the political studies department
where students were required to put in 40 hours community work as part of
their course work for a citizenship and community-service programme. The
class was created to `encourage students to think about and encounter issues
pertaining to citizenship by a combination of course work and an internship
with an approved community partner'. The internship was spread over a
semester and required a minimum of 40 hours of voluntary community
service in either governmental (provincial
or local) or nongovernmental work. The curriculum for the class focused
on researching and understanding the role of citizenship in a democratic
society, working in the internship, and reflecting on those experiences
through a journal and in class discussion. Students in the class were also
required to complete a final report and presentation to link the major
themes from the classroom to the experience they gained in the field.
Overview of findings
The case studies below show that in a number of fields the traditional
forms of internship are becoming increasingly difficult to organise in the
face of cost-cutting in institutions and in the workplace.
The number of students that can be accepted by the technikons for the
above diplomas is limited by the number of placement positions in
teaching hospitals. M L Sultan has problems placing students in Durban
as there is only one hospital. This means students have to go to hospitals
in Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria for their internships. The
South African Medical Council has asked other technikons not to offer
medical technology diplomas because of the shortage of places in
hospitals for training. Even so, M L Sultan is starting to face problems
with placements because of rationalisation and cutbacks at hospitals. It is
also not possible to expand placements to clinics as students have to have
access to specific equipment and procedures to complete their training.
About two thirds of the programmes surveyed are closely related to the mission
of the higher education institutions and use the skills and expertise located
within these institutions. These programmes are intended to extend the
institution's knowledge base through its engagement with new, underdeveloped
sites, and in a number of cases practical support and services for local
communities are flowing out of the teaching and research activities being
undertaken by the programme.
All the programmes examined in this study are locally organised, operating from
the institutional base within which they were created. Except for Sasvo, they all
draw their students and staff from the particular institution in which they were
initiated. Sasvo involves students from higher education institutions across the
country in its projects.
The student volunteer organisations enjoy a loose relationship with the host
institutions, often using the institutional facilities to run their programmes, but
they are not able to draw much on the unique skills and expertise that the
institutions have to offer.
The research found that in virtually all cases, external funding was
essential in getting the programmes launched and in sustaining them.
Funds are provided by a wide range of sources: South African companies,
South African foundations, in some cases parastatal organisations such as
the South African Atomic Energy- Board, and foreign donors.
The research showed found that the programmes often have more than
one goal. To determine who benefited most directly from each
programme, it was necessary to try and identify the primary goal in each
case. This helped to establish whether there were any secondary
beneficiaries and/ or byproducts in each programme. It also helped to
determine how the programme activities relate to the mission of higher
education and the extent to which the activities require the special
expertise of higher education.
For each of the stakeholders, the benefit takes different forms. For
example, students may benefit from the financial aid they receive in
exchange for their participation in the programme; they also gain work
experience, grow in confidence, and develop specific and transferable
skills. Many of the programmes enable students to learn how to work
independently as well as with other people, and help them acquire life
skills such as improved communication, punctuality and an ability to
keep appointments.
In the case of the service-related activities that are closely related with
the higher education missions (eg. extension services, community
outreach programmes and community internship programmes) it was
found that an assessment of the scale of these operations depends on the
nature of the activity. In some cases, such as extension services, the
outreach may be quite substantial. For example, the survey has found
that the medical, social work or tutoring programmes can handle
thousands of cases a year and can be replicated more extensively if
funding and other support mechanisms are in place. However, in cases
where high levels of skill and specialised facilities are required (such as
the University of the Witwatersrand Rural Facility or the University of
the Western Cape's dental faculty programmes), the outreach is of
necessity more limited and may not be easily expanded or replicated.
The main sources of data were Eberly and Sherraden's (1990) survey of nine
national service programmes5 and Albrecht and Ziderman's (1992) work on
financing universities in developing countries. Eberly and Sherraden selected
countries that `have substantial or noteworthy experience with national
service and that offer informative contrasts in programme design as well as
variation in geographic, political and economic contrasts'. Five of these
programmes - those in Costa Rica, Nigeria, Indonesia, Israel and Mexico are
aimed at higher education students and were therefore included in this study.
In addition, service programmes for higher education students in Ghana,
Botswana and Nepal were examined. Finally, the study considered a variety of
service programmes for higher education students in the USA -AmeriCorps,
the Cornell Tradition, the Bonner Scholars' Programme, the National
Teacher Corps and the National Health Service Corps.
5The programmes surveyed were based in China, Costa Rica, Nigeria, Indonesia, Israel,
Mexico, the USA, Canada and West Germany.
Goals
An analysis of the stated goals of the programmes shows that they address,
or seek to address, a number of complex, interrelated goals:
• Repaying the nation for free education (Mexico and Costa Rica);
• Civic duty and commitment (Nigeria, Costa Rica, Ghana and USA);
Although the purpose, effects and design of these programmes are varied,
all attempt to address socioeconomic need through the deployment of
educated manpower in the form of higher education students. Organisation
In seven of the nine countries surveyed service was, or is, compulsory and
the service period ranges from 150 hours to two years. In Nigeria and
Ghana national service is compulsory after graduation. Nigerians who
graduate from any university inside or outside Nigeria are liable for one
year's service and employers are prohibited from hiring graduates who do
not possess the certificate of national service. In Ghana the period of
compulsory service was one year when the programme began in the 1970s but
was increased to two years to increase the supply of students. In Costa Rica,
Mexico, Nepal and Indonesia a minimum period of service is undertaken
during the students' studies and is a requirement for graduation. In Botswana
the service programme is a requirement for government sponsorship of post-
secondary education and occurs before students begin their studies. The
voluntary programme in Israel, Perach, is undertaken by students during their
studies while in the USA some programmes are aimed at potential higher
education students, others at students in institutions and others again at
graduates. Participants in the AmeriCorps programme, which provides
education awards in exchange for community service, can undertake
community service at any time in their student careers and the awards can be
used to pay off student loans or to finance tertiary education.
Eberly and Sherraden indicate that `the reality of mandatory service is often
more complex than official requirements indicate'. They claim that
programmes such as those in Indonesia, Mexico and Nigeria may not in
practice include every student because of lack of financial resources to operate
the programmes and/or corruption or cheating in programme requirements.
In Botswana rapid growth in secondary enrolment and budgetary constraints
means that not all school leavers can be accommodated. In 1991, 75% of the
more than 6 000 school leavers participated. Those not able to be
accommodated (usually those with the lowest pass marks) have to obtain an
exemption certificate.
Deployment
The service programmes in the nine countries have been initiated, managed,
coordinated, administered and supervised in a wide variety of ways. In Nigeria,
Israel, Botswana and Ghana, where service takes place before or after higher
education, government has been instrumental in initiating, organising and
supervising service programmes. This has in some cases necessitated setting
up extensive bureaucracies. In Nigeria the National Youth Service Corps is
governed and managed by the Federal Ministry of Social Development Youth
and Culture. The National Youth Service Corps directorate includes
representatives of the academic community, employers, the armed forces and
other government ministries. The directorate headquarters in Lagos is
responsible for policy making, finances and the general administration of the
scheme. Directorate headquarters also controls the mobilisation of students
and their deployment to the 21 different states in Nigeria. Each state also has a
National Youth Service Corps secretariat which is responsible for matching
the qualifications of participants with the needs of employers in the state. State
officials control the day-to-day administration of the scheme within their
states. They keep in contact with employers and participants to
monitor performance, pay out the monthly allowance and deal with
recurring problems.
In the four countries where service takes place during higher education
there is varied government involvement in the service programmes. Costa
Rica is the only programme studied where there appears to be no
government involvement. The Trabajo Comunal Universitario
programme was initiated by the university, and the vice-rectory for social
action was created as the organisational structure through which to
implement the Trabajo Comunal Universitario programme. The projects
are initiated from inside the university and the directors of projects are
professors identified with the type of work to be undertaken. Professors
are given a workload credit for directing these projects and officially
devote a minimum of one-fourth of their time to projects. Supervision is
the university's work but according to Eberly and Sherraden `a great deal
depends on the commitment and skill of the community project
coordinator'.
The Servicio Social of Mexico was made mandatory for higher education
students by federal law in 1947. The programme remained undeveloped
until 1978, when a national coordinating commission for social service for
students in higher education was established by government. The
commission is organisationally part of the Secretariat of Programme and
Budget and it and other governmental agencies, such as the Secretary of
Health and of Education, share in financial support of students. The
commission has also formed a system of state committees to coordinate
Servicio Social but control is limited to advice, service and so forth. It
attempts to create some unity by holding meetings, collecting statistics and
organising some placements. The office coordinates only 8 000 out of
about 43 000 placements a year, while 25 000 placements are controlled by
professors at the university. Each institution organises and manages
Servicio Social as it thinks best. Outside of medicine, the programme is
highly decentralised. This situation, as in the other three university-
administered service programmes, has resulted in a lack of coordination
and a wide range in quality. Taking the most extreme example, there are 23
sets of regulations for Servicio Social at the National University in Mexico
City, and no one accurately documents how many students participate. It
may be argued that Servicio Social is decentralised to the level of individual
professors, who often use Servicio Social participants for academic
research.
Nature of programmes
6In Nigeria all corps members are also expected to initiate part-time community
development activities such as public health education, literacy classes or modern farming
methods. In Nepal students also play a dual role. They work under university and local
supervision, partly as a teacher in a rural secondary school and partly as a general
community development worker.
school and home vegetable gardens; teaching adult literacy; and providing
occupational therapy to the aged. A large number, as can be seen from this
short list, are research-oriented projects. In America the programmes have a
wide range of activities and goals. In the AmeriCorps programme,
participants assist needy communities or individuals and may be involved in
such diverse programmes as tutoring children, assisting crime victims,
helping homebound citizens or people with disabilities, restoring national
parks and coastlines, immunising children against preventable diseases, etc.
In Nepal the length of service is one year and it is carried out before the last
three semesters of academic study. Students spend two months in
orientation and training and receive limited field support. They are
evaluated and earn credit towards their degree. They work under university
and local supervision.
Scale of project
In Israel and the USA students are able to earn a considerable portion of
their fees for higher education through community service. Israeli
students can earn up to half their annual tuition fees in their nine months
of community service and money is a primary incentive for participation
in the programme. However, students are carefully supervised and are
paid only after proving they are responsible. AmeriCorps students receive
a modest living allowance and health cover while participating in the
programme. After completing a year of service (at least 1 700 hours) the
student receives an education award of $4 725. This award can be used
to help pay off student loans or to finance tertiary education.
Financing
Eberly and Sherraden claim that in Nigeria the National Youth Service
Corps has promoted the deployment of skilled manpower around the
country. For example, the `NYSC has made it possible for some school
systems around the country to have a regular supply of trained teachers'
and it `provided the catalyst for the realisation of the universal primary
education goals of the mid-1970s'. The youth service corps also increased
the supply of qualified lecturers and other personnel to newly created
universities and colleges. It helped to deliver the national health service
plan by providing qualified personnel for permanent and mobile clinics in
rural areas. Finally, the youth service corps is said to have `immensely
boosted the pace of rural infrastructural development'.
Eberly claims that evaluations have shown that the Tirelo Setshaba
programme in Botswana has had a `marked impact on education' as
students acted as teacher aides and enabled untrained teachers to go for
training.
Albrecht and Ziderman also make claims about the social impact of
service programmes in Ghana and Nepal. In Ghana the national service
programme is described as having `yielded considerable social benefits',
while Nepal's national service development programme is said to have
had high societal benefits. Rural school enrolments rose sharply, and
literacy levels and living conditions improved. It also served as an
important feedback mechanism for university planners and teachers, and
for government in respect of rural needs.
The Corporation for National Service in the USA employs extensive and
continuous monitoring and evaluation procedures for all its programmes.
Every AmeriCorps programme has a plan for internal evaluation. These
plans set goals and ways of tracking progress and improving programme
quality. Progress towards goals is monitored by programme officers at
the corporation and representatives at state and local level. The first year
review of the AmeriCorps programme claims that over the year members
`delivered direct and measurable results in the areas of education, public
safety, human needs and the environment'. Examples of these results
include the following: in Texas 89 AmeriCorps members helped
immunise 104 000 infants; in Bozeman, Montana, 32 members built and
cleared 119 rniles of nature trails, prevented the erosion of 2 700 feet of
trout stream and planted 3 000 trees. In addition to the internal
evaluations, outside evaluators have also assessed the impact of
AmeriCorps. A study by economists of three representative programmes
found that `the return on every federal dollar invested in AmeriCorps
should result in $1,60 to $2,60 or more in direct measurable benefits'.
Another independent study has documented concrete benefits derived by
communities as the result of the AmeriCorps programme, `including
backing up members of the New York city police department, fighting
forest fires in the west, helping flood-ravaged neighbourhoods from
Texas to California to Minnesota, teaching in some of the nation's
toughest classrooms, and cleaning up polluted rivers and streams'.
Constraints
• Insufficient funds;
• Ineffective supervision;
Nigeria: The National Youth Service Corps had difficulty recruiting and
retaining the right calibre of staff and suffered from financial constraints.
Students were resistant to serving in places far from home. The
programme also suffered from a lack of permanent orientation camps, a
lack of accommodation, the underutilisation of professional skills, and a
lack of employment prospects for discharged members. The youth
service corps now urges members to create their own employment.
Botswana: `Lack of acceptability by urban people' seems to be a
constraint, as is the fact that the number of school leavers exceeds the
capacity to absorb them into national development activities.
• Except for medicine, little service to the rural poor. This issue is
related to resources: without stipends, students cannot afford to go
to the countryside. Outside medicine, education, architecture and
social work, however, it does not generally serve the urban poor
either;
Although service in nonmedical fields has not had the same impact as
those in medical fields, it is possible that the successful medical example
might eventually influence the structure and effectiveness of service in
other professions and academic disciplines.
SECTION FOUR
In South Africa all the higher education service programmes are initiated
within institutions - either by the institution as a whole, or by individual
faculties or departments, or by stakeholders within the institutions (such
as students and/or staff). The programmes are mostly mission-driven in
that they seek to express the central higher education mission of teaching
and research in new, community-based contexts. Some of the programmes
are needs-related in that they shape extension services in relation to
community needs, or take community needs as the reference point to
influence teaching and research. Three of the South African programmes
are needs-driven: Sasvo, Shawco and Uskor aim to cater directly for
specific needs of the communities in which they operate, regardless of
whether or not this fosters the higher education mission.
In South Africa the research done for this project has not been able to
quantify the impact which the services described are having on the scale of
need. More research is required on how, as a result of these interventions,
conditions are changing in the communities concerned. As pointed out
earlier in this paper, the impression given by the available information is
that the impact is small in relation to the enormous need in most South
African communities. The conclusion from this research is that students,
staff and in some cases the institutions are the major beneficiaries of the
service programmes and that the benefits for communities flow out of
these, but that their impact cannot be quantified at present.
The relationship between the scale of a service programme and its impact
may depend on the nature of the need being addressed.
Core issues arising in the international and South African case studies are
the following:
Our tentative conclusion here is that the relationship between scale and
impact may in fact be a function of the nature of the need and the
strategies
required to meet it. If the need requires labour-based activity, then large
numbers may make a big difference, eg. in the case of immunising large
numbers of children against diseases. If meeting the need requires applying
skill, technology and specialist knowledge then the numbers are likely to
be less important than matching the available human resources
strategically with the task. Finally, the need may best be met by means of
an appropriate solution: in the case of the University of the Western Cape
a small number of students working as library assistants were able to make
a huge impact on the functioning of the institution by keeping the library
open between 8pm and 10pm.
The international case studies suggest that nowhere did community service
constitute a form of employment for students. In most cases students were
paid below the minimum wage and in some cases they received no
payment at all. In one case students were not remunerated and had to
meet their own expenses (eg. transport costs), with the result that they
were contributing financially to the programme in which they were
required to serve.
The programmes in Israel and the USA relate payment for participation to
tuition cost. In these cases the costs to government may be higher per
participant than in other countries, and it is thus not surprising that in
both Israel and the USA the issue of cost-benefit is one which informs the
assessment of impact.
South Africans and to destabilise the southern African region has left a
close association between the term `national service' and the effects of
apartheid. In the 1990s, with the advent of democracy in South Africa,
attempts were made within sections of civil society to give the term a new
meaning which was more synergistic with the aims of the new
dispensation. This section examines briefly how the term `national service'
has evolved in recent years in the South African context, and what goals
are being articulated in proposals for national community service.
For most South Africans the most recent and enduring experience of
national service is that which was practised under apartheid. The South
African Defence Force conscripted young white men into the army to
defend unjust causes inside and outside South Africa. The periods of
service varied (first for nine months and then for longer periods, up to two
years), and soldiers were paid a stipend for the period they spent in
uniform. To all intents and purposes the national servicemen were used for
narrow political purposes in actions frequently hidden from the public eye.
`National service' was a compulsory national programme, driven by central
government (not the function of a specific line ministry), and is thus
associated in the minds of many South Africans with repressive actions and
militaristic tendencies. The experience has discredited the idea of national
conscription and has left a legacy in which the concept of a centrally driven
national service is viewed with suspicion by many South Africans.
The National Youth Service Initiative
7A National Youth Service Initiative in South Africa. Report by the technical team under
the leadership of Bob Tucker to the national working group of the National Youth
Development Forum. September 1993, p.4.
The essence of the National Youth Service Initiative's approach was
twofold: to render service through projects and simultaneously to educate,
train and develop the young participants by means of a core curriculum.
Here then, in 1993, was the first articulation of the relationship between
service and learning in the South African context and it was occurring
outside the context of structured education provision. The programme
stressed the need to balance implementability, scale, the engagement of
youth, and the delivery of a quality programme for the benefit both of the
young participants and for the development of the communities concerned.
The sectors that the planning team identified for this purpose were the
following: immediate rehabilitation of urban and rural infrastructure; long-
term urban infrastructure and housing; education and training; rural
development and rural environmental conservation; health; social services;
and peace service.
8Gardner Khumalo et al: Youth Development Policy: Prospects and Pitfall,. Research
report by the Centre for Policy Studies, commissioned by the petitions and public
participation committee of the Gauteng legislature, 1 December 1995, pp. 55-G3.
component of the traditional training through articles: `Internship would
be acceptable, but not as a replacement to articles.... There would not be
enough training or exposure of attorneys to legal practices ... there is a
problem of black graduates not getting articles, but that could be sorted
out by a change of attitude of law firms.’11
Nevertheless, one factor that strengthens the motivation for the proposal
is that many of the professions are not geared towards steering newly
qualified professionals towards public service. Consequently, there are
still relatively few opportunities during their training, or on graduation,
for young professionals to be exposed to new career opportunities in
development work. Where such opportunities have been made available,
the research found a number of cases in which students switched career
paths to public service work after having been exposed to practising in a
development context. 12
11Jimmy Yesiko, Western Cape director of the Black Lawyers' Association as quoted in
the Mail and Guardian, 1-7 August 1997.
12Some of the most striking examples of this phenomenon come from the University of
Natal in Pietermaritzburg where, on the basis of exposure to development work during
their undergraduate careers, graduates in a range of fields switched to public interest
work following their practica served in the private sector.
SECTION SIX
The higher education sector in South Africa has been the focus of
intensive deliberation regarding its role in the growth and development of
the country. In August 1997 the Cabinet adopted the White Paper on
Higher Education13 which identifies at least four major deficiencies in
higher education:
• Higher education has failed to lay the foundations for a critical civil
society: it has failed to contribute to the socialisation of enlightened,
responsible and constructively critical citizens, and has not actively
encouraged individuals to make commitments to common societal
goals; and
13
Department of Education, A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education
ion, Pretoria, July 1997. Government Gazette, vol 386, no 18207.
The transformation strategy spelled out in the White Paper is designed to
produce a higher education system in South Africa in which these
deficiencies are addressed. The strategy includes the following
components:
Equitable participation
The White Paper provides the basis for policies designed to ensure that
the higher education system over time reflects the demographic realities
of the broader SA society. These will have to include provision for
articulation and transfer between the different structures and sectors of
the higher education system, and provision for support for those whose
private or family resources prevent them gaining access to higher
education.
Responsiveness
Partnerships
The White Paper stresses that major changes are required in the
structures, values and culture of higher education governance in South
Africa, and argues for the adoption of partnerships between government
and civil society organisations through which the challenges of a modern
society can be met. The civil society groupings involved in these
partnerships should include higher education institutions, organised
business, commerce and labour, and other stakeholders such as staff and
student organisations.
Community service in higher education policy
The White Paper makes some specific references to the role of community
service within the overarching task of transforming higher education:
• One of the national goals of the higher education sector is cited as being
`to promote and develop social responsibility and awareness among
students of the role of higher education in social and economic
development through community service programmes ; 14
How do these social and developmental goals fit with the higher education
mission? A limited survey of higher education institution mission
statements was undertaken during the research process. It found that at the
core of most of the mission statements is a commitment to quality
teaching, scholarship and research which is responsive to the
developmental needs of individuals and society at large. Some refer to
higher education's service to society and its contribution towards the
reconstruction and development processes in South Africa. Others
emphasise higher education's role in addressing the challenges facing
society in general. The White Paper's references to community service are
broadly consonant with the mission statements emanating from various
higher education institutions.
What, then, are the distinctive ways in which higher education institutions
could give expression to this aspect of their mission? There appear to be
two broad approaches, neither of which see service delivery as a distinctive
function of higher education, except when it is part of the training of
students (for example, in law or in the health sciences):
• One locates teaching and research at the core of the mission and
therefore responds to societal needs through these functions. In this way
responsiveness to societal needs can be integrated into the mainstream
activities of higher education, with the potential to transform
relationships between higher education and society; and
17The White Paper does not define the term `community', nor does it suggest how the
service programmes could be of direct benefit to the wider community.
The analysis of South African case studies in section 3 shows that
institutions are already seeking to respond to the social and developmental
imperatives within communities, but that these efforts are still sporadic and
do not yet constitute the critical mass necessary to make a significant impact
on the relationships between higher education and society. The research
process nevertheless identified a number of positive factors which have
considerable potential to support the growth of a culture of service in this
new environment:
`Annual budgetary allocations are only one element in a complex equation, and the
ministry accepts that a multifaceted approach to student financial aid is essential. A
sustainable long-term scheme ¢rill include loans and bursaries, as the present scheme does,
and may well include scholarships to reward academic excellence, and student and
community self-reliance programmes, such as workstudy and community service. The
ministry is actively supporting an investigation into there alternatives.’ 18
The funding available for student support comes from a range of sources and
has the following profile:
Higher education institutions R220m20
Government 300m
Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa (Tefsa) 60m
Family contributions 150m
Total 730m
19Thisand the following information was gained from a discussion with Prof Ian Bunting
and others at the University of Cape Town during the course of the research process.
Given the interest that the White Paper on Higher Education takes in
community service as one option for financial aid, what possibilities are there
for shaping service programmes in ways that will generate the financial
resources needed by higher education students?
Dr Stuart Saunders23 cites Albrecht and Ziderman who point out that
national service can be justified by the fact that it is society as a whole,
through taxation, that subsidises higher education and that the graduate gets
a personal gain which justifies repayment in kind through service to society
As has been shown elsewhere in this paper, a national service scheme may
take place after graduation or may coincide with undergraduate study.
Repayment in kind is usually separated completely from institutional finances
or may occasionally directly benefit the financial position of the higher
education institution, for example when students are employed by the
institution in workstudy arrangements such as those outlined in section 3. In
some instances, there is direct payment to students in lieu of tuition or living
support such as in the case of the programmes in the Western Cape and
KwaZulu-Natal (see section 3).
21
Pundy Pillay, 1995: `Student Financing in Higher Education: Funding and Implementing a
National Loan Scheme in South Africa' in Higher Eduradon Financing Conference:
Background Reading and Conference Papers, January 1995, Ministry of National Education,
Pretoria.
22
Bronwyn Levy, 1995: `Student Loan Programmes - the International Experience', ibid, p.
21 of her paper.
23
Dr Smart Saunders was consulted by the research team in July 1997 on his current research
into financial aid options for higher education.
If national service were to be linked to financial aid, a number of issues would
need to be addressed in terms of programme design. These include the
possibility that students can `buy out' at the outset by paying higher tuition
fees. This might be socially divisive and the programmes would lose much of
their potential to generate individual benefits in relation to personal
development. Furthermore, unless there is a ma tch between the fields of
study like engineering and the service tasks required, graduates may not be
best used in terms of society's needs and the cost-benefit may ultimately not
be realised.
In the context of transforming higher education in South Africa, there are two
key questions that need to be addressed: Firstly, how could the scheme ease
the funding needed for the national student financial aid scheme and
secondly, how could it be organised and administered? Graduates will need to
be paid if they are going to work for one, two or three years in a community
service programme. Saunders argues that the only way in which this can be of
financial benefit to government is if there are vacant posts which cannot be
filled and which are already funded, or if the students work for less than the
going rate. Although neither of these strategies would help the national
student financial aid scheme recover its debt and maintain its capital base, it is
possible that this approach could inform specific schemes for specific sectors.
For example, all medical students who require financial assistance could
use a separate scheme rather than turning to the national scheme to cover
their education costs. In return, they could be required to work in
government posts (national or provincial) for a period of time. The
proposal that from 1998 medical graduates would have to do one or two
24
Government departments have cited severe personnel shortages in key areas of
health, social welfare, education and legal assistance. In some departments there is not
so much a net shortage of personnel as a maldistribution across geographic areas. For
example, there is an oversupply of teachers in some provinces while there are chronic
shortages of teachers in rural areas in the Northern Province and parts of KwaZulu-
Natal. In the field of health there is one doctor for every 700 citizens in some provinces
while in the Eastern Cape there is one doctor for every 4 000 residents. The Eastern
Cape NIEC for Health and Welfare Services reported in April 1997 that only 38 640
posts of the 52 100 in the sector were filled. She said that some backlogs were critical
and in some cases `there was not a single doctor in an isolated rural hospital, no
pharmacist in big ones, no social worker to visit an abused child'. The national
Department of Welfare also reports widespread backlogs in providing services.
years compulsory service as a condition of their registration as medical
practitioners has already been discussed. Since this is regarded as part of
their training by the Interim South African Medical and Dental Council,
it might be necessary to allow medical graduates to get the value of two
years' financial aid credited to them for each additional year of national
service after their compulsory two years. In other words, a student who
had received loans for all six years of his/her study could then do two
years compulsory service as would all other medical graduates, and
another three years to pay off his/her student debt. These graduates
could be allowed the option of buying out from the last three years, by
refunding the agency in full with interest, which would mean that there
would be no loss to the financial strength of that scheme.
To what extent could this approach ease the pressure on the national
student financial aid scheme? If 5 000 medical students each take loans
equivalent to R10 000 a year for six years, this would amount to R50
million a year or R300 million over six years. Since the current estimate
of funding available from Tefsa in 1997 is R60 million and from
government is R300 million, a reduction of R50 million advanced by
another scheme would, to some extent, ease the pressure on the national
student financial aid scheme.
The research found that the relationship between scale and impact may be
a function of the nature of specific needs and the strategies required to
meet them, and the amount of time available for service. If the need
requires labour-based activity, then large numbers may make a big
difference. If meeting the need requires the application of skill, technology
and specialist knowledge, on the other hand, the numbers are likely to be
less important than establishing a strategic match between the available
human resources and the needs and tasks. Alternatively, the need may best
be met by means of an appropriate solution, such as in the case of on-
campus programmes which increase the capacity of the institutions.
The scale of the financial aid crisis is such that a diversified financing
strategy will be required to generate funds additional to those already
going into the national student financial aid scheme. Two strategies
have been identified which could supplement a general student
Financial aid scheme. Both involve matching financial aid to the
achievement of specific outcomes - either skills development or service
provision.
The research was conducted on the basis of conceptual model which was
helpful in providing a foundation for discussion and analysis. The
conceptual model looked at community service programmes in higher
education as a matrix of possibilities: earning opportunities for students,
learning opportunities for students and staff, and opportunities for
developing the notion of community commitment among all institutional
stakeholders. Furthermore, the matrix took a broad view of community
service in relation to a higher education timeframe and looked at
programmes before higher education, during higher education and after
higher education. These categories have informed the analysis in section 2
of the paper.
BEFORE HIGHER EDUCATION
The Youth Work Scheme is a project of the joint Enrichment Project. The
Youth Work Scheme recruits people aged between 20 and 30 who have not
completed their education and are unemployed. A team of 1530
participants works on community reconstruction projects four days a week
for six months. Participants attend personal development sessions one day
a week. The work scheme ensures that young people gain the discipline and
skills required to return to study or to secure employment, while ensuring
that communities see youth as a positive resource in the reconstruction of
South Africa.
The Youth Work Scheme was initiated in 1995 and now has four teams of
20 students working in the programme. The scheme is initiated in
communities after extensive consultations with community representatives.
Communities are fully briefed on the purpose and scope of the project and
their role in the project is workshopped. Participants in the scheme get
paid a monthly stipend for taking part. If they complete the programme
they receive a bursary which must be used for further education or training,
or to purchase tools or equipment for employment or income generation.
The Joint Enrichment Project has the capacity to expand the Youth Work
Scheme to work extensively in Gauteng. The current capacity of the project
is to run five to six teams of 20 people annually. The Joint Enrichment
Project believes that with the appropriate staff resources that capacity
could be doubled to 12 teams of 20 annually. Expansion depends on
several factors. From December 1996 the Youth Work Scheme works
only with communities that are able to raise money for the materials
necessary for site development. For example, one team is building a church
and the church is paying for the bricks and cement. The Youth Work
Scheme often needs to play an advisory role to the community in assisting
people to raise money for these resources. This aspect of the work has the
most limiting effect on expansion.
The Joint Enrichment Project does not believe that establishing and running
a national programme is the best method of expanding the work scheme.
Rather, it believes that replicating through other structures is preferable.
There is enormous potential to expand the work scheme. This could be
done in several ways such as through local government, provincial
government departments, civic institutions and nongovernmental
organisations. The joint Enrichment Project has developed a manual for use
by other organisations to facilitate this process of replication.
Service-learning
Camps-based/Workstudy
Towards those ends, about 200 Wits students (at the level of third year or
honours in their subject) are engaged in tutoring about 25 students
(Standard 6-10) at each of the 20 schools. Students selected in Standard 6
are expected to participate in the programme through to Standard 10. In
addition, Wits University staff are providing in-service workshops for
teachers and are assisting with upgrading teacher qualifications. With the
assistance of Reach and Teach, computers have been provided to five of
the schools to establish computer resource centres to enhance learning.
Wits students participating in the programme have been receiving financial
compensation for their involvement. It is expected that following the
programme's recent move to the faculty of education, students will begin
to receive academic credit for participating in lieu of financial
compensation.
1. Peninsula Technikon
Orientation: The Peninsula Technikon has had to move into lice with
other institutions in requesting up-front payment for tuition and boarding
fees. This often has to come from parents/ students since none or very
few bursaries have been confirmed by this time, and many students are
unable to afford these fees. With this in mind, the technikon is using the
registration period to employ some students part-time, both in an
administrative capacity and in programmes that assist the `new' students
in the transition from secondary to higher education. The orientation
committee has already put such programmes in place, while the Desmond
Tutu Educational Trust assists with remuneration for the student
assistants.
Peer helpers: The student affairs department together with the student
representatives' council will identify ways in which students who have
gained experience in student structures can be employed to support newly
elected members.
The community dentistry department uses student assistants for two of its
projects. The Eros project is focused on preventative health, and is directed
towards improving the oral hygiene of scholars at the Eros School for
Cerebral Palsied Children, The students participating in this programme
have become involved with the Eros children in more than just the
provision of oral health care. They have, for example, organised an annual
fun-day since 1994.
Campus-based/Service-learning
The mission of the Wits Rural Facility best summarises the purpose of its
work: Wits University should through a permanent presence in a typical
rural area create a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary endeavour
which will contribute to the development of such areas; inform society
of rural needs; provide a venue for experiential community-based
learning for postgraduate and undergraduate students from a spectrum of
facilities; and alert Wits graduates to the challenges and rewards of
working in such a rural area. This will ultimately benefit not only the
immediate communities but South African society as a whole on an
ongoing basis, through the service, research, advocacy and policy making
of the students and staff who are participants in and products of the
rural facility's endeavour.
The most significant challenge facing the rural facility is the lack of
sustainable funding for its projects. While the rural facility's activities need
to be expanded, the funders have tended to establish short-term projects
with a focused impact. With additional sustainable financial resources, the
facility could expand its capacity dramatically.
The rural facility also provides an interesting model for other institutions to
examine because it provides a mechanism for students studying in an urban
community to focus their work on rural needs. The major barrier to
developing additional interdisciplinary facilities further in other institutions
will most likely be a lack of financial and human resources.
Contact: Dr A. Shaker
Executive director
National Community Water and Sanitation Training
Institute
c/o University of the North
Private Bag X1106 Sovenga, 0727
Phone: (0152) 268-3266 Fax: (0152) 268-3263
email: [email protected]
The institute was opened in 1996 with the primary aim of working
within the community water and sanitation sector. Its goal was to
standardise training and influence tertiary education with a view to
engaging more students in programmes contributing human resources
to the sector.
The goal of the project was to form a joint venture to develop a mobile
spaza - a small shop or workshop run by entrepreneurs in the informal
business sector. In essence, the project entailed designing a vehicle for
handicapped people which could be built and serviced inexpensively by
local, black-owned backyard autobody shops in the township of
Soshanguve, where the technikon is located. Under this programme,
senior mechanical engineering students, guided by their mechanical
engineering lecturer, have built a proto-type model and will work to
design the mobile spaza. The students on the project will be divided into
four teams - suspension and steering, platform and superstructure,
engine and power pack, and control and electricity. In this service-
learning project, students will be challenged to take what they were
learning in the classroom and apply it to the real world in the context of
helping other people.
The tecknikon has hired a full-time coordinator for the project. It is also
anticipated that partnerships will he developed with private sector
engineering and auto manufacturers to donate in-kind support for the
mobile spaza. Thirty students will participate in the project, which is
partly financed by the Ford Foundation. The department of mechanical
engineering was approached by the Medunsa Organisation for Disabled
Entrepreneurs Project to form a joint venture for the development of a
mobile spaza. The Technikon Northern Transvaal Foundation submitted
a proposal to the Ford Foundation to support this endeavour.
S e r v i c e -l e a r n i n g
Contact: Dr G. Humphrey
Project leader
Water Research Commission
Private Bag X2046
Mmabatho
Phone: (0140) 8 9 2 - 050 Fax: (0140) 8 9 2 -052
The University of the North West was designed to involve all its faculties
in the development of the university's surrounding community. The
purpose of involving students is to give them practical work experience
and to expose them to community issues. There is no overall project
coordinator but community service is compulsory for students and is
completed in different ways. For example, one of the projects of the
chemistry department which involves 2 5 students in service-learning has
three goals:
Technikon Witwatersrand
Campus-based/Service-learning/Workstudy
The Wits Technikon has involved more than 120 students in a campaign
to improve the standard of living and quality of life in disadvantaged
communities through about six different projects. The technikon's
mission provides for community-outreach programmes which are
supported by academic departments and coordinated by a community
projects officer. The private sector provides a significant amount of
resources for the project's core activities, and students can receive
bursaries, academic credits and in some cases money for taking part.
Workstudy
In 1995 the initiative was taken to open the programme to all races. This
highlighted areas where previously advantaged students were
disadvantaged. Some students had never ventured into the townships and
were horrified to find out the conditions in which old people had to
collect their pensions. Other students were too afraid to go into small
business areas that were not historically white.
Service-learning
Service-learning
Ufundo Workstudy
Ufundo believes that South Africa will be able to take great strides in
developing previously disadvantaged communities only if skilled citizens
work in those communities. Ufundo beneficiaries are therefore required to
reinvest their skills in development projects. Ufundo is currently operating
four community service projects:
• A tutoring programme;
Sasvo was established in 1993 by the Centre for Human Rights at the
University of Pretoria as a nationwide programme which enables students
at all universities, technikons and colleges to work as volunteers with
established community service organisations during their holidays. Their
most recent project, Operation Zenzele (`Do it yourself'), was held during
the winter holiday and engaged more than 300 higher education students
working on a major school renovation and human rights education
campaign in over 50 Gauteng secondary schools. Other organisations that
were partners in the project included the Gauteng education department,
the Congress of South African Students, the Pan African Students'
Organisation and the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund. Operation
Zenzele was aimed at enabling tertiary and secondary education students
to take joint responsibility for reconstructing a healthy and humane
community life on the basis of the new constitution.
The organisation does not wish to expand its operations unless this is
accompanied by sustainable funding. With sustainable funding,
however, there is significant potential to expand programmes offered
by Shawco's community centres, some of which are not staffed by full-
time employees. Extra full-time employees will be able to provide
greater services to the community and will help to create opportunities
for placing additional volunteers.
Uskor uses the university's financial systems and office space but is
an independent service and welfare organisation. Community and
student governance of projects is also an important component of
Uskor's work. AFTER HIGHER EDUCATION
Community-based