Community Engagement in South African Higher Education
These considerations suggest five ways forward for the NRF and the HEQC. Firstly, of course, is the imperative for promoting and supporting work on the conceptualisation of community engagement, understood as development of public goods in the “third space”. This was anticipated by Kaniki and others at the August 2008 Workshop: “a further aspect, which was often left in abeyance, was the actual knowledge production – in other words, the way in which knowledge is produced in the interaction with the community. We do not only need to enquire about community engagement, but to research how knowledge is produced through community engagement” (Kaniki in CHE, 2008). Kaniki has also pointed out that such projects relate directly to the founding principles of the NRF: “on the establishment of the NRF, part of the funding to researchers was intended to develop an understanding of how the research would be transferred to the community or the public, mostly in terms of knowledge-sharing and writing up the research” (ibid.). Secondly, it will be of considerable value to map what universities are actually doing in third sector teaching and research. By avoiding the assumption that people know what community engagement means, and by rather mapping out what teachers and researchers are actually doing against the test of responsiveness to the challenges of community needs, it will be possible to get a more accurate understanding of the current return on investment in the higher education system in this area. It may well prove that, because of the confusions over the definition of community engagement, there has been substantial under-reporting. Thirdly, is the area of institutional systems of incentives, rewards and network support. This set of issues is invariably identified in discussions of community-oriented teaching and research, and in the measurement of outputs of such work. If the focus is not aligned with institutional systems of appointment, reward and promotion, there will be strong, practical disincentives for engagement. De la Rey identified this as a key issue at the August 2008 workshop: “I would 46
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