Leveraging emerging technologies to enhance public accountability in South African higher education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20853/39-4-7514Keywords:
accountability, technology, higher education, quality, accessibilityAbstract
South African higher education institutions face significant challenges in maintaining transparency, accountability, and efficient governance. Amidst growing demands for improved quality and accessibility, coupled with fiscal constraints, there is a pressing need to enhance public accountability. The article explores the potential of leveraging emerging technologies as a catalyst for addressing these challenges. The article reviews the current landscape of South African higher education and the complexities surrounding accountability mechanisms. It highlights the critical role that technology can play in fostering greater transparency and accountability by facilitating data-driven decision-making, real-time reporting, and stakeholder engagement. Emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics are examined in the context of their potential applications in higher education governance. These technologies play a pivotal role in enhancing accountability by enabling institutions to analyse vast volumes of data, assess academic performance, and identify areas for improvement. Moreover, digital communication platforms and social media offer institutions an avenue to engage with the public, disseminate information, and collect feedback in real-time enabling higher education institutions to showcase their accomplishments, address concerns, and maintain open lines of communication with stakeholders. The article discusses critical considerations, including data privacy, cybersecurity, and digital literacy, to ensure the successful implementation of these technologies. Additionally, it offers a comparative analysis of international best practices in leveraging technology for educational accountability, drawing valuable insights for South Africa's higher education sector. The article concludes by emphasising the transformative potential of emerging technologies in enhancing public accountability in South African higher education. It advocates for a strategic and collaborative approach involving institutions, government bodies, and relevant stakeholders to harness the benefits of these technologies while addressing associated challenges. By embracing technological innovations, South Africa's higher education sector can pave the way for improved governance, increased transparency, and ultimately, better outcomes for institutions and the public they serve.
Downloads
References
Abdel-Rahman, M. (2023). Advanced cybersecurity measures in IT service operations and their crucial role in safeguarding enterprise data in a connected world. Eigenpub Review of Science and Technology, 7(1), 138-158.
Abu Talib, N. Y., Abdul Latiff, R., & Aman, A. (2020). An institutional perspective for research in waqf accounting and reporting: A case study of Terengganu state Islamic Religious Council in Malaysia. Journal of Islamic Accounting and Business Research, 11(2), 400-427.
Adam, E. (2020). ‘Governments base performance-based funding on global rankings indicators’: A global trend in higher education finance or a global rankings literature fiction? A comparative analysis of four performance-based funding programs. International Journal of Educational Development, 79, 102197.
Adeyemi, O. O. (2012). Corruption and local government administration in Nigeria: A discourse of core issues. European Journal of Sustainable Development, 1(2), 183-183.
Al-Ayyubi, M. S., & Maulana, B. (2023). Designing a web-based information system for scholarship management: Supporting access and rapid dissemination of information. ITEJ (Information Technology Engineering Journals), 8(1), 14-33.
Balzer, W. K. (2020). Lean higher education: Increasing the value and performance of university processes. New York, NY: Productivity Press.
Barr, M. J., & McClellan, G. S. (2018). Budgets and financial management in higher education. John Wiley & Sons.
Becker, S. A., Brown, M., Dahlstrom, E., Davis, A., DePaul, K., Diaz, V., & Pomerantz, J. (2018). NMC horizon report: 2018 higher education edition. Educause.
Bentley, D., Henderson, F., & Lim, C. B. (2017). The legislative requirements for measuring quality in transnational education: Understanding divergence while maintaining standards. Higher Education Quarterly, 71(4), 338-351.
Bergman, Z., Bergman, M. M., Fernandes, K., Grossrieder, D., & Schneider, L. (2018). The contribution of UNESCO chairs toward achieving the UN sustainable development goals. Sustainability, 10(12), 4471.
Boughey, C., & McKenna, S. (2021). Understanding higher education: Alternative perspectives. Cape Town: African Minds.
Boxenbaum, E., & Jonsson, S. (2017). Isomorphism, diffusion and decoupling: Concept evolution and theoretical challenges. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. Lawrence, & R. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (pp. 77-101). Los Angeles: Sage.
Buchanan, A. (2018). Institutional legitimacy. Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, 4(1), 53-78.
Buckley, J., Adams, L., Aribilola, I., Arshad, I., Azeem, M., Bracken, L., ... & Zhang, L. (2022). An assessment of the transparency of contemporary technology education research employing interview-based methodologies. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 32(4), 1963-1982.
Chigbu, B. I., Ngwevu, V., & Jojo, A. (2023). The effectiveness of innovative pedagogy in the industry 4.0: Educational ecosystem perspective. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 7(1), 100419.
Chinasamy-Dampies, D. (2024). Increasing diversity of participation in Higher Education: A case study of the Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch University).
Czerniewicz, L., Trotter, H., & Haupt, G. (2019). Online teaching in response to student protests and campus shutdowns: Academics’ perspectives. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 16(1), 1-22.
Durand, R., Hawn, O., & Ioannou, I. (2019). Willing and able: A general model of organizational responses to normative pressures. Academy of Management Review, 44(2), 299-320.
George, B., & Wooden, O. (2023). Managing the strategic transformation of higher education through artificial intelligence. Administrative Sciences, 13(9), 196.
Godsell, G., Chikane, R., & Mpofu-Walsh, S. (2016). Fees must fall: Student revolt, decolonisation and governance in South Africa. New York: NYU Press.
Hlatshwayo, M. N., & Fomunyam, K. G. (2019). Theorising the #MustFall student movements in contemporary South African higher education: A social justice perspective. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa, 7(1), 61-80.
Jili, N. N., Ede, C. I., & Masuku, M. M. (2021). Emergency remote teaching in higher education during COVID-19: Challenges and opportunities. International Journal of Higher Education, 10(5), 1-9.
Kogan, M. (2022). Education accountability: An analytic overview. London: Routledge.
Kutty, R. J., & Javed, N. (2021). Secure blockchain for admission processing in educational institutions. 2021 International Conference on Computer Communication and Informatics (ICCCI), 1-4. IEEE.
Maki, P. L. (2023). Assessing for learning: Building a sustainable commitment across the institution. London: Routledge.
McKenzie, R. (2016). The nature and conduct of macroeconomic policy in South Africa. In K. Hart & V. Padayachee (Eds.), Economic change in modern South Africa: Globalization and marginalization (pp. 193-204). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Milley, P., & Dulude, É. (2021). On maladministration in higher education: Towards a multi-level theoretical framework for understanding its emergence and persistence in an era of neoliberal, managerial and corporatist reforms. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 24(5), 588-612.
Modise, J. M., & Modise, P. S. (2023). Improved public trust, integrity and good governance with respect to corruption. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, 8(3), 2573-2583.
Moloi, K. C., & Motaung, R. R. (2014). Challenges of total quality in education through quality assurance principles in one institution of higher education in South Africa. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(1), 137.
Mtebe, J. S., Fulgence, K., & Gallagher, M. (2021). COVID-19 and technology enhanced teaching in higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa: A case of the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Journal of Learning for Development, 8(2), 383-397.
Mugellini, G., Villeneuve, J.-P., & Heide, M. (2021). Monitoring sustainable development goals and the quest for high-quality indicators: Learning from a practical evaluation of data on corruption. Sustainable Development, 29(6), 1257-1275.
Nguyen, A. Q. (2024). Strategies for innovating higher education governance in Vietnam in the digital age. American Journal of Open University Education, 1(5), 5-26.
Okafor, O. N., Adebisi, F. A., Opara, M., & Okafor, C. B. (2020). Deployment of whistleblowing as an accountability mechanism to curb corruption and fraud in a developing democracy. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 33(6), 1335-1366.
Okilwa, N. S. A., & Barnett, B. G. (2021). Strategies and practices of leading schools during the current COVID-19 crisis. International Studies in Educational Administration (Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM)), 49(3).
Pansara, R. (2023). From fields to factories: A technological odyssey in agtech and manufacturing. International Journal of Management Education for Sustainable Development, 6(6), 1-12.
Pramjeeth, S., Nupen, D. M., & Jagernath, J. (2023). Challenges impacting higher education leaders in achieving the sustainable development goal of quality education in South Africa. African Journal of Inter/Multidisciplinary Studies, 5(1), 1-13.
Ramasamy, L. K., & Khan, F. (2024). Secure and transparent educational data record-keeping with blockchain. In L. Kumar & F. Khan (Eds.), Blockchain for global education (pp. 147-164). Wiesbaden: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Randolph, J. (2019). A guide to writing the dissertation literature review. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 14(1), 13.
Reed, M. S., Vella, S., Challies, E., De Vente, J., Frewer, L., Hohenwallner-Ries, D., Huber, T., et al. (2018). A theory of participation: What makes stakeholder and public engagement in environmental management work? Restoration Ecology, 26(S1), S7-S17.
Schildkamp, K. (2019). Data-based decision-making for school improvement: Research insights and gaps. Educational Research, 61(3), 257-273.
Svara, J. H. (2021). The ethics primer for public administrators in government and nonprofit organizations (3rd ed.). Burlingtong: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Tarisayi, K. S. (2024). Strategic leadership for responsible artificial intelligence adoption in higher education. In CTE Workshop Proceedings 11, 4-14.
Turner, S. F., Cardinal, L. B., & Burton, R. M. (2017). Research design for mixed methods: A triangulation-based framework and roadmap. Organizational Research Methods, 20(2), 243-267.
Walcutt, J. J., & Schatz, S. (2019). Modernizing learning: Building the future learning ecosystem. Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative.
Wooten, M., & Hoffman, A. J. (2017). Organizational fields: Past, present and future. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T. Lawrence, & R. Meyer (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational institutionalism (2nd ed., pp. 55-74). Los Angeles: Sage.
Xing, B., & Marwala, T. (2017). Implications of the fourth industrial age on higher education. Tạp chí Nghiên cứu dân tộc. arXiv preprint, arXiv:1703.09643.
Yasin, H., & Mokhtar, M. (2022). Practices of accountability and transparency in financial management among secondary school principals. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(9), 198-216.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
