Embedding the advancement practice in South African universities : lessons from the Kresge Inyathelo Advancement Initiative (KIAI)

Abstract

The South African Higher Education academic enterprises are besieged with multiple challenges that threaten its viability. Both the government and academic leadership bemoan the dwindling fiscals and turbulent economic markets as factors contributing to this undesirable trajectory. This manifested in 2015, following the October student uprising over increases in student fees. Their main grievance was a call for zero-percent fee increase for the sector. The call later gravitated towards a demand for free education. Universities on the other hand, lament their dire need for student fees to augment the government funding to keep afloat. The impasse brought about by the students’ demand for free education on one hand, and the University’s quest for sustainability on the other, brought the South African Higher Education institutions’ viability model into scrutiny. Notwithstanding government’s obligation to public funding in a South African context, Universities are challenged to develop their own Advancement capacity to to mobilise resources from alternative funding sources. Advancement in this instance refers to a systematic and integrated approach to building and managing the external relationships with key constituencies and stakeholders thereby positioning an organisation to attract support (Inyathelo, 2015). This research is therefore aimed at contributing towards institutional Advancement body of knowledge, positioning it as a possible viability strategy. The study employs Stanford Beer’s (1981) Viable Systems Model’s diagnostic capability to analyse the Advancement practice to the end of informing organisational self-knowledge.