Access, quality and success : Working towards social justice through open initiatives at the University of the Free State

Abstract

Education in the South African context is widely promoted as a toolfor achieving equity through increasing the life opportunities for those involved. Thepromotion of open learning as a strategy for shaping the post-school education andtraining sector (PSET) seeks to address the historical suffocation of the educationaldreams and opportunities of black people, and contemporary poverty, lack of servicesand limited access to opportunities. The broad ambitions of open learning – improvingaccess, quality and success – find expression in multiple ways in the diverse andcomplex PSET sector, with institutions taking different paths towards differentkinds of ‘openness’. This research explores stories of openness at the University ofthe Free State (UFS), through tracing the history of five initiatives that seek to openup learning. We adopted an interpretivist case study approach, collecting a varietyof data, including four semi-structured interviews, institutional reports, and publicfacingdocumentation. Underpinned by Fraser’s social justice framework, we askin what ways, and to what extent, initiatives supporting access, quality and successrespond to historical and contemporary social injustices, and what conditions enabledand constrained their scope and success. Through our interpretation of the data, itemerged that understandings of ‘open’ in this context are shifting and contingent,and are strongly shaped by conceptualisations of, and contextual readiness for, openlearning. Many initiatives established in support of ‘opening up’ education may bedescribed as ameliorative responses to inequalities. However, activities such as thereimagining of marginalisation and pedagogy in the PSET context and the increasingrecognition of the importance of leadership and governance, are working towardsaddressing economic, cultural and political injustices, creating more enablingconditions for transformative shifts towards opening up education.