Abstract:
Public Administration at a comprehensive university
The higher education sector in South Africa has experienced various changes during the past
few years: technikons are now called universities of technology; some well known universities
received new, unknown names. Other universities, such as the University of South Africa (Unisa),
have retained their old names while the content thereof seems to have changed. The University
of South Africa is now called a comprehensive university – a category of higher education
institutions of which the reasons of existence have not been spelled out clearly. Public
Administration is a subject which is offered at this university. The question is raised: how is the
subject Public Administration practised at a comprehensive university? In order to understand
the reason of existence of a comprehensive university, this article investigates the meaning of
concepts such as “higher education”, “university”, “traditional university”, “technikon” and
“university of technology”. A systematic analysis of the various official documents constituting
the category “comprehensive university”, reveals an absence of specific definitions of this and
related concepts. However, a comprehensive university within the South African context seems
to be nothing more than a compilation of former university and technikon teaching programmes
in one institution. A comprehensive university is thus a specific type of university. It is argued in
this article that a university exists with the view of knowledge: knowing how to learn and how
to know. This knowledge aim implies a never ending search for the truth. This search is the result
of the ability of human beings to look beyond the obvious views on violence, poverty, crime,
injustices, race and culture to the not so obvious views. Although the university is part of society,
it is not necessarily supposed to think and to work exactly as society. Lecturers who are involved
with the subject Public Administration are part of society, which is served by the public service.
Some of them are even former public servants. However, lecturers in Public Administration who
make a study of public institutions and the people working there are not supposed to think as
public officials think. The main challenge in presenting the subject of Public Administration at
a comprehensive university, is thus the measure in which students’ way of thinking can be changed
to thinking beyond the obvious. This article shows that a typical three year diploma and a three
year degree differ in terms of their level of complexity and composition although they may share
specific building blocks (modules). If a university upholds a never-ending aim for the truth, it
implies that critical thinking, irrespective of the level of complexity, should always be part of the
tuition programmes of a comprehensive university. Students in Public Administration at Unisa,
whether they are enrolled for diploma or degree programmes, should thus get the opportunity to
solve occupation specific problems as well as scholarly problems on a continuum of complexity
in a reflexive way. By doing that, thinking in its superlative form is acknowledged and promoted.
The most important contribution that the subject Public Administration at a comprehensive
university can make, is the stimulation of critical thought in its students.
