Institutional culture of mergers and alliances in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa’s extensive set of higher education mergers were implemented between 2002 and 2005. While there has not been a systematic evaluation of this merger process, that created 11 new institutions from 26 merger partners and affected 62 % of the South African higher education system (in terms of current student registrations), a full set of independent and rigorous quality assurance reports provide the basis for evaluating the consequences of the policy. These institutional audits suggest three broad types of outcome: mergers that have resulted in well functioning new institutions, failed mergers, and a set of new universities that are still responding to the consequences of merger. Finally, the publication of South Africa’s new National Development Plan in 2012 and a new analysis of student access and success across the country’s public higher education system as a whole, completed in 2013, allow an assessment of the degree to which the objectives of the 2002 merger plan have been achieved.