Higher education and the public good as a repair project

Abstract

This paper proposes that the public good in higher education can be understood as a project of repair, that is, contributing to the removal of past injustices, to fairer higher education and to better social futures. Drawing in the first instance on the global South, specifically higher education in post-colonial South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the available literature addressing the public good and higher education is first sketched, before the case is made for repair as both a regional and global project. Having outlined a conceptualisation of repair for higher education, the disrepairs of colonialism and neoliberalism are considered as obstacles standing in the way of a regional and necessarily global repair process in the light of Bhambra’s entangled ‘colonial global’ of former colonizers and colonized. In response, a repair project is proposed underpinned by normative theorising using human development and the capabilities approach, as well as the significance of fostering moral sentiments for the formation of the whole person. In this approach expanding plural wellbeing freedoms and wellbeing achievements are the focus of development and education for equitable and effective educational processes and practices which can foster public spiritedness and public values and undo injustices. To expand the valuable capabilities and functionings of all students and encourage public values would be to foster repair as a public good project. The idea is to move beyond only critique to constructing potential guiding ideas and actions, with attention to student learning and formation outcomes.