Upheaval at South Africa’s universities is an opportunity to remake academia

By Philip Machanick. Too often, demands for change have stalled when they run up against rigid structure – think of post-apartheid change in South Africa or decolonisation across Africa. A strictly top-down bureaucratic organisation is very hard to change. Democratisation of South Africa, 21 years on, has not empowered the ordinary person to take on corrupt officialdom or poor service delivery. More...