Theses and dissertations (Management Sciences)
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Item Stakeholder management of community engagement: an evaluation of higher education institutions in eThekwini Municipality(2022) Luthuli, Pumla Glendale Paulette; Govender, Ivan GunassUniversities are a prominent part of the South African economic landscape, as such the influence Higher Education Institutions (HEI) have on communities cannot be undermined. In this sense, Community Engagement (CE) should be a priority for HEIs. For this to be carried out, effective stakeholder management strategies and programmes should be in place within HEIs strategic plans. However, it seems as if the HEIs are inadequately engaging in CE programs and community development is still generally unsuccessful since HEIs are often isolated from their host communities. This minimal interaction among stakeholders of the HEI has significantly undermined the possibility of addressing some of the societal issues which HEIs have the capacity to address. By utilizing the term stakeholder, the interaction of HEIs with the various role players should be elevated to a professional standard. This not only has implications on the communities and other role players, however it plays a role in the success of the HEI as well. This research area has not been given much attention in the South African context. This study sought to determine the effectiveness of CE stakeholders’ management among HEIs in eThekwini Municipality, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). The quantitative research approach was chosen for this study because of how it allows the research to determine the extent or degree of a problem and offers solutions based on predictions. This study used the survey method, which is classified within the positivist research strategy. The population targeted by this study were stakeholders of the HEIs within the eThekwini Municipality. These entities are considered representatives as they are the core stakeholders at the HEIs within the area of study. The sample size of this study is 80 respondents, we chose 20 participants per institution based on the number of departments that had a community engagement role within each institution. A pretested questionnaire was used to obtain relevant information from the target population of this study. The data collected for this study was analysed descriptively and displayed in the form of graphs using bar graphs, pie charts and tables with the help of SPSS program and a report was written. The study revealed that the CE programs initiated by HEI and the relationship between HEI and key role players are severely insufficient and inefficient at producing successful results. The study additionally revealed that tangible results are required from CE in order for participation to be prevalent among students of HEIs. The challenges of CE is lack of policy knowledge and ineffective strategy. There are also collaborative issues that cause each party to act in opposition. The main recommendation is that the HEIs and community should have a thorough knowledge and understanding of CE policy before embarking on a collaborative relationship.Item Spirituality as a guiding paradigm in community engagement in a rural context in India(2019-11) Rowkith, Shannal; Bhagwan, RaisuyahIntroduction The current position of tribal communities in India is one of oppression and marginalization. Many initiatives are afoot to redress this situation, however the civic authorities face numerous challenges and obstacles influenced by historical, economic and other sociocultural elements. In this context, community engagement can be seen as a distinctive pedagogical tool, that fosters the development of partnerships between social work academic departments and communities, in order to improve the psycho-social well-being of individuals and families and to address socio-economically related problems in communities. Although initiatives in community engagement in India, are urgently required, have been slow to emerge, when compared to developed countries. Compounding this delay is the shortage of specific literature on community engagement. This study is preemptively important, as it highlights how social work departments use engagement successfully among tribals in India, as a crucial pillar to support learning and drive engagement. The study was set in Maharashtra, India and was part of a National Research Foundation study which explored community engagement in the international context. Given that this is a best practice project being implemented by the University of Mumbai, a collaboration was formed with the late Dr Chandrakant Puri, from the Social Work Department to pursue this study in a rural area outside Mumbai, India. Purpose of the study The purpose of this study was to explore how community engagement could facilitate a deeper understanding of Indian tribes and the related impact on community based learning. The structure of tribal communities, core values and processes that guide them and the interaction between the university and the community, were explored to this end. All the relevant gathered data was incorporated into developing a model to guide community engagement with tribal communities in India. Methodology A qualitative research approach was utilized in order to generate valuable data from the interaction with tribals and academics. The two samples in the study comprised of six social work academics, and twenty three students from the Department of Social Work. Semi structured interviews and focus group discussions were used to collect data with academics and students respectively. Data was obtained from the site at which students conducted their village, being a small rural village on the outskirts of Mumbai in the district of Maharashtra. Data was collected until saturation to extract the most relevant information. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the collected data. This found associations and themes within the collated transcripts in detail. These themes and sub themes were derived from the data in entirety. This was accordingly representative of the gathered data. Findings It was found that the theoretical preparation of the institution, when juxtaposed with the specific context and challenges faced by a particular community, is of immense benefit to developing a relevant and useful curriculum to be used to engage with tribals. A summary of the challenges experienced by the community under study, was the lack of resources in the form of healthcare and sanitation, poor infrastructure, psycho-social issues, disparity of cultural sensitivity, migration for employment, and other socio-political concerns. The preparedness of the university for engagement with the community was enhanced by clearly defining and structuring the roles of social work academics. This was then used to determine the format of student preparation for interaction within the community by understanding the engagement context, displaying empathy and sensitizing students towards issues, and promoting equality, social justice and inclusion. From the data gathered, certain tools such as participatory rural appraisal and community mapping and profiling were used as pathways to further prepare students for engagement. Students were immersed in the culture and lifestyle of the tribal community, which allowed them to relate on a humanitarian level and this personalized the interaction allowing for richer experiences. Consequently, authentic university-community partnerships were established which reinforced the benefits of such collaboration. Conclusion Service learning was undertaken as a fieldwork component by the students of the Department of Social Work at The University of Mumbai. The study uncovered important information regarding tribal communities, the challenges they face, and the related preparedness of the institution for interaction. It captures the essence and value of community engagement in social work, given the extreme scarcity of such programmes in India. Ultimately, the importance and significance of establishing a model to guide tribal community engagement is emphasised in the interaction and impressions experienced by both the university and the tribals, who have interacted concurrently for their respective mutual benefit.Item Academics perceptions of community engagement at a selected University of Technology in South Africa(2021-09) Patchappan, Terslina; Govender, Ivan GunassThe South African society is unambiguously in a flux, plagued with wicked challenges such as increased levels of poverty, youth unemployment and an extensive public health crisis, which have become the societal norm. Increased prominence exists for university programmes to alleviate these challenges and sustain the South African landscape. This study aimed to investigate the perceptions of community engagement amongst academics at a selected University of Technology, namely the Durban University of Technology in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Academics’ perceptions towards community engagement are significant for the institutionalisation of engagement at the university. Against this backdrop, the main objectives of this study were to evaluate academics’ understanding of community engagement; assess the extent of their initiatives; determine their enablers and constraints to undertake such initiatives; and recommend strategies that could lead to an improved community engagement experience. The research design adopted was the quantitative paradigm, which entailed the distribution of a structured open and closed-ended questionnaire to the respondents. Against a Five-Point Likert Scale, the questionnaire comprised of six sections, each under a specific main theme related to the research topic. The simple random sampling technique achieved a sample size of 80 respondents from a target population of 102 academics. The sample respondents returned seventy-four questionnaires. This represented a high response rate of 93%, through the attribution of a personal method of data collection. Furthermore, the data collected was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 24.0 for Windows. Upon completion, the entire dissertation was verified against plagiarism through the Turnitin programme and achieved a 10% rating. The study found that workload demand and time are main inhibitors of community engagement. The researcher recommended that DUT should consider offering rigid empowerment and support structures for academics. Lastly, the research project concluded with directions for future research based on the insights of academics into community engagement in South African higher education.Item Monitoring and evaluation mechanisms of community engagement initiatives in Universities of Technology in South Africa(2021) Ogunsanya, Olajumoke Folusho; Govender, Ivan GunassThe contemporary higher education institution realizes that the process of accomplishing their vision, mission and objectives involves multi-level interactions with diverse stakeholders within their external environment. Universities and other designations of higher education institutions are no longer walled off from society but required to assume a position of relevance to the society in all of their activities related to creation, transformation, transfer and distribution of knowledge. It is in this context that community engagement has emerged as a vehicle to broaden higher education’s direct participation in society’s development. The main roles of higher education institutions are adjudged to be research, teaching and learning, and community engagement. This study focused on community engagement in higher education in South Africa. The purpose of the study was to examine the nature of community engagement and its institutionalization in universities of technology in South Africa. Furthermore, another central purpose of the study was to examine how community engagement initiatives are currently being monitored and evaluated in universities of technology in South Africa. The choice of universities of technology as the focus of the study was to provide an understanding into the development, growth, direction and activities pertaining to community engagement in this typology of higher education institution, and more importantly, the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms used in the process. Guided by a constructivist paradigm, the research study was undertaken using a qualitative methodology, exploratory and multiple case study design. Purposive sampling was applied to select six universities of technology as case studies for the research. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used to obtain data from key informants in the institutional case studies. Key informants or interviewees were made up of university officials in charge of the institutions’ community engagement portfolio and managers of community engagement projects or initiatives in the institutions. Also, additional data was obtained from university documents. Documentary evidence was critical to this study because university documents supplemented data obtained from the semi-structured interviews. Data analysis was carried out using qualitative thematic content analysis in order to make sense of the qualitative data and make interpretations and inferences. Primary findings from this study showed that the practice of community engagement in universities of technology in South Africa is highly contextual. Each institution undertakes community engagement in their own context and unique positioning influenced by factors such as institutional history, geographical location, institutional definition of community and community engagement, focus area, amongst others. In terms of the particular degree to which community engagement is institutionalized, the study found that community engagement does not receive the same level of emphasis as teaching and learning and research in universities of technology in South Africa. Although organizational structures for the institutionalization of community engagement are in place in most of the universities, the actual practice of community engagement requires improvement in order for it to be deeper in the institutional fabric of the universities of technology. Additional findings indicate that monitoring and evaluation of community engagement initiatives occurs in universities of technology, albeit informally, in most of them with improvised approaches and methodologies which differ among projects and from institution to institution. Hence, monitoring and evaluation is not consistently applied to community engagement projects in the institutions. Such inconsistency was evident in non-enforcement of monitoring and evaluation as a practice in management of community engagement projects, lack of standardized monitoring and evaluation tools in majority of the institutions, and unequal weightings for community engagement in staff performance management. Therefore, the study concludes that monitoring and evaluation of community engagement lacks depth in universities of technology in South Africa. The study’s recommendations were, amongst others, to propose a systems model for the practice of community engagement; a model for the form of community engagement; as well as a model for monitoring and evaluation of community engagement initiatives. The monitoring and evaluation framework emphasizes the integration of community engagement projects into the academic curriculum at every point either through research or through teaching and learning. Universities express community engagement based on their own individual contexts. This research study places institutional context of the university as the platform from and on which the monitoring and evaluation model functions, and uses curriculum integration as the grounding for institutionalization of community engagement in the core of university activities. In addition to providing feedback on project performance, the proposed monitoring and evaluation model focuses on emphasizing engaged scholarship in indicators at each level of the model. This contribution to knowledge provides direction on how to put community engagement projects together in a manner that promotes meaningful and practical scholarship.Item Evaluating the role of higher education institution in enhancing youth development through community engagement in eThekwini(2021) Mnguni, Goodluck Noloyiso; Govender, Ivan GunassYouth socio-economic development is one of the challenges facing South Africa. Youth are often perceived as problematic in the society due to the challenges including unemployment, school drop outs, drug and alcohol abuse; and unplanned pregnancies. The aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of community engagement programmes in higher education institutions that promote youth socio-economic development. As young people from a major part of the society, they need to be engaged in empowerment and sustainable activities which will benefit the youth and a society as a whole. The objective of the study is to explore the programmes/projects initiated by higher education institutions at eThekwini region which promote youth socio-economic development through community engagement. The study used qualitative research approach as the study is interested in the depth of human experiences, personal and subjective views of how participants perceive and attach to community engagement youth socio-economic development programmes initiated by higher educations in their economies. The study used purposive sample as the study is only interested in people who are involved in community engagement youth socio-economic development initiatives and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. The key findings of the study are that higher education institutions at eThekwini region play a significant role in enhancing youth socio-economic development.Item South African comprehensive universities' community engagement : $b towards establishment of a best practice framework for community engagement(2021-02) Mkuzo, Luleka; Govender, Ivan GunassIn this study, the researcher interrogated the core fundamental purpose of community engagement (CE) in an attempt to understand the role of higher education institutions in communities. Community engagement as a phenomenon is viewed with much ambiguity, having a very broad and open interpretation and being seen as both positive and negative by others. There is no governing document that mandates how institutions should develop, implement and monitor community engagement. Consequently, each institution has developed their own guiding documents as per their purpose, mission and context. In South Africa, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) focused on community engagement in higher education because it recognized the need for academic reconstruction. Community engagement was seen as a potentially powerful instrument that could be used in the transformation agenda in higher education. To date, this view has not changed. The challenge is to shift the academic perspective from the traditional notion of viewing university community engagement as charity to begin to see it as that of pedagogy. In working with five comprehensive universities and a total of fifty participants ranging from Community Engagement Directors, Managers, Project Leaders, students and community members, the study’s aim was to understand how community engagement is defined with regard to restraints, exclusions and inclusions. The study explores the nature of its definition; its purpose and challenges; utilizing a transformative approach proposes a framework that can be used as a guide to community engagement. The study revealed the need for both universities and communities to break their tangible and intangible boundaries to allow community engagement to be conducted in an effective manner using ubuntu, deep democracy and a scholarship approach that can bring about change and add value for both universities and communities. The study also revealed that the ambiguous contextual nature of community engagement makes it difficult for academics and community members to understand what it is, hence making it open for various universities to develop and implement it according to their own mission and vision. The study therefore recommends that community engagement be approached with a framework of Ubuntu, deep democracy and scholarship. Furthermore, there should be a clear funding model for community engagement or engaged scholarship, along with a monitoring and evaluation framework that measures the community engagement impact.