Academic publication sample
ACADEMIA Letters
Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa
Artem Vlasov
This paper aims to analyse the impact of neoliberalism on poverty and inequality with a specific focus on higher education in South Africa. The paper is structured as follows. First,
the central characteristics of neoliberalism are identified and described. Second, a critique of
neoliberal policies is given. Third, the impact of neoliberalism on inequality and poverty is
examined. Fourth, the impact of neoliberal thought and policy on higher education is analysed and illustrated by an example from South Africa. The paper concludes that neoliberal
policies in education may contribute to increasing inequalities in South African society.
Many scholars agree that the modern era is characterised by the dominance of neoliberal
ideas. Neoliberalism can be understood as an ideology, an economic theory, an intellectual
movement, and a political project (Feldman, 2019:341). It is often juxtaposed with the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century. Indeed, some central tenets of the latter are reflected
in the former, e.g. people as rational self-interested individuals; free market as an efficient
mechanism to allocate resources and opportunities; commitment to laissez-faire; commitment
to free trade (Olssen & Peters, 2005:314).
Notwithstanding the similarities, the two cannot be viewed as identical. While classical
liberalism represents a negative conception of state, where the individual is seen as an object
to be freed from the state intervention, neoliberalism represents a positive conception of the
role of the state in creating the market by providing the laws, conditions, and institutions
necessary for its functioning, as well as in creating an enterprising and competitive individual
(Olssen & Peters, 2005:315). Moreover, neoliberalism greatly extends the economic logic of
the market to ever-growing domains of human life previously seen as non-market domains
(Feldman, 2019:341).
Neoliberal policies are often criticised. As Lucacs (2017) critically puts it, the political
project of neoliberalism has pursued two main objectives: the first objective has been to “disAcademia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
1
mantle any barriers to the exercise of unaccountable private power. The second has been to
erect them to the exercise of any democratic public will”. Many scholars argue that neoliberal politics broadly adopted across the globe since the last quarter of the twentieth century,
including deregulation, privatisation, suppression of trade unions, outsourcing and competition in public services, tax cuts (for the rich), have in many respects contributed to deeper
inequalities and the perpetuation of poverty (Monbiot, 2015).
Drawing on Mosoetsa and Francis (2019:1-2), inequality is understood in this paper as
disparity in the distribution of resources, income, needs, capabilities and opportunities in a
population; poverty is broadly defined here as the inability of individuals to meet their basic
needs.
The claims about rising global inequality are supported by empirical data. According to
Oxfam (2018), approximately 82% of the wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1%
of the world’s population, while the 3.7 billion people, the poorest half of the planet, had no
increase in their wealth. The World Inequality Report (2018) shows that income inequality
and wealth inequality have grown in recent decades in almost all regions of the world. Piketty
(2014:45) indicates that distribution of wealth should not be reduced to mere economic explanation, but instead should be viewed as a deeply political issue. In this sense, the dynamics of
inequality are often conditioned by how political, economic and social actors perceive what is
fair and what is not, what power these actors wield, and what collective decisions they make.
Consequently, the rise in inequality since the 1980s has relied heavily on political shifts, particularly in the areas of finance and taxation.
While richer people can benefit from neoliberal policies, the poor face a hard reality. Feldman (2019:342) claims that neoliberalism treats poor people in a fairly punitive manner: on
the one hand, it sees them as free agents able to pull themselves out of poverty through the
market; on the other hand, it places the responsibility for poverty on poor people themselves.
The author explains that neoliberalism dismantles the typical welfare state processes of redistribution of national wealth and protection against market insecurities, but offers unstable and
precarious employment. It also establishes market-based paths of overcoming poverty, where
people must, by participating in market relations, competing with each other, and displaying
entrepreneurial ability, strengthen their human capital and find individual solutions for their
enrichment.
So what are the consequences of neoliberal policies on education? Kawanu et al. (2017:4)
assert that neoliberalism rests on a market-based conception of citizenship, which is largely
antithetical to the rights-based or social conception of education, health and welfare provision.
Such services are seen as private rather than public goods.
Several studies (e.g. Baatjes, 2005:27-32; van der Walt, 2017:2-5; Olssen and Peters,
Academia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
2
2005:330) distinguish the following characteristics of higher education institutions (HEIs)
under neoliberal transformations. a) New managerialism: under privatisation and competition, HEIs adopt corporate models of management to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and
maximize profits. b) Vocationalization of curriculum: the curricula have to be responsive to
the needs of the economy, students must learn to be competitive and create personal wealth.
c) Consultants and clients: academics become service providers, students become clients. d)
Academics as suspects: scholars need upskilling to serve the demands of the market, they are
forced to choose narrow specializations and to compete with one another (e.g. in the number
of publications). e) Corporate culture-filled faculties: outsourcing, reduction in salaries of
workers. f) Social justice research: while practical subjects get more funding, humanities are
disregarded. g) Higher education as a privilege: disadvantaged students have less access to
education. h) Undermining substantive democracy: intolerance to criticism of the institution
by the staff.
What about inequality in South Africa? When the African National Congress (ANC)
came to power in the mid-nineties, the party adopted a policy document called the Reconstruction and Development Program aimed at raising living standards and economic security
for South African citizens. As Johan Fourie notes in Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom
(2021:216), this program was to be achieved largely through fiscal redistribution using tax
revenues to provide social services and housing. In 1996, however, the ANC reversed their
course. The government approved a new Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR)
plan that shifted the South African leadership’s priorities toward macroeconomic stability and
economic growth.
The transition to GEAR took place in the context of the end of the Cold War, rapid globalization, high growth in the developed world, and the urgent need for investments in the South
African economy that had stagnated over the previous decade and was struggling to pay for social services. According to Fourie, GEAR had improved the South African economy by 2004
by accelerating economic growth, lowering inflation, reducing debt, and increasing government revenue. There have also been some improvements in poverty indicators.
However, as Wilson (2012:3) points out, despite its best intentions and despite all efforts
to develop effective policies, the democratic government of South Africa has failed to change
the level of poverty, unemployment and inequality that it inherited from the apartheid regime
in 1994. South Africa remains the country with the highest level of inequality in the Gini
index (with the value of 63.0), according to the World Bank (2021). While the top 20 percent
of the South African population holds over 68 percent of income, the bottom 40 percent of
the population holds only 7 percent of income, according to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF, 2020).
Academia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
3
How is all of the above reflected in higher education in South Africa? Neoliberal changes
in education affect racial inequality. Historically, the country’s resources, including land and
mineral resources (e.g. gold, diamonds), as well as capital for investment have been concentrated in the hands of the white population (Wilson, 2012). Furthermore, different legal and
social restrictions for blacks, unequal access to opportunities, and blatant discrimination have
led to an uneven distribution of human capital. Kawanu et al. (2017:5) point out that the
beneficiaries of the free-market system are those who own capital. Because of the legacy of
apartheid, the owners of capital in South Africa are mostly white.
Despite the fact that large resources have been channelled to black schools in the postapartheid era, the school system has not been able to firmly support the upward mobility
of poor students and produce good-quality graduates (Fourie, 2021:218). The gap between
school outcomes persists, impending access to higher education for poorer students. High
unemployment rates - an estimated 25 to 41 percent of those who want to work but are unable
to find employment (Wilson, 2012:3) - mean that families often find it difficult to support their
children with education. Many of those children are as a result ill-equipped for anything but
unskilled and low-productivity work (Fourie, 2021:221).
In such context of historical inequalities, the neoliberal logic of the free market and free
self-interested individuals competing with one another is far from bridging the gap between
the rich and the poor. By privatising basic services - such as education - neoliberalism exacerbates historical inequalities. Kawanu et al. (2017) explain that the reduction in public
expenditure on education under neoliberal policies is encouraging universities to seek external funding from private entities. The latter favour the application of business models and
cost-cutting principles. These circumstances lead to a significant increase in tuition fees and
student debt in South Africa. Higher education thus becomes less accessible, especially to
historically disadvantaged citizens, plunging them deeper into poverty.
Moreover, cost-cutting strategies stimulate universities to outsource their labour requirements to private contractors (Kawanu et al., 2017). This has resulted in the loss of jobs and in
a significant decrease in salaries and benefits for workers in the security, cleaning, transport
and catering sectors.
To sum up, this paper tried to describe the impact of neoliberalism on poverty and inequality. The example of higher education in South Africa demonstrates that reducing university
funding and applying free-market logic to education may lead to higher tuition fees and higher
student debt, outsourcing and job losses, lower wages and fewer benefits for workers. Thus,
neoliberalism may contribute to increasing inequalities and the worsening of the situation of
the poor.
Academia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
4
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Academia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
5
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Academia Letters, August 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: Artem Vlasov,-Citation: Vlasov, A. (2021). Neoliberalism and Higher Education in South Africa. Academia Letters, Article
3081. https://doi.org/-/AL3081.
6