African Journal of Public Affairs

Inspired by Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints and Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach to social policy, this article undertakes a conceptual analysis of South Africa’s own experience and selected international experiences in funding access to quality education in order to propose a pathway for South Africa. South Africa faces soaring demands for a highly skilled workforce needed to develop a globally competitive economy. Over the last two years, one issue that has dominated public discourse in South Africa is how to fund adequate and inclusive access to higher education while maintaining (and in many respects, aspiring to) global quality standards. The “fees must fall” student unrests which gripped most HEIs in South Africa in 2016 signaled the heightened and growing discontent among students regarding the crippling effects of current HE funding mechanisms in South Africa. A marked feature of the South Africa (and indeed global) HE sector has been increased demand, in excess of supply for HE services. Additionally, there has been increased pressure on the National Treasury for competing public goods such as transport, energy and healthcare infrastructure. The effect of this has been dwindling state subsidies for HE, which has compelled state-owned higher education institutions to explore alternative sources of funding, notably rising tuition fees and other commercial revenue streams which hitherto were typically associated with private HE providers. The article argues that in the present context of South Africa, since the private dividends far outweigh the public benefits, indigent students with demonstrated academic potential should be funded through government guaranteed study loans which are contingent on their potential future earnings.

The primary purpose of this article is to assess employees’ perceptions of leadership competencies and to determine the influence of leadership competencies towards organisational performance. To this extent, the article should also illustrate that failure of government departments to involve opinions of their employees in developing leadership competency has led to poor leadership skills, reduced employee morale, high absenteeism, reduced employee citizenship behaviour and low organisational performance. A quantitative descriptive methodology, with the use of a structured questionnaire was employed to collect data from a sample of 130 employees of the government department in the City of Tshwane. SPSS v24 was used to compute descriptive and multivariate analyses, including reliability and validity test, correlations and regression analyses. Results show that employees had negative perceptions towards leadership competencies, including the ability to establish direction, align employees with organisational mission, motivating and inspiring people, risk taking and self-confidence. Conversely, the results illustrate that employees had positive perceptions towards sense of purpose. Furthermore, results indicated that there was a positive relationship between leadership competencies and organisational performance. This article recommends for the improvement of leadership competencies within organisations, including government departments.

This article examines reasons for the violent nature of protests in South Africa, and attempts to provide policy recommendations. The African National Congress (ANC)-led government in a democratic South Africa has committed itself to establishing a “developmental state”. Twenty-five years on, a democratic South Africa continues to be engulfed in flames due to widespread violent service delivery protests largely playing out in the local municipality landscape. Among other things, the aim of this article is to critically analyse violent service delivery protests in post-apartheid South Africa. This article is located within the conflict resolution/management field; and, arguing from a standpoint of relative deprivation theory, it asserts that social conflict in South Africa is triggered by the relative deprivation of basic human needs. Methodologically, this article uses qualitative literature assessment approach. It attempts to make a scholarly contribution to the field of Public Administration by arguing that violent service delivery protests cause a security threat (due to the lack of stability in affected areas), rather than creating an enabling environment for economic development, given the intricate interconnections between “national security” and economic development. This article recommends that the national government alongside other spheres of government, namely the Departments of Defence, Intelligence, Security and Police, need to develop a “national security strategy” in order to deal with violent service delivery as a security threat to the stability of the country.