How well do university staff understand transformation? A case of a merged South African University

Abstract

Higher education institutions in South Africa have been merged with high expectations and lofty goals which have spawned a plethora of challenges including tensions and clashes amongst the key stakeholders in their understanding of transformation. This study aims to provide a perspective on the course of the transformation process post-merger and incorporation of the Durban University of Technology (DUT). The study is grounded in both quantitative and qualitative involving a structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews with the university leaders. The questionnaires generated the reliability coefficient Alpha of 0.947.The non-probability purposive sampling was used for the qualitative approach. This study demonstrates a disproportionately high percentage of the university leaders as having limited understanding of the transformation agenda of the university and its responses to transformation challenges.