Teaching as transformation? The im-possible task of academics in South African higher education

What influences, informs and impacts on the development of 'teaching' in higher education, reflects the ways in which the purpose of higher education is negotiated. This talk will consider dominant constructions of the roles and responsibilities of the academic in South African universities in the wake of that country's negotiated political settlement, which pivot around how teaching has grappled with notions of access. Questions will be posed about whether approaches to ‘access for success’ should continue to be positioned within myths of advancement in this field of professional practice, or whether such impulses thwart the more radical equity projects of ‘access to challenge’ in a context burdened with legacies of injustice from colonialism, apartheid and the cold war.