In June 2009, the HESA Board of Directors held a strategic planning session, in which strategic directions required for Higher Education in South Africa for the next ten years were articulated. The strategic plan established clear pathways to a diverse and effective Higher Education system. As part the strategic directions, HESA is committed to pursuing the following four strategic objectives:

• High levels of quality comparable to the best in the world: HESA supports excellence throughout the system and that every university in South Africa should have areas of excellence in terms of its vision and mission in at least some of the three core functional areas of universities, viz teaching and learning, research and community service. In addition, such a system should achieve a higher ratio of both student access and student success.
• High levels of institutional diversity based on institutional self-differentiation: HESA believes that a differentiated Higher Education system would be most suited to accommodate the variety of institutional visions and missions in our system as well as being best suited for a varied but comprehensive response to the different emphases of national priorities. Such differentiation should, however, evolve dynamically from the varying institutional visions and missions and should not be fixed in advance in a structurally deterministic fashion.
• Significant transformation, social cohesion, non-discrimination, and freedom of speech and of association: A transformed system in which the student and staff bodies of institutions reflect diversity as well as social cohesion, in which all forms of discrimination barred in terms of South Africa’s constitution and Bill of Rights have been eliminated, and in which freedom of speech in treasured and protected, as is freedom of association, is a necessary condition for our Higher Education institutions to develop to their full potential. In particular, such transformation should be embedded in significant changes in respect of the core functions of teaching and learning, research and community service of institutions.
• High-levels of responsiveness and relevance: HESA supports a Higher Education system which, in terms of the varying visions and missions of universities, is responsive to, and relevant for, the developmetal aspirations of individual students as well as those of society and region broadly. Achieving such a responsive and relevant system would include the development of appropriate and applicable learning programmes, research agendas and community service initiatives and ensuring that the sector is accessible to those who require continuing professional development.

To view HESA’s strategic framework Click Here