Study title

The data consists of interview and focus group transcripts, survey results and desk research. Interviews and focus groups took place in two phases. Phase one (March-November 2017) included senior managers and education developers within universities in South Africa and England and senior managers from private companies and other organisations in South Africa and England. Phase two (February-May 2018) included universities’ academic staff in South Africa and England. Surveys were conducted with 200 students at four South African universities during February and March 2018. Surveys were also conducted with 200 students at four English universities during May and June 2018. Desk research was conducted pertaining to the partnerships between public universities and private companies in the UK and South Africa from December 2017 to March 2018, and updated in August 2018. It involved iterative searches of publicly-available databases using search terms identified through the conception of the project.The nature of Higher Education is rapidly evolving in South Africa. Educational technologies, public-private partnerships and shifting employer expectations are resulting in rapid and unprecedented 'unbundling' and marketization of Higher Education. For example, over the past few years we have witnessed the appearance of many flexible online courses and qualifications, short courses and MOOCs, often delivered in partnerships between universities and private organisations. Unbundling refers to the process of disaggregating curricula into standalone units often available in flexible online modes, allowing universities to respond to the pressures of widening access, increasing student numbers, competition from alternative providers and technological change, by distributing provision across several individual, more cost-effective components. Marketization refers to the increasing presence of alternative (private) providers offering HE provision alongside universities, often...