Cultivating the next generation of academics in South Africa

Abstract

Abstract The academic workplace is experiencing numerous changes in South Africa and around the world, including increasing managerialism, declining governmental funding and massification of university systems. Global trends have impacted South Africa, and additional local contextual factors combine to create a situation in which the pool of prospective academics is limited, particularly with regard to individuals from diverse backgrounds, at the same time as vacancies for academic staff are expected to increase. In order to address the question of who will become the next generation of academics in South Africa, the author investigates potential barriers to developing academics through qualitative research conducted with postgraduate students, academic staff and administrators at two higher education institutions. Two central thematic categories are explored—induction into postgraduate studies and induction into the academic profession. The author posits that systematic socialization, both into postgraduate studies and into the academic profession, is a vital link toward cultivating emerging academics to fill academic positions for an equitable workplace in South African higher education institutions.