The South African Perspective

The practices of higher education development in southern Africa is as like as with the regard to practices of EU. At the
initial periods, development of higher education sectors in south African was done through the southern African
Development community ( SADC) and then in Africa , the leading of higher education was done through the newly
established African union (AU). Within the Africa, the higher education program diversity, management styles ,cultures
and languages variety were existing even more than in Europe but the major additional restrictive component was that the
financing of the higher education . The major improvement function of higher education for African was attempt through
the AU that was focused on to remove such types of financing problems. If the African wish to develop the higher
education, they have to be ready for partnership with international community or in short, African's higher education
wasn't fully an independent so they were supported by donor.

As soon as possible south Africa and SADC are concerned and efforts has made to contribute the globalization of higher
education sectors in the region by drafting set of rules on education and training which was signed by twelve African
countries who they are involved in SADC on 18 September 1997. The major content of this protocol address as were
contained in the declarations of the E.U. the comprehensive report was prepared by Hahn (2004) .
The report emphasised that:
The development of structural compatibilities of programmes and degrees, the
Harmonization of law, the formulation of common standards and procedures e.g. in quality assurance and access,
relevant curricula and coordinated development of institutional profiles and programmes are challenging tasks for
policy formulation and implementation on national level and an even more challenging tasks for policy formulation on
the level of the higher education and research institutions. Regionalisation or internationalisation of higher education
implies multidimensional processes of reform and innovation on all system levels of the sector.
The report also indicated that processes and procedures for implementing that protocol (including the work done by
technical committees and task teams) are constantly in instability and seem to operate in an incoherent manner. There
seems to be a lack of commitment on the part of some of the SADC countries that signed the protocol. This lack-lustre
approach to the implementation and actions on the protocol may, to some extent, be seen as being too soft. It contains
no specific goals, aims and time frames that are needed to implement the protocol
for its intended consequences.

Hahn identified the following reasons for the relatively slow implementation process of the SADC protocol on Education
and Training:
1. Lack of financial and human resources.
2. Heterogeneity and fragmentation of the higher education system.
3. Uneven distribution of capacity at national and institutional level.
4. Inconsistency of policy.
5. Lack of instruments for sector co-ordination and integration.
6. Lack of data and information.
7. Lack of concreteness and operationalisation.
8. Lack of ownership.
A conclusion that can be made on the SADC protocol, as far as education and training is concerned, is that the
document is strong on policy but weak on implementation due to some of the above-mentioned reasons.

Population Dynamics as a Driver of Diversity Management

No country in the world is completely isolated when the population dynamics in the world is considered. The boundaries
of all countries are (to a more or lesser degree) porous. The population of a country is, inter alia, affected by immigration
and emigration, and the birth and death rates of the population within a country. The diversity of the population with
regards to the different distinguishing identifiers e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, age, religion, economic and social
development levels, employability, level of education, etc. could also be
factors that influence the composition of a countrys population. These factors, and the impact that they have on the
population composition of any one country are usually county specific. Some of these identifiers are closely linked to the
historical legacy of a country and the political regimes that determined the movement and development of its population
(e.g. South Africa). Other identifiers are determined by the current political and social environments and economic
systems that are closely intertwined (e.g. the European Union).