Middle-management in higher education: an investigation into training and development needs at the University of the Western Cape

Abstract

Middle management plays a pivotal role in the realization of the goals of higher education, vet very little or any attention has been given to this sector in literature. This study attempted to address this deficiency: using the University of the Western Cape as a case illustration the study sought to establish training and development needs of middle management in South African universities. A questionnaire, covering various skill items, was used to collect data, and twenty-one (21) middle-managers responded. The findings of the study revealed that current skills, orientations and competencies of middle management are awfully inadequate for meeting the challenges posed by expanding student enrolments, the changing composition of the study body along the line of race and language, and general transitional issues arising from national policies in post-apartheid South Africa. A fusion model of training and development in which a reiterative provision of appropriate range of skills and competencies is made has been proposed. It has also been proposed that the reiterative model be considered along with popular Organization Development approaches that focus on training and developing the entire institutional staff. Time, Iack of expert resource persons, financial and other related constraints may impede efforts in this direction. However, training and developing middle managers is a challenge South African university and perhaps Technikons can ill-afford to ignore, especially if they are serious in pursuing the goal of providing higher education that is both relevant to the nerve South African and excellent in the age-old tradition of quality research and scholarship.