Programmes-based approach to planning at the University of Cape Town
by Erica Gillard

The forces (subsequently incorporated into planning frameworks) which led to this initiative were varied, and often reflected international trends. They include:
•    academic debate about what graduates should be able to do;
•    student concerns about 'transferable skills' and how degrees qualify them for the job market;
•    debate about the nature of knowledge and relationship between disciplines;
•    concern that there should be a clear route from undergraduate programmes to postgraduate work in line with UCT's focus on its research strengths (UCT's mission is to be an outstanding teaching and research university, educating for life and addressing the challenges facing our society); and
•    changing focus by the Academic Development Programme at UCT from students to mainstream programmes and curriculum reform.

As well as the more academic or educational questions, there were other contributing forces:
•     strategic questions about niche and mission;
•    after an era of expansion, funding was more limited and required priorities to be set; and
•    calls for consistency in how strategic decisions were made, coupled with calls, institutionally and nationally, for more financial accountability.

The various debates culminated in the production of an Academic Planning Framework (APF) which defines a programme as follows:

'A "programme" refers to a planned and coherent (not necessarily uniform) set of teaching and learning activities, pursued to depth in one or more specialisation fields, at one or more (qualification) levels. Its association with "learner development" is central both to the usefulness of a programme as a planning unit and as a symbol of university-level education. The determining element is, thus, the "strong programme".'

The APF sets clear criteria for a 'strong' programme. These can be grouped in three broad categories:
•     strategic importance of the programme which should, in addition, attract excellent students of both sexes, across all population groups;
•    academic coherence, success rates, and route to postgraduate studies;
•    resourcing questions.

In parallel with the UCT initiative, the National Commission on Higher Education was at that stage completing its deliberations and supported programmatic-based planning (though a programme was used at a higher system level). Later deliberations around the NQF and SAQA also took place within the same type of framework.

The amount of time and energy that has to be devoted to a radical realignment of all programmes in a university cannot be underestimated.

UCT began its formal process through its Academic Planning Committee in late 1994. It involved a broad range of people in many different activities: strengths and weaknesses in most areas of the University were assessed; external opportunities and threats were evaluated; the culture and values of the University were explored. There were several workshops which attempted to integrate insights gained from the first exploratory phase. Draft reports and draft proposals were produced for general discussion, discussed by Faculties several times, by Senate on three occasions, and reported to the University Transformation Forum. A discussion group operated through the Local Area Network. Extensive documentation was produced - from the level of most commonly asked questions to detailed portfolios of documents for programme design.

In August 1996, Senate supported a framework for academic planning with guidelines for programme design, criteria for programme strength, and an indication as to how priorities should be set. A Strategic Planning Framework (SPF), adopted in 1997, set a time-frame for the reorganization of course offerings to be ready for implementation from the 1999 academic year.

Following approval at a policy level of the APF, work began on the daunting task of implementation. Faculties began to evaluate current offerings and to develop proposals for a range of academic programmes. In June 1997, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) considered a first consolidated set of programme proposals from Faculties after extensive work by an SPC working group, the Academic Programmes Working Group (APWG). The proposals were returned to Faculties for further work, and consultation with the APWG. The APWG submitted a second report to the SPC in June 1998, which resulted in support for a set of programmes for implementation in 1999. At the same time as all this curriculum planning and negotiation was taking place, UCT agreed to reduce its ten faculties to six. Although this increased the complexity of the task, it also created an enabling environment for change.

This brief summary of process hides the enormous amount of work done at all levels, consultation between committees, faculties and administrators, refinements and referrals, and work which still continues in preparing curricula for 1999.

In an iterative process, all the different pressures referred to earlier have assumed importance at different phases, influencing and reacting with each other.

While phases are not always clear-cut, when the process started, strategic questions were at the forefront of discussion. This stage culminated in an agreed framework for setting university priorities which would promote consistency in the future (or at least allow decisions to be contested in terms of the framework). When implementation discussions began at faculty-level, early formulation of programme proposals also tended to focus on strategic questions (the importance of a programme for the country, for UCT, for a faculty and how it contributed to UCT's strategic goals, etc).

Following this, more focused attention was given to educational questions and curriculum design. Now, in a much later phase where budget formulation is foremost, resourcing limitations have assumed greater importance. Once budgets are finalized for 1999, the hard work of refining and finalizing curricula will continue until students begin the new academic year.

Aside from the amount of time and energy required, implementation of programmatic planning has been, in many respects, much more complicated than expected and has raised interesting questions. On the curriculum side, these include:
•     Curriculum planning becomes much more complex when academic coherence of an entire programme is emphasized. To caricature the previous system, departments would decide on levels of courses to be offered in their discipline, whereafter, in many cases, individual lecturers had almost sole responsibility for designing a particular course. Now, individual courses, their contents, goals and levels have to relate to each other, courses have to be cross-referenced across various programmes, programme convenors have to request 'service courses' from staff in other programmes or faculties, and so forth. The design of combined first years to serve several programmes has required extensive coordination. The task is complicated enough on the strictly practical level, even when not bedevilled with faculty/departmental politics. In addition, educational questions which arise from the need to ensure coherence, often result in a return to first principles and a complete re-evaluation of curriculum design.
•    Programme coherence requires definition of the educational intentions of an entire programme as well as contributing courses. For many academics, not only is the language of 'outcomes' new, but the demand itself is challenging and requires a shift of perspective away from discipline to student.
•    In defining 'outcomes', programmatic planning has tended to challenge taken-for-granted methods of assessing student work.
•    Questions of how the success, or otherwise, of a programme will be evaluated once outcomes become more explicit. In South Africa, quality assurance is a relatively new field and policy, comprehensive systems, and structures have still to be defined.

Staff have pointed to the need for support (often quite formal) to enable them to meet new demands; staff development becomes crucial.

Budget planning becomes more complicated. Senate approval for a programme does not necessarily mean that sufficient funding will be available. Faculties are faced with a chicken-and-egg situation - at the same time as they are doing complicated curriculum reform, they have to plan staffing and other resources for the next year across departments within an unstable situation where demand for courses cannot be predicted and certainty about the availability of individual courses is not always clear.

Programmatic planning has highlighted existing tensions in the University and given rise to new ones. Some tensions revolve around the following:
•    The primacy given to financial as opposed to educational questions. Some planners have tended to emphasize affordability, minimum demand needed for viability, and overall cost of a programme. While these are necessary questions in a time of limited resources, it is important that financial considerations should not drive academic planning. This is so at a university level (or we would discard Music for example), as well as within faculties. (On the other hand, statements about educational goals sometimes mask departmental or personal interests to retain a course which is cost-inefficient or duplicates something else.)
•    Ownership of programmes has sometimes become contested. Not only do some programmes cross disciplines, but programmes tend to be designed by a team which often includes specialists in curriculum design or assessment. Contesting needs across disciplines, weight given to disciplines and generic skills and differing status of team members (where curriculum experts are usually younger members of staff) breeds a situation ripe for conflict. It is important that this be acknowledged and mechanisms be set in place to accredit programmes within faculties.
•    The place of disciplines. UCT's Strategic Planning Framework aims to increase the proportion of students enrolled in postgraduate, preferably research, degrees. Undergraduate programmes must, therefore, provide for this route and a way has to be found to preserve disciplinary strengths within programmatic format.
•    Some programme designers have tended to de-emphasize disciplines in often creative proposals. These may be new areas of the future, but there is clearly a tension between following new trends and following short-lived, popular notions.

I have no doubt that our planning process and the questions arising therefrom will continue to change. The educational intentions behind programmes remain valid and are reinforced by requirements for SAQA registration. For these, as well as marketing advantages and the need to set strategic priorities, I believe that programmatic-based academic planning is the way to the future.