The Living and Learning Experiences of Nelson Mandela University Students Residing in Off-Campus Residence Accommodation
By
Pedro Mihlali Mzileni s213223708
A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a Master of Arts in Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Nelson Mandela University
December 2018
Supervisor: Professor Nomalanga Mkhize
Declaration
I, the undersigned, declare that this dissertation is a presentation of my original research work and that it has not been submitted to any university for examination. Wherever contributions of others are included, every effort has been made to acknowledge these references clearly and consistently.
NAME: PEDRO MZILENI MIHLALI SIGNATURE: ______DATE: ______PLACE: MANDELA UNIVERSITY, PORT ELIZABETH
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Dedication
I dedicate this work my family, Vulindlela, Mvuyiswa, Nompumezo, Oyama, Siyasisanda, Veliswa, Sive, Khaka and Mbali
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Acknowledgments
Writing this dissertation took a period of two years. A lot of people played a role. I would like to begin by expressing my profound gratitude to my supervisor, Nomalanga Mkhize, for her tough love, guidance, and intellectual support throughout this journey.
I would like to thank my colleagues in the Chair for Critical Studies in Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET), Andre Keet, Marisa Botha, Luzuko Buku, Avivit Cherrington, Awethu Fatyela, Deronique Hoshe, Pola Maneli, Malika Stuerznickel, Nobubele Phuza, Siphokazi Rasana, Qhamani Sinefu, Shirley Anne Tate, and Michalinos Zembylas for all their patience, encouragement, and support, on my academic career.
To the two Vice Chancellors I worked with, Sibongile Muthwa and Derrick Swartz, I won’t tell but thank you so much for everything.
The colleagues in the Division of Students Affairs, Luthando Jack, Shuping Mpuru, Mxolisi Ncapayi, Shirani Nhlangwini, and Atheema Davis, your energy and support was remarkable.
I am highly obliged to thank all the staff of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, incorporating History in Nelson Mandela University for their critical contributions, David Bogopa, Liz Wepener, Sakhumzi Mfecane, Luvuyo Ntombana, Babalwa Magoqwana, Robert Herbst, Francina Herbst, Barbara Kritzinger, Qawekazi Maqabuka, and Olwethu Ntaka. They have become my family. I am because they are.
Above all, I thank my first family in academia, my colleagues at the Centre for the Advancement of Non-racialism and Democracy (CANRAD), Allan Zinn, Sonwabo Stuurman, Thabang Queench, Rodney Boezacht, Siphokazi Tau, Buyiswa Scott, Nomtha Menye, Sivuyisiwe Ntsinde, Asiphe Mxalisa, Sinazo Mtshengu, and Samantha Chido. Thank you for the space, the ideas, and the platforms
My friends, Noxolo Kali, Sibusiso Makaringe, Sandile Mjamba, Mzolisi Ngcamango, Aphendulwe Mantshiyose, Bayanda Laqwela, Siyabulela Mandela, Lizalise Mngcele, Sakhumzi Dukwe, Xola Dungelo, Asisipho Mantshiyose, Themba Mtiki and Mbuelo Feni,
iii | P a g e thank you bafethu for your constant source of emotional support which has made the pushing of this work into being a great success a possibility.
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Abstract
This research study investigated the living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students who reside in off-campus student accommodation. The university is located in the suburb of Summerstrand in the city of Port Elizabeth (PE) and it is one of the large universities in South Africa with a student population of 27 311 students by 2017.
With only 3285 beds in its on-campus residence system, the university can only cater for 12% of students on site. The rest of the student population, which is the majority, resides in off- campus residences and private accommodation.
The off-campus accommodation system of the university consists of accredited and non- accredited off-campus residences. The non-accredited residences are privately owned houses that are based in the upper-income area of Summerstrand whilst the accredited residences are big properties that are also privately owned but are administratively managed by the university and they are based in the low-income area of North End.
The study used Tinto’s Theory of Student Integration to frame the investigation and it found that PE resembles elements of an apartheid city that is divided along class and gender patterns. This spatial structure of the city affects the governance and administrative systems of the university, such as commuting, and they affect the materiality of student’s learning experiences.
This criticality brings a different understanding of ‘studentification’ when it occurs in a developing country’s context wherein the different demographics of students shape how it becomes visible in a university city that is engulfed which socio-political problems of violence and crime. This brings diverse traditions of studying higher education in a post-apartheid setting where student accommodation is viewed as a need emanating from student vulnerability within the context of enrolment massifications, infrastructure limitations, and the privatization of living structures.
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Table of Contents
Declaration…………………………………………………………………………. i Dedication ………………………………………………………………………….. ii Acknowledgements ..………………………………………………………………. iii Abstract …………………………………………………………………………….. v Table of contents .…………………………………………………………………. vi List of abbreviations ……………………………………………………………… x CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and methodology of the study ………………… 1 1.1.Introduction and background of the study .…………………………….. 1 1.2.Describing off-campus accommodation in Mandela University ……… . 2 1.3. Off-campus accreditation and non-accreditation challenges ………. 3 1.4. Problem statement ……….. ………………………………………… 4 1.5. Research question ……………………………………………………... 5 1.6.Research aims and objectives ……………………………………….…. 6 1.7.Significance of the research ………………………………………….… 7 1.8.Key terms and concepts ……………………………………………..…. 7 1.8.1. Living………..…………………………………………………. 7 1.8.2. Learning ……………………………………………………….. 7 1.8.3. Living and learning ..…………………………………………... 8 1.8.4. Off-Campus accommodation..…………………………….…… 8 1.8.5. Student life ………………….……………………………….… 9 1.9. Research methodology ………………………………………….……. 9 1.9.1. Qualitative research method …………………………………. 9 1.9.2. Sampling technique ………………………………………….. 10 1.9.3. Semi-structured interviews …………………………………… 10 1.9.4. Data interpretation ………………………………………….….. 11 1.9.5. Data verification ……………………………………………… 12 1.9.6. Ethical reflections ……………………………………………… 12 1.10. Chapter overview and dissertation layout ………………………….. 14 CHAPTER TWO: Literature review and theoretical framework ….…….…… 16 2.1.Tinto’s theory of student integration …………………………………… 17 2.2. Massification of universities .………………………………….…… 19 2.2.1. ‘Studentification’ of cities ……………………………………….. 20 2.2.2. Residences are a ‘secondary issue’ ..………………………….…. 24 2.3.The culture of scandalous incidents in student residences of South Africa. 28 2.3.1. ‘Reitz’: University transformation matters ..……….……………. 29 2.3.2. Gender based violence ……………………………..…………… 31 2.3.3. Student protests ..………………………………………...... 32 2.4.“A-Home-Away-From-Home” …………………………………………. 34 2.4.1. Independence, seniority, and adulthood ..………………………… 35
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2.4.2. The living and learning communities …………………………… 36 2.4.3. Transport and infrastructure interconnection …………………… 37 2.5.Concluding remarks …………………………………………………….. 39 CHAPTER THREE: Living conditions and student perceptions of security, independence, and comfort within the city ………..…………………………..… 41 3.1.Inside the residence premises: experiencing the facilities .…...... 41 3.2.Experiencing the city and the residence community …………………… 46 3.3.Gendered precariousness and infantilization of women students ……… 48 3.4.The intersection of government and business on student experiences …. 51 3.5.Concluding notes …………………………………………………….…. 53 CHAPTER FOUR: Commuting as a permanent and psycho-social state of hardship………………………………………………………………………….… 55
4.1.Bus shuttle as an enabler ………………………………………………. 55 4.2.Adapting the learning to a bus schedule ……………... ………………. 59 4.3.Structural challenges faced by the university and business …………….. 62 4.4.Concluding remarks …………………………………………………….. 64 CHAPTER FIVE: Student resilience and forms of solidarity amongst students 65 5.1.Hope: pain is temporal but eventually it will subsidize ………….…….. 65 5.2.Growing numb but being resilient …………………………………...... 68 5.3.Your safety is my safety ……………………………………….……….. 71 5.4.Social responsibility by business and the university …………………… 72 5.5.Conclusion ………………………………………………………………. 75 CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion, recommendations, and possibilities ……….. …. .. 77
6.1.Limitations of the study ………………………………………………… 79 6.2.Recommendations ……………………………………………………… 80 6.3. Suggestions for future research ……………………………………….. . 83
Reference List ……………………………………………………………………… 85
Appendix A: Ethical clearance from Nelson Mandela University ……………………. 97 Appendix B: Research information sheet ……………………………………………. 99 Appendix C: Consent form signed by participants ………………………………….. 101 Appendix D: List of participants …………………………………………………….. 102
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Appendix E: Interview questions to off-campus students ………………………….. 103 Appendix F: Interview questions to property owners ………………………………. 104 Appendix G: Interview questions to university staff members ……………………... 106 Appendix H: Site entry permission acceptance letter from the Dean of Students …… 108 Appendix I: Correspondence with the Registrar requesting university documents …. 109 Appendix J: Email correspondence from the Department of Institutional Planning … 110
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List of abbreviations
ACUHO - I - Association of College and University Housing Officers – International DHET – Department of Higher Education and Training FMF – Fees Must Fall HMO - House for Multiple Occupants LLC – Living and Learning Communities NACURH - National Association for College and University Residence Halls NPC – National Planning Commission NSFAS – National Students Financial Aid Scheme PE – Port Elizabeth PE Tech – Port Elizabeth Technikon PBSA - Purpose-Built Student Accommodation Rhodes – Rhodes University SRC – Student’s Representative Council UCT – University of Cape Town UFS – University of Free State UK – United Kingdom UPE – University of Port Elizabeth USA – United States of America UWC – University of Western Cape WSU – Walter Sisulu University Wits - Wits University
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CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and methodology of the study
1.1.Introduction and background of the study
The 1994 democratic breakthrough in South Africa legally opened institutions of higher learning to all population groups. The deracialisation of the tertiary education system was accompanied by massification of the system, which resulted in mainly black students from the townships and rural areas being enrolled at universities in large numbers (Bunting: 2004). The National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) annual report (2015:11) reveals that the bursaries and loans progressively made available by the democratic government post-1994 to students from disadvantaged communities accelerated access to universities. In addition, “the ever-increasing number of enrolments of black students in universities is mostly driven by the perception that apartheid minority rule led to the humiliating proletarianisation of the black family and, therefore, a university qualification is an exit path from that life cycle into a new trajectory of success characterised by employment, comfort, and prestige” (Mzileni: 20171).
The enrolment trends at institutions of higher learning during democracy also affected Nelson Mandela University. The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) report on the provision of student housing at South African universities (2011: 121) states that by 2010 Nelson Mandela University had 22 776 students registered. By 2016, the figure stood at 27 848 students (Mandela University: 2016). This was a 22.2% increase in student enrolments at the university over a period of seven years. The rapid growth in enrolments created a demand for on-campus accommodation which the university could not match. This was because the number of on-campus residences was virtually the same as during the apartheid minority era when the university had to accommodate far fewer students. By 2010, the Mandela University could provide on-campus beds to only 12.3% of its 22 776 students (DHET, 2011: 121). As a result, in 2012 the university resorted to accreditation of off-campus student accommodation to fill the gap created by the higher demand (Mandela University: 2014a).
1 This part was written and published publicly for the Mail & Guardian Newspaper on 11 October 2017 whilst the researcher was still completing this dissertation. This article can be found on: Mzileni, P. 2017. Place of Learning is a Female Fear Factory. [Online]. Available: https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-11-00-place-of- learning-is-a-female-fear-factory [Accessed on: 07 October 2018].
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Trends in the expansion of Mandela University must be understood in relation to the restructuring of post-apartheid higher education. Of South Africa’s 26 public universities, only two were built after 1994 by the democratic government. Almost all the country’s universities were built before 1994 during the apartheid era to accommodate white students. Black students were mainly confined to universities built in the Bantustans, although relatively limited numbers were able to attend some historically white universities, increasing in the 1980s and early 1990s. By the 1980s, there were English and Afrikaans-medium residential universities in South Africa, including the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) and Port Elizabeth Technikon (PE Tech) (Bunting: 2004; Raju: 2006). Of the 3155 students at UPE and PE Tech in 1983, almost 91% were white (Sheppard: 20182). The UPE and PE Tech subsequently merged with a historically black university, Vista University in 2005, to form Nelson Mandela University, as it is known today.
1.2.Describing off-campus accommodation at Nelson Mandela University
Nelson Mandela University is located in the suburb of Summerstrand in the city of Port Elizabeth (PE). It is the biggest university in the Eastern Cape province. The university uses three systems of accommodating its students, namely: (1) on-campus residences; (2) accredited off-campus residences; and (3) non-accredited off-campus residences.
On-campus residences are buildings that house students on the university campus in Summerstrand and are owned by the university. An accredited off-campus residence is a building or home that the university has legally endorsed to have met the minimum requirements to accommodate students of the university generally and those who are on scholarships and NSFAS loans and bursaries in particular. The university does not own an accredited off-campus residence. The private property owner retains ownership but the monthly rental is regulated by the university.
In 2017, the Mandela University’s off-campus housing office pamphlet (2017) stated that the rent ceiling charged by property owners under university regulation was, on average, R2500 per student per month. The application process, allocation of students and administration of an
2 These statistics were given to the researcher by the Archives officer of the Mandela University, Dr Charles Sheppard through an email correspondence dated, 16 July 2018. The email correspondence is attached on this document as Appendix J
2 | P a g e accredited off-campus residence is done by university staff in the department of student housing while the rent paid by students, either in cash or through a bursary, goes to the property owner.
A non-accredited off-campus residence is an unregulated market of buildings, communes, apartments and houses that are offered to students to rent by private landlords in PE. Because the combined capacity of on-campus and accredited off-campus residences is limited, the overwhelming majority of more than 14 000 Mandela University students are accommodated in non-accredited off-campus residences (Swartz: 2017). According to Mhlonyane (2016) this cohort of student accommodation providers in PE charges an average monthly rental of R3500 per student. The country does not have a student housing rental policy that regulates price floors and ceilings that private property owners should charge a registered university student (Mhlonyane: 2016). As a result, non-accredited off-campus landlords can effectively charge any rental (Mhlonyane: 2016). Students are often charged a monthly rental based on the property value of the residence, its anticipated municipal rates and its location. In PE, the norm is that rentals increase the closer the residence is to the ocean and the university campus.
1.3.Off-campus accreditation and non-accreditation challenges
The accreditation of off-campus residences by the university, though a noble exercise, has its challenges. Students who are accommodated in on-campus and accredited off-campus residences are mostly funded by some form of financial aid (Swartz: 2017). In other words, it is students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds who make use of on-campus and accredited off-campus residences provided by the university. On the other hand, most cash- paying students who cannot find on-campus accommodation resort to looking for accommodation in either accredited or non-accredited off-campus residences. Cash-paying students at Mandela University are usually from families that can afford university fees and living expenses without financial assistance. Such students prefer to stay in non-accredited off- campus residences that have flexible rules and a sense of independence (Mhlonyane: 2016).
By contrast, on-campus residences and accredited off-campus residences have strict rules on, for example, visiting hours and laundry times, which stifle the freedom sought by cash-paying students (Elie: 2013). This reinforces the trend of students on financial aid being accommodated in accredited off-campus residences and on-campus residences while cash-
3 | P a g e paying students stay in non-accredited off-campus residences. NSFAS and other related financial aid schemes and bursaries do not cover a student who wants to stay in a non-accredited off-campus residence.
1.4.Problem statement
Accelerated access to higher education post-1994 has created high demand for student accommodation. In particular, historically white institutions like Nelson Mandela University, which were not initially designed to accommodate a large influx of students, have struggled to cater for the pressing need for conveniently located or on-campus beds. This has created a market for off-campus student accommodation to address the shortfall. The off-campus accommodation system was put in place by the university as a response to the exceeding of on- campus capacity.
Wallace (2012) states that the philosophy of student residences at a university is to build a norm of learning, facilitate a diversity of cultures and foster the development of a community. Off-campus accommodation mostly tends to operate without a student housing philosophy and is driven by the profit motive (Bella-Omunagbe: 2015). Mandela University’s Vision 2020 document (2017) concedes that “a significant proportion of our students (87%) reside in off- campus accommodation and therefore do not benefit from the university’s investment in the residences”. In addition, off-campus residences are mostly situated some distance from the university campus and often have limited safety and security measures in place. These shortfalls induce the university and the government to use their limited resources to assist students through the provision of transport and meal allowances, bursaries and other forms of assistance.
The vice-chancellor of the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Professor Brian O’Connell, quoted in DHET (2011: 81) elaborates on the living and learning crises that off-campus accommodation creates for students:
“The scale of the problem is desperate. We (UWC) have thrown open the doors of learning for nineteen thousand students, but we only have place for three thousand two hundred. Local landlords demand high rentals, but NSFAS funding is totally inadequate; and this accommodation is often appalling. We can’t have any campus programmes after four in the
4 | P a g e afternoon because of the dangers our students, many of whom are from the poorest of the poor communities of Khayelitsha and beyond, face while travelling. The nearest cinema is fifteen kilometres from campus. The past continues to linger with us.”
The DHET report (2011: 130) expands on the problem and its consequences:
“The administrative failings of NSFAS funding for student accommodation are imposing severe hardships on precisely those students who are most vulnerable, and the poor housing conditions are undoubtedly a factor in students’ poor academic performance and high dropout rates.”
According to the DHET report (2011: 8) little research has been done on student accommodation in South Africa. There has been some research on Mandela University in respect of residence facilities (Elie: 2013) and rental fee regulation (Mhlonyane: 2016).
By contrast, this qualitative study aims to explore, contextualise and understand, from the perspective of the participants themselves, the academic and social experiences of two groups of off-campus Mandela University students enrolled in 2018: those who live in low-income accredited residences in the North End area and others who stay in high-income non-accredited dwellings in the Summerstrand area.
1.5.Research question
The main research question that the study seeks to address is:
• What are the living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students who reside in off-campus accommodation?
The secondary research questions identified for this study are:
• What are the effects of staying in off-campus residences on the students’ academic and social experiences at university?
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• How do students understand and describe the way in which their living quarters affect their chances of academic success?
• How do the living and learning experiences of students in upper-income accommodation and those in low-income quarters differ?
• How do students describe their daily life in their residences and perceive its impact on their academic and social experience at university?
• What role do social factors such as distance from campus and access to transport play in shaping the students’ academic and social experience at university?
• What modes of self-management and peer support emerge among students in dealing with off-campus life?
1.6.Research aim and objectives
The aim of this research study is to investigate the living and learning experiences of Mandela University students residing in the accredited and non-accredited off-campus accommodation and the ways in which these forms of accommodation affect the students’ academic and social experiences at the university.
This aim will be realised by fulfilling the following objectives:
• Exploring and understanding the living and learning experiences of Mandela University students residing in off-campus residential accommodation.
• Identifying and understanding the barriers to a satisfying student life for Mandela University students residing in the accredited and non-accredited off-campus residences.
• Exploring and understanding how Mandela University students residing in the accredited and non-accredited off-campus residences cope with their living and learning experiences.
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1.7.Significance of the research
This study will demonstrate that off-campus accommodation is entangled in the property and spatial planning of the city. Such socio-economic patterns of a city are derived from apartheid spatial planning relations. This has socio-economic implications that affect the wellbeing of the students and the administrative arm of the higher education system. Also, this will have implications on how a university is understood in relation to urban property relations and spatial planning of a city in a post-apartheid context.
1.8.Key terms and concepts
This research study is done in the discipline of sociology and, therefore, the clarification of key terms and concepts that will be used throughout this study will have a sociological orientation. In other words, the lives and daily activities of students will be analysed in relation to their systematic relationship with their social context in their human society (Marvasti, 2004, 2-3).
1.8.1. Living
According to Morse et al (2009: 4-5) living refers to the basic assets and activities needed by people, in this case students, to have sustainable lives. The basic assets and activities required by a student can be categorised as being natural, human, social, physical and financial needs. These refer to: (1) Natural needs – water and environmental services such as “pollution sinks” (sanitation facilities); (2) Human needs – good health, knowledge, and skills; (3) Social needs – social relations, social claims, affiliations, associations and networks; (4) Physical needs – building, infrastructure and maintenance; and (5) Financial needs – cash, savings and other economic assets (Morse et al, 2009: 4-5).
1.8.2. Learning
This research will rely on Tinto’s theory of student integration which frames a learning process as a multi-situational activity of how a student is able to study in any environment of the university and the residence, at any time of the day without trouble, interacting daily with the academic system of the university in the form of the process and mode of attending classes,
7 | P a g e engaging in the classroom, doing research and interfacing with the faculty and the broader university as a whole.
Tinto (1993: 69) qualifies this by stating that: “the more students are involved in the social and intellectual life of a college, the more frequently they make contact with the faculty and other students about learning issues, especially outside the class, the more students are likely to learn”. University learning is not bound in one place at one time. It is constantly happening in a variety of spaces. Therefore, student accommodation is but one of the multi-situational sites where learning takes place in a university environment.
1.8.3. Living and learning
Therefore, living and learning refers to an interrelated system of daily experiences of a student revolving around the availability of a conducive environment and resources necessary to enable comfort, fulfilment, self-actualisation, retention, integration, academic progress and personal achievement at the university. For the purposes of this research study, the concept also refers to the academic and social experience of the students.
1.8.4. Off-campus accommodation
This refers to the university’s accredited and non-accredited privately-owned buildings, houses, flats, communes, rooms and apartments located outside the premises of the Mandela University campus where students reside. An off-campus residence is deemed to be accredited when the evaluation committee of Mandela University is satisfied that such a property meets all the minimum living and learning requirements necessary to accommodate students in general and those on bursaries and loans provided by NSFAS in particular. The accreditation process is done annually. Accredited residences get to have a legal, economic, academic and social relationship with the university.
Non-accredited residences are buildings, communes, apartments and houses that are offered by the private property owners of PE for students to rent. They usually accommodate cash-paying students. They do not accommodate students who are recipients of any form of financial aid. On the other hand, while cash-paying students are accepted in accredited off-campus residences, the university administrators and accredited off-campus property owners prefer
8 | P a g e students on NSFAS loans and bursaries due to the guaranteed security of their fee payments for purposes of cash inflow for both stakeholders (Mandela University: 2014b).
1.9.Research methodology
This section will outline comprehensively the research considerations, decisions and actions taken in conducting this research study.
1.9.1. Qualitative research method
This research study uses a qualitative research method to obtain an understanding of the phenomenon of the living and learning experiences of students from the participants themselves. Participants told of the kind of lives they live on a daily basis while residing in off- campus quarters. This exercise was consistent with Creswell’s view (2002: 223) which states that a qualitative research method “seeks the informants’ perspectives and meanings”. In addition, “its ultimate purpose is learning” (Rossman and Rallis, 2012: 3). Thus, the researcher captured how off-campus students experienced their living and learning phenomenon and how they coped with it. This proved to be possible when they were given the platform to interpret their own personal experiences.
1.9.2. Sampling technique
Information was collected from students, staff and property owners to get a balanced and diverse set of views about the same issue in order to garner a comprehensive perspective of the social matter in question. This research study focused on 14 Mandela University students residing in off-campus residence accommodation, three staff members of the university who are based in the department of student housing, one property owner from North End and one property owner from Summerstrand.
Of the 14 students studied, seven reside in the low-income accredited residences in the North End area and the other seven reside in the upper-income non-accredited dwellings in the Summerstrand area. In terms of their gender spread, three of the participants in the North End area were women, and four were men. In the Summerstrand area, four of the participating
9 | P a g e students were women, and three were men. Overall, the 14 students interviewed in this research study consisted of seven women and seven men.
The decision to have this gender spread of participants was informed by the DHET report which observed that men and women experience university life differently (DHET, 2011: 47). It also states that the student accommodation ratio between men and women in higher education institutions is 55:45 (DHET, 2011: 36). For this qualitative investigation of the living and learning experiences of students residing off campus, the researcher used a non-probability purposive sampling method. The researcher interacted with students residing in off-campus residences as his peers and also when he was a staff member in the department of student housing. This is where the researcher developed a relationship with them. Thus, the researcher chose students who were in close proximity and conveniently accessible to him to participate in the study (Rossman and Rallis, 2012: 139).
1.9.3. Semi-structured interviews
To enable the participating students to articulate a stronger sense of their own lives, an open- ended and in-depth study of their social context in the form of semi-structured interviews was utilised as a research tool for this study (Creswell, 2009: 146). The participants’ personal stories and how they make meaning out of their social context was the primary tool in obtaining data for this research. The researcher saw semi-structured interviews as an opportunity to understand the world from the point of view of the participants. This research tool assists in “gaining access into the hidden perceptions of the subjects” (Marvasti, 2004: 21) and it also “provides a multi-perspective understanding of the topic” (Johnson, 2002: 106).
Open-ended and semi-structured interviews also allowed the participants to narrate their emotional accounts and deeper feelings. The telling of personal stories of their daily life revealed details of personal suffering in some instances. Semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to go in-depth in sharing sensitive and emotional descriptions of their lives. A quantitative study that is numerically abstract, or the conducting of structured interviews that have standardised questions and responses, would not have encouraged the participants to be as forthcoming. The probing of the participants by the researcher using open-ended, in-depth, and semi-structured interviews allowed the participants to express their “presumed inner and hidden feelings” (Marvasti, 2004: 22). This element would have also been impossible in
10 | P a g e focused group interviews which require participants to speak in the presence of others (Mhlonyane: 2016).
Finally, the participants in this study are socially literate. In other words, they are adults who have undergone some form of education and are also active members of South Africa’s formalised socio-economy as: (1) students, (2) university workers, and (3) property owners. They tend to interact with other role-players who are at a similar social level. The researcher found this to be advantageous in interviewing the participants because they do have knowledge and understanding of what an interview is, how it is done and why it is done. Also, they are familiar with the topic and are interested in it. The living and learning experiences of students who reside off campus is a subject that is close to their daily lives. This played a key role in the participants contributing expansively and enthusiastically in the interviews. It also assisted in establishing rapport with them.
1.9.4. Data interpretation
The researcher was the person responsible for gathering data and interpreting it. It is important to emphasise that the focus of understanding the data stipulated in this research was on interpretation rather than analysis. Analysis is associated with numerical, objective and quantitative subjects in the main, whereas interpretation seeks to elicit meaning from the qualitative material from the subjective position of the researcher (Walcott, 1994: 37). The researcher is aware of the fact that it must be the views of the participants that are captured and articulated in the narrated stories and in their interpretation. Roberts (2002:116-117) observes that: “a narrative inquiry draws together diverse events, happenings and actions, as told by participants into thematically unified, goal-directed processes”.
Presenting the findings of this research in the form of transcribing the narrated stories assisted the researcher in making interpretation easier. Guided by the research questions and research objectives, the researcher divided the stories of the participants into three main themes: (1) living conditions and student perceptions of security, independence and comfort within the city, (2) commuting as a permanent and psycho-social state of hardship, and (3) student resilience and forms of solidarity among students. Then, the researcher followed Creswell’s advice (1994: 155) by reading the transcribed stories repeatedly to ascertain the meaning that they conveyed. Each of the three themes will have its own chapter.
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1.9.5. Data Verification
A verification strategy called data triangulation was used for this study. This involves interviewing different kinds of stakeholders about the same issue in the same context (Rossman and Rallis, 2012: 62; Marvasti, 2004: 114). This deals with using multiple stakeholders to interpret the same thing. This technique recognises that human life and human interactions are socially situated in social areas, or groups or organisations (Denzin, 1978: 296). Different stakeholders discussing the same issue can either provide similar or different or contradictory accounts. In sociological studies this is highly appreciated because it brings “a way of adding complexity and depth to the data and analysis” (Marvasti, 2004: 114).
In addition, a methodical discipline that researches human life should also be underpinned in complexities as a form of abolishing dogmas, which are anti-sociological (Denzin, 1978: 292). Therefore, data triangulation was employed for this research study through the interviewing of students, staff and property owners about the same issue of off-campus student life in the same Mandela University setting in 2018. The interpretation of the different perspectives submitted by the different stakeholders was done by the researcher.
1.9.6. Ethical reflections
As stated earlier, the researcher complied with the regulations expected of a social researcher when interviewing human beings. Paying attention to this matter is important as it ensures the authenticity of the research study, especially when it is done with people (Huysamen, 2001). First, the researcher approached potential participants in the study individually and those who showed interest in participating indicated their interest without coercion. This research was conducted in a university environment where almost all the participants had a tertiary education qualification or were working towards one. This made it easier for the interviewees to participate in the study voluntarily because they know what research is, the purpose behind it and its value to a university.
Second, the participants were presented with the documentation for the research before participating. Then they signed the consent form to show that they had given their permission to participate in the study. The names of the participants were withheld. The names of the
12 | P a g e student accommodation businesses of the property owners were also not mentioned in the study. The researcher used pseudonyms such as “Participant 09” in reference to the interviewees and this order of numbering helped in the timely management of the data. However, the researcher indicated to each participant that the location of the residence, gender and level of study of the interviewee and date and time of the interview would be revealed in this research study as they played a significant role in the interpretation of the findings.
Third, one of the highlights of the interviews with students was their emotional accounts of their lived experiences. At such times, the researcher respectfully asked the participants in the middle of the interview whether they would like to continue or stop it. In addition, at the end of the interview, the researcher provided information to the participants about facilitating an appointment for them with the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and the department of student counselling at Mandela University. Publishing this research study would benefit off- campus students by giving the university, the government and property owners insight into the students’ living and learning experiences. This would improve their understanding of the issues and perhaps lead to the establishment of better governance mechanisms and policies in university administration, strategic planning, institutional governance and even at the macro level of higher education generally.
Fourth, the researcher applied for an ethical clearance from the Mandela University research ethics (human) committee in October 2017. This entailed a lengthy process of rejections and re-submissions until the application was eventually accepted in April 2018. The process took seven months because research that involves students and staff members of the university involves a tough and lengthy process because these parties are considered a high-risk and vulnerable group at the university (Mandela University: 2011). The researcher received the ethical clearance letter in April 2018 and began collecting data in June 2018. The dissertation was submitted for examination in December 2018.
Lastly, the researcher was transparent and open with the participants in the undertaking of this research study. An extensive amount of information, such as on the aims and objectives of the study, ideas, criticism, data and resources, were shared with the participants, especially before the interviews began. Data collected and interpreted in this study was taken from the transcribed words of the narrated stories of the participants. The researcher did not manipulate the findings to suit any agenda. In the event that this data is required by any relevant
13 | P a g e stakeholder, the researcher has kept all the signed consent forms, recorded interviews and transcripts in an ascribed memory device protected by a password.
1.10. Chapter overview and dissertation layout
This dissertation will be divided into six chapters. Chapter One has already outlined the background of this dissertation, its study objectives and research questions that it seeks to address. This research study will explore the academic and social experiences of Mandela University students who reside in the off-campus residential areas of Summerstrand and North End in PE.
Chapter Two will review and examine the debates and leading scholarship on the living and learning experiences of students residing in off-campus student accommodation and the theoretical framework of this study, and how the socio-academic lives of students have been shaped in the context of both developing and developed countries.
Chapter Three will focus on the social experiences of off-campus life which is conceptualised in this dissertation as the living conditions and student perceptions of security, independence, and comfort within the city. It will describe the living experiences of Mandela University students who reside in the Summerstrand and North End area.
Chapter Four will present the learning aspect of the paper. Since the university transport is only scheduled around lecture times and examinations, its use is closely linked to the interface that students have with their academic life. This chapter will outline how the learning experience gets organised and controlled by the social transportation and commuting experiences of students, which is phrased here as commuting as a permanent and psycho- social state of hardship.
Chapter Five will pull together the living and learning experiences of students residing in off- campus residences to show how this entire phenomenon for them is qualified by a consistent form of self-management and peer support, in the form of coping mechanisms that off-campus students employ to try to deal with their material situations. This chapter will be titled student resilience and forms of solidarity among students. In other words, it will observe the “invisible side of student life’’, the inner-strength that produces the resilience in students to
14 | P a g e manage to make it through their daily life with all the demands that come with living in isolation from the university premises.
Chapter Six will conclude the dissertation by stating the key findings of this research study, its limitations, recommendations and possibilities for future research.
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CHAPTER TWO: Literature review and theoretical framework
This chapter will look at the research developed around student accommodation generally and off-campus student life in particular to identify the gap in research this study seeks to fill. A study of student accommodation is, by definition, a location-based study and exists in a particular context. Therefore, this review will be done in a thematical manner and will also be geographical in nature. The evaluation of the literature will cut across different continents and universities, with a particular focus on specific themes to elicit the contextual concept offered by each location and how these intersect with one another. For instance, the off-campus student life discourse in existing literature tends to be moulded around the effects of “studentification”. Though studentification will be a feature in the abstracting of information in this chapter and in the study as a whole, it is a concept that has its roots in the research conducted at United Kingdom (UK) universities. When discussing studentification in this review, the focus will be on the university cities of that region of the world and how they shape the living and learning experiences of students there.
This chapter will be divided into five sections. The first section will review and justify the application of Tinto’s theoretical framework of student integration in this research study. The second section will look at the social issues surrounding the lived experiences of students in their residences. The third section will highlight the crises and scandals emerging within the political context on the provision of student accommodation. The fourth section examines the different meanings in understanding off-campus accommodation. In one context it may mean lack of infrastructure while in another it signifies a transition to adulthood and seniority for a student.
The researching of student accommodation in the South African context is an urgent undertaking that needs to be explored prudently (DHET, 2011: 29) because it is becoming an area of political attention (Van der Merwe and Van Reenen, 2016: 3). Student enrolments continue to escalate across the higher education sector of the country, especially of those who come from townships and rural areas (DHET, 2011: 134; Swartz: 2017). It is these students who come to urban universities and, eventually, require student accommodation and public support to access it.
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2.1.Tinto’s theory of student integration
Over the past three decades, Tinto has developed a theory of student integration that attempts to make sense of the holistic nature of the student learning experience. Tinto (1993: 208) puts emphasis on the institutional support that a university must provide a student in order for the student to have a social and academic experience that is dignified. The premise of this concept is that, “the obligation of institutions to educate the students they admit springs from a more fundamental social obligation of higher education – to serve the welfare and preservation of society by educating its members” (Tinto, 1993: 206). When students have fulfilled social and academic experiences at university, they will be integrated into university life and “feel part of it” and be likely to complete their studies successfully (Tinto, 1993: 209).
Tinto (1998) highlights perseverance as one of the personal resources that a student must possess to be socially and academically integrated into a university. In other words, “academic and social integration influence persistence in separate ways for different students and […] the two interact in ways that also foster persistence. Individuals are more likely to persist when they are either academically or socially integrated and even more likely to persist when both forms of integration occur. But while we know that each form of integration can be a vehicle for integration in the other … that the two forms of integration are reciprocal, their impact upon learning tends to be asymmetrical” (Tinto: 1998). Later, Tinto (2010) recognised the shifting demographics of higher education which result in students from working-class backgrounds carrying challenges. Financial support became another component that Tinto (2010) regarded as crucial in the achievement of integration of students.
Lastly, Tinto (2014) observed a similar trend of working-class students who face challenges with higher education, leading to the conceptualisation “access without support is not opportunity”. This refers to a situation where, “for too many of our students, providing access without appropriate support does not provide meaningful opportunity to succeed in the university. This is the case because many begin university ill-prepared for the academic and social demands of university study and are unaware of what university studies demand […] effective student support does not arise by chance. It is not solely the result of good intentions. Rather it requires the development of an intentional, structured, proactive approach that is coherent, systematic and co-ordinated in nature” (Tinto: 2014).
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Therefore, according to Tinto’s theory of student integration, when students access the institution, it is the responsibility of all the stakeholders associated with the university to ensure that the student receives all the necessary support to take full advantage of the opportunities that come with being a student. Accordingly, this research study is aimed at examining the nature and quality of the “support” that a student receives when residing in off-campus accommodation and how this attribute sustains the value of the student’s “access” to higher education to validate the wealth of the “opportunity” in the form of a fulfilling student life and a possibility of academic success. The quality of life that students experience in their off- campus location is one of the barometers in a university system that this study has chosen to utilise as a measure of the students’ experience of higher education. In other words, whether students stay off campus or on campus, they must feel and be part of a single university community that facilitates an ethos of learning, builds a melting pot of cultural diversity and also develops student communities.
Tinto’s theory of student integration is useful for this study because the creation of a favourable living and learning environment across all types of residences in a university is an educational mission and, therefore, it becomes an institutional responsibility of the university. Learning is the ethos of an academic project in a university and it is an ethos that cannot take place in a living environment where students are not guaranteed safety, comfort and resources. The basic expectations of students of a university environment must be met by the university partners who are responsible for student accommodation. It is impossible for students to achieve success when they do not learn and live well.
Tinto’s theory of student integration will assist in framing the lens through which the researcher will analyse and interpret how students live and learn when they reside off campus. It will help to draw to the attention of the researcher the extent to which the university cares and prioritises the welfare of students (Tinto, 1993: 212). It will also allow attention to be paid to the students’ own reality whereby the perseverance of students in coping with their environment entails a human action of urgency where they respond to an issue based on their material conditions. (Tinto: 1998). Ordinarily, these latter observations would require financial support (Tinto: 2010) and the commitment of stakeholders to provide opportunities (Tinto: 2014) that will ensure student success and sustainable student lives. The arguments, literature, findings and conclusions of this research study will be outlined around student integration as the underpinning component of understanding.
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2.2.Massification of higher education institutions
The shift of the global economic structure from industrial economies of the 20st century (Stiglitz, 2002: 7) into service economies of the 21st century that are dominated by digitalisation, financialisation and knowledge (Piketty, 2014: 431-432) required a different set of skills that are acquired from universities (Bunting: 2004). This reality facilitated the unprecedent increases of enrolments at higher education institutions across the world (Smith: 2002). In particular, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (2017) reveals that the highest growth rates in higher education enrolments across the globe were in the developing regions of Africa and Asia over the past two decades. In the context of a developing country, and particularly in South Africa, increased enrolments at higher education institutions are driven by the progressive policies of governments (Bunting: 2004; DHET, 2011: 2) and by the perceptions of previously marginalised groups who see higher education as a necessary tool to change their life fortunes (Leibowitz and Bozalek: 2014).
Accelerated access to higher education post-1994 in South Africa has created a great demand for student accommodation (NPC, 2011: 319). This, in turn, has created a market for off- campus student accommodation as an instrument to address the shortfall (Swartz, 2017). A similar case of increased enrolments at universities leading to an off-campus accommodation market is observed in the developed regions of the world such as the UK (Smith: 2002, Smith: 2005; Hubbard: 2009) and Ireland (Kenna: 2011). The growth of the off-campus cohort of student accommodation in the UK is referred to as studentification. The researcher here positions the UK as the reference location because the term studentification was created by a British geographer, Darren Smith, in 2002 (Smith: 2002). The study of off-campus accommodation generally and that of studentification in particular originates from urban studies in fields such as geography (Smith: 2002; Smith: 2005) and town planning (Hubbard: 2009; Kenna: 2011). Though living and learning experiences cannot be mutually exclusive to a student, the concept of studentification mostly covers the living aspect of the student rather than the learning experience.
This discussion will be elaborated further in this section by examining a variety of contexts globally to understand how the concept of studentification is stimulated by the massification of university enrolments. Furthermore, the discussion will observe that the lack of planning
19 | P a g e and proper management systems by universities to bring about the cohesive administration of massification is as a result of the non-prioritisation of student accommodation by universities. This leads to an unplanned settlement of students in university suburbs alongside families. This crowding of university suburbs results in social conflicts between students and the “native” community members who are permanent residents of the neighbourhood. This challenge affects the student life experience and impacts negatively on the overall cohesion of the community in the suburb.
2.2.1. Studentification of cities
Studentification refers to a process in which traditional cities which were ordinarily operating as residential areas, recreational areas and retail areas are engulfed by an increased population of students who need to rent property in the city to live and form a community of their own as students, living alongside the families who were the initial occupants of the city before the influx of students (Smith: 2002). This phenomenon requires from the city government a re- arrangement of its socio-political priorities (Smith: 2008) so that they can be engineered for the student community. For example, a city experiencing an increased population of students would be required to have flexible regulations governing its entertainment businesses, urban land use, estate businesses, political priorities and recreational facilities (Smith and Hubbard: 2014).
The dominant discourse around studentification is that the settlement of the student population in a particular neighbourhood brings an economic benefit to the local businesses of the area. In their daily life at university, students need to purchase refreshments, food, gadgets, stationery and clothing, to name a few. Their population size and buying power makes them a market on their own for local businesses to tap. Students in the UK (Smith: 2005) and China (He: 2015) are regarded as a group that comes from a middle-class background that has cultural capital and consumption power. Local businesses take advantage of this through sales at discounted prices to stimulate bulk purchases and benefit from the buying power of students (Smith: 2002). However, in South Africa, where students mainly come from poor backgrounds (DHET, 2011: 133), their government bursaries give them cash vouchers to purchase goods and services at the local businesses in the cities they occupy (NSFAS, 2015: 17). This is in contrast to China and the UK where students seem to demonstrate a strong appetite to purchase goods and services in their host cities regardless of their socio-economic background.
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The increasing revenues of businesses in university towns encourage them to recreate and renew their businesses. In particular, the arrival of students in Loughborough, a town in Leicestershire, England, (Hubbard: 2009) encouraged estate agents and landlords to transform houses meant to accommodate students into purpose-built student accommodation compounds in gated and zonally enclosed neighbourhoods. In town planning and geographical scholarship, this phenomenon is referred to as the two stages of studentification (Smith: 2005; Smith: 2008; Hubbard: 2009). First, there is a house built for multiple occupants (HMO), then it gets transformed into the second phase of studentification: purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA). By 2011, this developing off-campus housing strategy, the upgrading from HMOs to PBSAs, was in its infancy in Ireland (Kenna: 2011). Smith (2002) further reveals that studentification also encourages a diversity of new businesses in the form of coffee shops, fast- food restaurants and retail stores. These economic dynamics become the norm of student life in an off-campus environment and they are an affirmation of students’ cultural capital.
On the other hand, studentification has seen cases where the property owners of the occupied suburb increase rentals and take advantage of the location of their properties by being monopolistic in their business approach. They charge higher rentals, which leave families who cannot afford the increases with no choice but to leave (Smith: 2005). This practice takes advantage of the fact that many students see the accommodation on offer as their only choice, regardless of quality or cost (Fincher and Shaw: 2009). The high demand for student accommodation in suburbs near the university campus leads landlords to demand high rentals, especially in a university community which has a population of middle-income and upper- income students (He: 2015). Fincher and Shaw (2009) argue that this phenomenon takes advantage of international students who arrive at foreign universities with foreign currency, desperation, cultural timidity and a lack of knowledge about the local economics. As a result, they fall victim to acquisitive property owners who see studentification as an opportunity to exploit student tenants for financial gain.
However, it is Elie (2013) who calls for the off-campus student accommodation sector to be regulated by universities and the government in terms of the quality of the facilities and services that are offered to students, and later it is Mhlonyane (2016) who calls for a student housing policy that will regulate the rentals of student accommodation in “studentified” suburbs. Such contributions add a new dimension to the studentification discourse which is usually rooted in
21 | P a g e a business perspective (Chatterton: 1999; Fincher and Shaw: 2009). They also introduce a social justice point of view (Mhlonyane: 2016; Elie: 2013). Nevertheless, what is consistent about the stated literature at this stage is that studentification is an off-campus student life phenomenon that occurs because of on-campus housing deficiencies.
In other contexts, such as in China’s third-biggest city, Guangzhou, the off-campus accommodation system takes on a different pattern and shape (He: 2015). The off-campus cohort of student residences develops as a result of students volunteering to stay off-campus. They do not “get forced” to seek off-campus accommodation due to a shortfall in the provision of on-campus residences. He (2015) states that universities in Guangzhou provide sufficient on-campus accommodation for their students, who get to share rooms, with up to four students per room in a bunk-bed system. When students progress in their studies to a more senior level, they voluntarily seek off-campus accommodation to stay independently and in comfort (He: 2015). This pattern of off-campus life is similar to that at Rhodes University (Rhodes) in South Africa (Mabizela: 2017), a scenario that will be expanded upon in the last section of the chapter. Nevertheless, He (2015) presents a non-Western paradigm in the off-campus student accommodation approach that shows that the decision by students to stay in the city can be a personal choice. This perspective differs from the UK experience (Smith: 2002; Smith: 2005; Smith: 2008; Hubbard: 2008; Hubbard: 2009; Kenna: 2011; Smith and Hubbard: 2014) where studentification is described from an urbanisation-problematic perspective.
In South Africa, the available literature on studentification in Bloemfontein (Ackermann and Visser: 2016) and Cape Town (Ordor et al: 2010) shows a higher education system that is divided on class lines. Evidence of this reality is the class division in the settlement patterns of Bloemfontein where a survey study by Ackerman and Visser (2016) shows that wealthy students tend to reside in the upper-income Brandwag suburb, which is close to the university and where rentals are higher, while the rest of the students tend to stay further afield in the Willows area, which means that they must commute daily to and from the university. An interview study by Ordor et al (2010) looked at the experiences of business owners in Cape Town’s Rondebosch area and how they benefit from the unregulated property market of the migrant student population in the city. Three weaknesses are evident in these studies: (1) both sets of research are rooted in the principles of geography, (2) they did not interview students, and (3) they did not adequately address the implications of their findings on the lives and learning experiences of students. Yet, both sets of authors admit that the off-campus
22 | P a g e accommodation concept as a scholarly investigation is still at an early stage in South Africa and that their studies consequently pave the way for a more comprehensive study of the phenomenon involving different disciplines (Ordor et al: 2010; Ackermann and Visser: 2016).
It is clear that studentification needs to be analysed in the context of the specific local factors and conditions that obtain in each community. Almost every country, city and suburb in the city experience their own unique challenges with studentification. Accordingly, this subject area requires a line of inquiry that is location-based. It unwise to apply the findings of studies done in other locations without a contextual understanding. Yet, what is common about this concept of studentification is that it is premised on an intersectional merging of competing interests involving: (1) citizens’ appetite for higher education enrolments, (2) students’ demand for accommodation, (3) local government’s town planning priorities and revenue-collection imperatives, (4) local businesses and property owners’ desire to make profits, and (5) the overall clashing political interests of these different stakeholders on a day-to-day basis (Hubbard: 2008). These overlapping – and sometimes competing – interests manifest in a specific location of the city. It is this “territorial war” between these stakeholders that prevents the possibility of a cohesive relationship in the affected suburban community (Ordor et al: 2010), particularly between the hosting families and the students (Smith: 2005; Smith: 2008).
In conclusion, studentification is the result of an off-campus accommodation system. When students decide to stay off-campus, or are forced to do so, then studentification, to various degrees, naturally occurs in the particular neighbourhood where they live. The gaps in the literature on studentification manifest in several ways. First, the phenomenon is looked at through the lens of the perceived class background of the students. The perception is that students who stay in off-campus residences come from middle-class or upper-class backgrounds and that they have spending power and cultural prowess to boost the local businesses of the suburb. In the South African context, the reality is that students come from all kinds of backgrounds, marked by stark class and race divisions. In fact, the majority of students are from low-income families. Second, the literature assumes that off-campus students reside in neighbourhoods that are in close proximity to university campuses and where rentals tend to be high. This may be true for Summerstrand but the large influx of poor students in Port Elizabeth has necessitated the conversion of warehouses and commercial buildings in poorer areas such as North End and Korsten into low-cost residences. Third, the leading research on studentification is conducted in the disciplines of town planning, facilities management and
23 | P a g e geography. These disciplines offer limited sociological insights into the broader political economy of space, property and higher education in South Africa. Finally, the literature on studentification is silent on gender – a critical demographic in shaping students’ experiences in South Africa.
2.2.2. Residences as a ‘secondary issue’
Heher (2017: 299-304) observes that universities are not conceptualised as housing entities but are rather mainly concerned with the learning project and, therefore, the provision of student housing tends to be a neglected issue that seems to catch universities unprepared. Historically white institutions like the Mandela University that were not engineered to cater for a large influx of students have struggled to match the need for convenient and on-campus beds with equivalent supply (Mandela University: 2014a). This created a market for off-campus student accommodation as an instrument to amend the shortfall (Swartz, 2017). In line with the geographical theme of this chapter, the location of this analysis will be the developing regions of Africa and Asia.
These two regions have a high volume of students and socio-economic urbanisation dynamics that are similar to those in South Africa. In addition, these two regions have good prospects of economic growth and social prosperity in the 21st century due to the potential output that can be achieved as a consequence of their relatively youthful populations (Fox et al: 2016). Higher education generally and student housing in particular is not a major priority in these regions amid other urgent socio-economic issues that flowed from colonialism and wars (NPC, 2011: 318-320). This approach will also show how this higher education injustice in these two regions has affected the academic and social experiences of students in their respective universities.
Africa has an interrupted and distorted history of colonialism by Europeans which has damaged the tangible and the intangible infrastructure of its being (Asante: 1991; Oyewumi, 1997: 122). This violence entailed the confiscation of the economy of the African people through dispossession of land (Mba: 2017) which resulted in the relegation of the native population into poverty, isolation, unemployment, illiteracy, and underdevelopment (Wa Thiongo, 1986: 28). The European became superior at the expense of the humiliation of the African people where “race and colour [were] used to determine who is human and who [is] sub-human” (Mbeki:
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1996). As a result, all countries on the African continent are developing nations with devastating levels of poverty and inequality.
The NPC (2011: 295-297) observes that it is this history that gives rise to its current orientation towards higher education. Universities in Africa are seen as institutions that should produce research that will translate into action to liberate the African people from economic bondage (African Union, 2015: 3). In addition, universities are seen as spaces where young people attend to learn and be taught so that they can be skilled and improve their chances of employment (African Union, 2015: 3). It is through employment that people can change the socio-economic circumstances of their family and community. The stubborn legacy of colonialism, which has impoverished the continent, legitimises the investment of the continent in higher education. Agenda 2063 of the African Union (2015: 17) identifies higher education as a powerful tool that can be used to “combat youth unemployment and underemployment”.
The most notable inheritance from colonialism is the structure and state of African cities. They are shaped by a massive urbanisation which was driven on the back of the African people’s labour to accelerate the growth of the European capitalist accumulation and exploitation of the continent’s resources (Freund, 2007: 124). Across Africa, both in countries where white people settled and did not, Europeans lived in the city centre, where all economic activity takes place, whereas black Africans were confined to the outskirts of the city and villages (Freund, 2007: 124). Universities, as a result, were also built within these cities, which adds pressure on the city’s resources to cater for all kinds of people and their needs.
For example, in Ghana, the University of Cape Coast, situated in the coastal city of Cape Coast, faces challenges of massive student enrolment numbers and shortages of student housing (Agyemang: 2018). It is based in a metropolitan area that is similar to Port Elizabeth in South Africa. Cape Coast is a trade centre for the fishing industry, has three national universities and attracts tourists in summer (Porter, 2013: 6). The nature of its property relations split the city into two areas classified by class, namely: (1) Abura, a neighbourhood mostly populated by disadvantaged people on the outskirts of the town who use a poor public transport system to access the town, and (2) Simiw, which is a middle-class neighbourhood located in the north of the city where its inhabitants, such as university staff and government officials, use their own private vehicles to access the city (Porter, 2013: 4).
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The University of Cape Coast is located closer to Simiw. Students of the university reside in all corners of the city, according to their class position and they attend lectures at the university by commuting daily using public transport. A small number of students are given space to reside on-campus while the majority stay in off-campus residences. Porter (2013: 3-4) highlights transport in Cape Coast as the major determining factor of the quality of life of the city’s inhabitants. The living and learning experiences of University of Cape Coast students residing in off-campus hostels is determined by their class position, the kind of area they reside in and its proximity to campus, including the quality of public transport available (Agyemang: 2018). “Access to mobility and transport is a key element shaping access to services, livelihoods, life chances and wellbeing and consequently a human right” (Porter, 2013: 3).
Writing an open letter to the president of Ghana, Agyemang (2018) highlighted the following: “here in the University of Cape Coast, just like all Ghana’s tertiary institutions, [we] have limited hall facilities, thus students are pushed to seek asylum in private-owned hostels […] the cost of these hostels skyrockets faster than the entire growth rate of our nation […] the attitude of these businessmen creates the impression that we have no responsible ministry designated to check this genocidal attitude of hostel businessmen [...] these businessmen have taken advantage of insufficiency of accommodation facilities and our government’s unwillingness to provide accommodation for tertiary students, to squeeze every single penny they can from students [...] students have no choice than to get money by all means to enrich these businessmen so that students can occupy rooms that are not even up to standard, other than that, where can students reside through their stay in school?”
This difficulty is at the heart of the higher education underfunding in Africa generally (African Union, 2015: 3-4) and Ghana in particular (Agyemang: 2018). What is evident in the University of Cape Coast case study is that higher education in Ghana is still not prioritised as a catalyst that will fundamentally change the fortunes of the previously disadvantaged members of its society. Students who cannot afford accommodation fees charged by hostel administrators who are in private business is an indication of the socio-economic disadvantages faced by the students (Agyemang: 2018). In addition, it demonstrates that the living and learning experiences of such students are inappropriate, and the university is not doing what is necessary to provide affordable facilities to its students – hence a letter of desperation from a university student to the highest office in Ghana, that of the president.
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On the question of Asia, this study reviews China and India, which have similar socio- economic dynamics to South Africa and comparable challenges in higher education. About 60% of people in the world stay in Asia and it is the fastest-growing region economically with a young population that is vested in knowledge and technology (United Nations: 2015). In addition, the region is characterised by youth migration and urbanisation, with young people migrating from the rural areas of India and China, mainly in search of education and better opportunities in the cities (United Nations: 2015). This massification of universities and cities in the region presents the usual challenge for the cities generally, and the universities in particular, of developing countries as far as student housing is concerned (Savills World Research: 2016). How the universities and colleges provide the service in relation to the social infrastructure of the city affects the living and learning experiences of students, especially those residing off-campus in the Asian cities.
China, a country with a thriving economy (Zhu: 2012), has the biggest education system in the world, with a student population of 260 million young people being taught by 15 million teachers (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development: 2016: 9). In addition, the Savills World Research (2016) reveals that demand for student accommodation is higher in China than anywhere else in the world, and is four times that of India, the second biggest market in terms of demand. Cities in China are overcrowded and have problems such as pollution and there is a fierce competition for housing in the city centres between different classes and commercial interests (Wang, 2004: 73-74). However, there is no evidence that China has a numerical shortage of student accommodation, although lack of facilities is a challenge (He: 2015).
Universities are built in the cities where economic activity takes place (Smith: 2002). Income inequality in China breeds the urban poor, housing shortages and the mushrooming of dangerous living arrangements for poor students on the outskirts of cities such as Beijing (Wang, 2004: 4). To meet the extraordinary demand for student accommodation in China, the government introduced affordable, multi-storey residential units made of steel which are believed to be more environmentally friendly and cheaper than the traditional student housing units made of concrete (Cheng et al: 2012). Research shows that these structures accommodate more students and consume less energy but the living experience is not satisfactory for poorer students (Cheng et al: 2012).
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India, a developing country, has a real estate sector that caters for student housing. “For asset management entities and funds, it is an emerging segment with the potential to offer returns much higher than established assets of office and retail […] for the government, this is one way of promoting their manifesto on skill development & education by putting together an enabling environment for students from every quarter … for universities, it is an avenue to enhance ex- domiciliary campus amenities without fretting much about their limited financial muscle” (Jones Lang LaSalle: 2018). India has almost every problem that one would find in South Africa on the question of student housing. India is a developing country that is highly unequal, with pressing societal challenges facing the government (Kovind: 2018). Student housing is the least of its priorities. In fact, student housing is a concept that does not exist in India (Jones Lang LaSalle: 2018). Students prefer to stay in on-campus accommodation but there is a massive under-supply of this resource by the universities and the government. As a result, students resort to off-campus accommodation in large numbers and there is an enormous demand for student living quarters (Agarwal et al: 2015).
As Jones Lang LaSalle (2018) observes, “currently, India has approximately 34 million students in the higher education space, which is more than double the size of the advanced and large student housing markets in the West. Given the lack of […] supply, unmet demand for student housing is very high in India. For instance, the 10 leading states in terms of the number of students in the higher education space experience an unmet demand to the tune of 30-60%, as per official statistics available”. Some students try by all means to stay as close as possible to the university campus by renting houses, flats and backyard rooms owned by families in the cities. This option is expensive and is available only to students who come from families that can afford to pay the high asking rentals. In addition, such accommodation was not designed to accommodate students and, therefore, lacks the basic resources that a student needs to have a fulfilling living and learning experience. The remainder of the students, who come from poor families and who largely depend on public support, resort to living on the outskirts of the city with the urban poor (Agarwal et al: 2015). Though China, India and South Africa face similar historical and structural challenges with regards to higher education, every country and city has its own context, which is what this research study will explore in PE.
2.3.The culture of scandalous incidents at student residences of South Africa
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This part of the chapter will explore the student living spaces and how contested they are along demographic divisions such as race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and geographic origins. One way or another, the personal demographics of a student play a big role in their living and learning experiences at university, especially in a space such as a student accommodation, where people from different walks of life are expected to share the space. This is complicated, in South Africa, where the categorisation of people according to their demographics was used historically as a means to advantaging certain people at the expense of others. These realities are at the centre of the current reality of South Africa where the life of a person is shaped by the existing social structures that are defined along social hierarchies. It is unimaginable to have a sociological analysis of a South African society without grappling with the complexities that emerge from patterns of human discrimination. Therefore, an analysis of the higher education experiences of students as far as learning and living are concerned cannot be divorced from the enduring effects of institutionalised racial discrimination.
Attention will be paid, firstly, to the “Reitz incident” that took place at the University of Free State (UFS), in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 2008. This was a racist incident where white students recorded a video showing them coercing black workers to drink their urine as a form of demonstration against the racial integration policies that were being implemented in residences by the university. Although the incident took place in an on-campus residence, the subsequent events that surrounded it and the kind of scholarly work done on it, brought into critical focus the living and learning complications of what being a student who resides in student accommodation entails in post-apartheid South Africa (Taylor: 2014). Secondly, the attention will shift to gender-based-violence as a living reality for women students in universities and how this haunts their learning experience. Finally, student protests will be featured as another reality that overwhelms student experiences in residences to the extent that they believe their living conditions affect them in a way that threatens their academic careers as aspiring graduates in universities (DHET, 2011: 65).
2.3.1. ‘Reitz’: University transformation matters
Taylor (2014) narrates that this incident took place in the UFS in 2008 when a group of four white students made a video of them abusing five black workers. The white students forced the black workers to perform dehumanising rituals such as drinking urine from a plate of food. This urine was from the body of one of the white students. This video was shot as a form of
29 | P a g e protest by the four white students against a university-proposed policy of racial integration in residences where white students were expected to stay with students of other races. Before this incident, the white students preferred being separated as a racial group in their own male residence, Reitz. They saw the proposed policy of racial integration by the university as a threat to their culture. Therefore, the recording of the video was a demonstration that students who were not white were not welcome at Reitz.
The sharing of the video on various media platforms caused national and international outrage from politicians, media, academia, the judiciary and civil society. Two of the white students involved in the incident were immediately expelled, while the other two students had already graduated and were later reinstated in the university by the then newly appointed vice- chancellor (Jansen: 2009). All four students were criminally charged in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court, convicted and sentenced. At the level of the state, a ministerial oversight committee was appointed to investigate racism in the country (Soudien: 2010) while at university level reconciliation processes were attempted to rescue the situation (Taylor: 2014).
Reitz has been widely analysed in the public discourse of South Africa from a variety of perspectives. What stood out for this researcher was the blame attributed to the university for failing to take a courageous approach on transformation. Social change at UFS in terms of transformation was regarded as being slow because of the complicity of the university in seeking to avoid confrontation over challenging and pressing issues, particularly race (Soudien: 2010). In addition, the slow pace of transformation and ignorance displayed by white members of the university was blamed on a cosmetic understanding by white people of what reconciliation means for them (Matthews: 2010). In other words, reconciliation, for many whites, means not having a responsibility to address the injustices of the past in a meaningful way. Hence, the tendency among many white members of the university to deny accusations of racism or to downplay its effects on black people (Matthews: 2010).
What made the Reitz incident stand out was the fact that it occurred in on-campus student accommodation and exposed the deep-seated antagonism that certain sections of society harbour towards one another in their everyday and individual interactions (Naido: 2010). The 1994 miracle of a rainbow nation came crumbling down for South Africans through a racist encounter between apartheid-privileged white men who felt superior to poor, black, vulnerable
30 | P a g e women workers. These are intersectional structures of discrimination inherited from apartheid colonialism (Lewins: 2010). The student life experience in student accommodation was exposed to be a thorny issue that is not separate from the pitfalls of the society from which the university recruits its students. Reitz exposed the fact that South Africa, as a post-apartheid society, needs to comprehend that “deep transformation should be aimed at tackling problematic structures and systems that are constitutive of the social and personal interactions that permeate the everyday materiality of people’s learning experiences at the university” (Van der Merwe and Van Reenen, 2016: 3).
2.3.2. Gender-based violence
Universities are sites of violence towards female and gender non-conforming students (Sexual Violence Task Team: 2016). In their nature as closed institutions which have a large population, such as families, churches and prisons, violence that takes place on their premises is likely to be hidden from the public domain and dealt with internally (Streng and Kamimura: 2015). This creates a culture of non-accountability and entitlement among perpetrators who know that their acts will not have dire consequences for their academic careers (Sexual Violence Task Team: 2016). Universities are built in societies. University students come from societies. Therefore, challenges facing society such as gender-based violence are often carried uncritically into universities.
It is significant that women students face danger both inside their residences and outside. Patriarchy as a social structure creates alienating spaces for women students in universities (Gqola, 2015: 95) and cities (Steady: 2005). The town planning of university cities makes the layout of roads, walkways, pathways and public recreational areas uncomfortable and dangerous for women (Steady: 2005). Women students report instances where walking on their own from the university campus to buy groceries becomes impossible because they fear being attacked and raped. They are expected to either walk with their men counterparts or try to make themselves small and invisible on the road (Gqola, 2015: 79). Places of entertainment at night have become sites of sexual harassment and rape culture (Sexual Violence Task Team: 2016) where women are always on the lookout when having fun to avoid having their drinks spiked or getting into a car with a stranger. Getting back home safely from a night out becomes a cause for celebration.
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Intimate partner violence is another feature of gender-based-violence in universities (Gqola, 2015: 93) and this usually takes place in the privacy of student residences (Sexual Violence Task Team: 2016). Women students get assaulted and murdered by men who taught and loved them in the university (Streng and Kamimura: 2015). Other narratives indicate that the criminal justice system does not keep them safe in the sense that a woman student can get raped today and see the perpetrator the following day in the lecture room after he is released on bail (Gqola, 2015: 94). These instances of injustice make it difficult for women students to have a fulfilling learning experience at university. The university becomes a place of constant fear for them. Compunding the problem is that women students know that leaving the university system means they cannot get a qualification (Streng and Kamimura: 2015). As a result, enduring the dehumanising environment and being resilient in it become the norm. This helps perpetuate the violence that they are experiencing. So, universities in general and residences in particular are sites of abuse of women (Gqola, 2015: 95). The “story-telling’’ interview techniques employed in this research study will provide a current, contextual narrative of the experiences of women students at trusted institutions that are meant to educate them.
2.3.3. Student protests
Five years after the publication of the 2011 DHET report on student accommodation, South African campuses countrywide were engulfed by student protests about university fees under the #FeesMustFall (FMF) campaign. The lack of adequate student accommodation was one of the many challenges taken up by protesting students. This period of instability saw the higher education sector being seriously confronted for the first time in South Africa since the advent of democracy. What was significant about this wave of protests was that they were not limited to the poor black universities situated in the former Bantustans but also affected privileged, previously white institutions such as the University of Cape Town (UCT), University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Stellenbosch University and UFS, which were challenged from within by students who felt alienated by their practices. Student accommodation came up as a point of contention across all the universities.
In the Eastern Cape, there is heavy pressure on universities to enroll more students because of the province’s population size. The province has four institutions, namely the University of Fort Hare, Walter Sisulu University (WSU), Rhodes and Mandela University. The University of Fort Hare has a poor residence system and does not accredit or own any off-campus
32 | P a g e residences (Buhlungu: 2017). Its SRC prevented the university from beginning its 2018 academic year due to challenges of accommodation on its East London campus. Fort Hare SRC president Sonwabiso Mamkeli expressed his emotions about the injustice: “We are tired and actually want to begin the academic calendar to finish our studies but we can’t be squatting and sleeping on chairs and be expected to perform well.” (City Press: 2018).
WSU has dysfunctional residences on campus without any system in place and it operates without off-campus residences (DHET, 2011: 117). The report further reveals that the university does not have any plan in place nor any strategic objectives of what it seeks to achieve in five to 10 years as far as student accommodation is concerned. Furthermore, members of a parliamentary oversight committee that visited the university in January 2018 expressed shock at the level of squatting by students in the university. As many as five students were sharing a room at the university (Daily Dispatch: 2018). WSU students have embarked on protests over the lack of accommodation on many occasions since the university merged in 2005 (Davids and Waghid: 2016).
One significant protest for student accommodation was the #Shackville protest waged at UCT at the beginning of the 2016 academic year. The protest was called to press home the demand for on-campus accommodation for black students who felt excluded in favour of white students and international students (eNCA: 2016). One of the SRC leaders of the campaign, Lelethu Dantyi articulated the problem: “Since I got here, I never got residence. But as a black person, I’m used to surviving. But that doesn’t mean someone else is able to survive just like me. What we are saying here is we are refusing the university to exclude black students. So, this shack is symbolism […] actually it’s a fancy shack, it even has wi-fi.” (Live South Africa: 2016).
Dantyi, in the same article, is described as a student leader who has been trying to apply for on-campus accommodation throughout his academic career without success. As a result, he has been staying with his relatives in the township Khayelitsha, which is more than 30 kilometers from the university campus in Rondebosch. “He commutes every day to campus using either a taxi or a train, and the journey can take up to an hour” (Live South Africa: 2016). Comments of this nature and the description of the living and learning conditions of these students indicate the hardships imposed on many students by the property relations of the city and institutional neglect on the part of the universities. These dynamics have the potential to threaten Dantyi’s chances of remaining at the university and graduating.
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Apartheid spatial planning and property relations are still in play in Cape Town. UCT is built on expensive land in the suburb of Rondebosch which was previously owned by the British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes more than 200 years after land in the area that became Cape Town was violently confiscated from the African natives by Dutch settlers (Ndebele: 2013). Rondebosch later became a settlement suburb of the white minority and large numbers of black people working in the city were pushed out to stay in the townships of Gugulethu and Khayelitsha (Ndebele 2013). In 2016 – 22 years after the legal breakdown of apartheid colonialism – Dantyi and thousands of other black students at UCT find themselves unable to live in areas of their choice in the city. Instead, the institutional incapacity of UCT to provide sufficient accommodation and the skewed property relations of Cape Town expose them to unsatisfactory living and learning experiences. This important socio-economic context to life as a black student in Rondebosch is overlooked in the study by Ordor et al (2010).
In response to the #Shackville protest, UCT stated that: “one year after the Shackville protests we as the UCT executive reaffirm our commitment to listen to and engage with students and staff, as well as address the social justice issues that affect us all […] we reaffirm our commitment to respect the dignity of all staff and students and to uphold their right to a safe and productive environment” (Petersen: 2017).
This section has attempted to demonstrate that South Africa is a post-apartheid society that is still engulfed by divisive social realities. Student accommodation is not just a place for students to stay but rather it is a living organism where a dynamic form of living and learning takes place while it also imports society’s problems such as gender-based violence, income inequalities, racial divisions and protests. The next section will touch on the view of off-campus accommodation as a “home away from home”.
2.4.“A home away from home”
Several houses in the Summerstrand area advertise themselves as a “home away from home”. According to Long (2013) and Smith and Holt (2007) this philosophy surrounding this comparison of a student residence to a home is embedded in middle-class expectations that universities, families and students carry into higher education where a home is viewed as a normal suburban house in a Western city.
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This section will locate the “home away from home” concept in the context of Western societies and their universities. The concept features three main interpretations of student experiences in off-campus student accommodation, which the section will cover as follows: (1) viewing off-campus living as a mark of independence, seniority and adulthood; (2) modelling off-campus residences as living and learning communities (LLC) to anchor the academic facet of being a student beyond the classroom; (3) the enabling of unhindered commuting through the availability of a conducive and all-inclusive public transport system in university cities.
2.4.1. Independence, seniority and adulthood
Being at university involves isolation from one’s family; a transition from childhood to adulthood and a gaining of a sense of independence. This means that students at university get to form new groups of friendships, housemates and, therefore, communities. Having a sense of belonging at university is crucial for a person to experience a fulfilling student life. At a big residential university, the activity of shaping one’s sense of belonging becomes even more difficult. As discussed earlier, He (2015) has found that students in China voluntarily decide to stay in off-campus residences to be independent from being systematically managed by on- campus rules and, most importantly, to have a sense of adulthood as senior students. An additional variable with staying off-campus in Western universities is that it comes with responsibilities such as being persistent, consistent and resilient because living off-campus entails, to a certain degree, the loss of some on-campus privileges such as short walks to classes and being in close proximity to library services.
Tinto (2010) deals with the question of perseverance and persistence as tools that individual students must possess to attain their personal academic and social goals in the university environment against all sorts of odds. Without a doubt, acquiring a university qualification entails a degree of hard work and resilience from students (Tinto: 1993: 208-209; Tinto: 1998). While the university has an obligation to provide support to the students it has admitted, it cannot dictate how and when students should attend classes and study comprehensively for their examinations. Beyond academic and social integration into the university environment, the student must have a personal goal to push themselves towards success (Tinto: 1998). Staying in off-campus accommodation can be an added obstacle that students must attempt to
35 | P a g e overcome responsibly in in their quest to successfully complete their studies. The next section will look at the university’s responsibility and also that of property owners as role-players who shape their student accommodation entities as living and learning communities.
2.4.2. The Living and Learning Communities
As earlier indicated, while the main mission of a university is to provide intellectual life to students, the task cannot be carried through successfully without consideration being paid to the students’ general welfare (Tinto, 1993: 206). A university is a community where students learn and live. As a result, like in any other community, its members must be able to be socially and intellectually integrated into the community in order to remain in it (Tinto, 1993: 147).
Aspects of the university system such as faculties and the residential system have an impact on the living and learning experiences of students and, ultimately, such experiences can influence students to either stay at the university or depart (Koen, 2007: 67). One of the countries that gets this aspect of its higher education system right is the United States of America (USA). As stated earlier, the USA has professionalised the concept of student accommodation. It has created a set of officials who are professionally involved with student residences as well as a professional cohort of students who are residential leaders and assistants. Staff members employed by universities in the USA have a national association called the Association of College and University Housing Officers-International (ACUHO-I) where they collaborate to “envision a future where the value of the student residential experience will be acknowledged universally, and ACUHO-I will be a trusted knowledge source that moves, educates and inspires the campus housing profession” (ACUHO-I, 2015: 3).
Moreover, residences in the USA have student leaders who sit on house committees and residence assistants who are elected by student tenants through democratic elections annually (ACUHO-I, 2015: 7). The student leaders also have a national association called the National Association for College and University Residence Halls (NACURH). Its purpose is to “provide residence hall leaders with skills and resources that they need in order to excel and positively impact their campus communities” (NACURH, 2015: 3). Both staff and students are professionalized, with established forms of engagement taking place between them (NACURH, 2015: 3). Universities are well equipped to provide the best facilities for student
36 | P a g e accommodation with diverse and vibrant living and learning communities in both on-campus and off-campus residences (NACURH, 2015: 4).
There seems to be a mounting trend in the USA whereby the living and learning experience of students is deeply associated with their academic achievement in the classroom, their class position and their social integration status into the diverse social life that the campus and the city has to offer (US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2015: 8). Off-campus student accommodation is the preferred form of student housing in the USA where LLC have been created, enabling students to commute to campus by walking, cycling and using public transport. It allows students to have more privacy and a sense of independence in the comfort of their “homes away from home” (Wallace: 2012).
From research studies undertaken in USA on the specifics of living and learning experiences of students, Fields (1991) reveals that there is not a significant difference in the living experiences of African-American undergraduate students at Iowa State University who reside off campus and those who stay on campus. In particular, while off-campus students may experience a minor disadvantage from spending time commuting to the university and being socially engaged with campus life for a limited period during the day, these factors do not present a substantial difference in the living experience of such students when compared to those who stay on campus. Schudde (2011) maintains that staying on campus remains advantageous because of the access it gives to university staff and infrastructure, and it helps with being socially and academically integrated into the university. Later, however, Schudde (2016) realised that while staying on-campus was acceptable, “students from low-income families benefit less from living on campus than their peers”. The next segment will examine the influence of public transport in the UK context as a major factor that complements the off- campus LLC.
2.4.3. Transport and infrastructure interconnection
According to the Eurostudent Report (2015: 172-175), students staying with their parents commute to the university using public transport because it is affordable and environmentally friendly. However, on average they spend 68 minutes per trip travelling between home and the university campus. Staying at home for these students has economic benefits such as saving costs on rent, groceries, and electricity. In addition, these students have reported high levels of
37 | P a g e satisfaction with their living and learning experiences at home and in the university. This factor is related to the influence of the history, urban development and structure of the city in influencing students’ experience of the university. Europe does not have a racial history similar to Africa of land dispossession, migrant labour, and distorted urbanization (European Commission: 2018). In addition, the socio-economic standard of living of the European citizens is relatively high and their governments have invested heavily in infrastructure to make it affordable and user-friendly for its people (Van Goeverden et al: 2006). Therefore, chances are good, in the European Union, of young people being able to study in a university that is in their city of birth, where their families stay, instead of having to migrate to another city in search for education (European Commission: 2018). Staying in the comfort of one’s home and using a good public transport system that they are familiar with plays a positive role in the quality of student life.
In terms of migrating students, in the European context this group of students tends to be enrolled at a residential university that is in a city that is far from their families. Student accommodation in the EU, be it on campus or off campus, is usually built as close as possible to the university (Eurostudent Report, 2015: 175). To demonstrate the importance of location with regards to off-campus student accommodation in the EU, the Eurostudent Report (2015: 175-176) illustrates that walking and using a bicycle are the preferred modes of going to classes for students who stay in off-campus accommodation. Such modes of transport are particularly prevalent among students in countries such as the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland (Student World Online: 2014; Van Goeverden et al: 2006).
The convenience of the location and the mode of transport used gives students in Europe the opportunity to save money and be part of campus activities, which elevates the possibility of their academic and social integration into the university and the city. (Eurostudent Report, 2015: 180-181). Another benefit of student accommodation in the EU is that it is mostly used by younger students and it provides all the minimum resources needed by a student, while financial support is also on offer. Therefore, for students from poor backgrounds, the student accommodation on offer and the middle-class valued life of higher education “helps overcome the contrast between home and student life” (Eurostudent Report, 2015: 180-181).
On the other hand, the shortcoming with student accommodation in the European Union is that it is mostly utilised by students who depend on public support to fund their education (European
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Commission, 2015: 33). This is a similar to the reality in South Africa. As a result, such students may have to share facilities due to limited resources and might not necessarily have the same amount of freedom as those who stay at home or those who are self-sufficient and staying alone. Hence, according to the Eurostudent Report (2015: 181) students who reside in off-campus student accommodation have reported low levels of satisfaction.
In the developed region of Europe, student accommodation is underpinned by a philosophy of fulfilling academic results. The Eurostudent Report (2015: 166) states: “housing can generally fulfil several needs … it does not only satisfy the need for shelter, but may also satisfy social needs, i.e. for integration, communication, and organisation of family life as well … for students, there is also a special type of housing that is supposed to be supportive for their academic lives … thus, housing is a key element for living and studying”. This could be the case because universities in Europe are relatively old, and they developed simultaneously with the industrialisation of the cities in which they are based (European Commission: 2018).
As a first-world region moulded around the tradition of higher education, the conceptualisation and building of universities in Europe was done with the student in mind. In other words, the various cities’ higher education institutions were built in such a way that they are able to cater for the living and learning enterprise of any kind of student (European Commission: 2018). The living arrangement of students in the EU is divided into three main types: (1) Students living with parents, (2) Students not living with parents, and (3) Students living in student accommodation (Eurostudent Report, 2015: 172). Each of these types of student housing affect the living and learning experiences of students in the EU differently.
2.5.Concluding remarks and gaps in the literature
This chapter has outlined the existing body of literature on the subject of student life in off- campus residences. This study of student accommodation is location-based and, therefore, adopted a geographical presentation of the thematic arguments from one context to another. The academic and social experiences of students were subject to a three-tier examination which looked firstly at how the massification of higher education has resulted in the complexities of student accommodation and secondly how, in the SA context, society’s challenges have engulfed student residences in the form of protests, gender-based violence and instances of racism. Finally, the research objectives and questions are explored by placing the focus on the
39 | P a g e issue of how, particularly in the context of the USA and Europe, residences are moulded into being “homes away from home” with a “family feeling” by the deliberate creation of the living and learning communities and an affordable, co-ordinated and reliable transport system in university towns.
This research study seeks to address the gaps in the literature presented and analysed in this chapter in a number of ways: First, the conducting of semi-structured interviews with students who stay in two different areas of the same university city and are governed by the same off- campus accommodation system of the university, will shed light on the lived experiences of the students by employing a story-telling, micro-level approach that seeks to discern the participants’ everyday reality. This approach differs from that of the previous studies that have examined student life from a single setting through surveys, categories, statistical numbering, all which have missing voices.
Second, the division of student locations under study into two areas of the same city and also the equal division of the participants’ gender and class will reveal how a common social reality can actually be experienced differently by different students. Third, the contextual uniqueness of PE generally and that of Mandela University in particular will provide a different lens on how student life is experienced in a non-Western, African and developing region of the world faced with the socio-economic complications of underdevelopment inherent in a post-colonial society. The following chapter will look at the first theme of the findings: which is the living conditions of off-campus students in their residences.
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CHAPTER THREE: Living conditions and student perceptions of security, independence, and comfort in the city
This chapter will focus on the social experiences of off-campus students. Students’ social experiences are not mutually exclusive from their academic experiences. This chapter primarily serves to describe the off-campus element of their lives. The following questions were of interest: (1) what effect does living in off-campus residences have on the students’ academic and social experience at university?; (2) how do students understand and describe the way in which living in their residences affects their chance of academic success?; (3) how do the living and learning experiences compare between students living in upper-income residences and those in low-income residences?; and (4) how do students describe their daily life in their residence and how do they see its impact on their academic and social experience at university? The character and nature of student living in two different areas, Summerstrand and North End, is explored. Of particular interest is how the general life of the participants is shaped by these different settings.
The chapter examines four themes. First, what do students make of the facilities in their residence? Second, it will explore their lived experiences in the immediate environment in which they live. Third, the chapter will look at the gendered experiences of the women students. Fourth, it examines the participants’ perspectives of the role played by external forces in influencing the reality of off-campus student life.
3.1.Inside the residence premises: Experiencing the facilities
The government gazette on the minimum norms and standards for student housing in public universities (DHET, 2015: 5-7) states that items such as a study lamp, a bed, a bathroom, water, electricity and cooking facilities are the “default” amenities required at student accommodation facilities. However, because off-campus accommodation is not under the direct regulation of universities and government, and also operates in terms of a financial model that prioritises profit, it was important to establish whether students do have access to such basic amenities in their off-campus residential accommodation.
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The North End cohort of students commented more extensively about the state of their facilities than the Summerstrand group. This can be attributed to the different socio-economic standards of these two residential areas. Students residing in the low-income residences of the North End area stay on big properties where, on average, they share the same building with more than 200 students. The properties being used in North End as student accommodation were previously used as government offices and factories just a few years ago. It is the massification of Mandela University enrolments and the lack of capacity of on-campus residences that necessitated the accreditation of big properties in the city that were underprepared to accommodate students’ needs. Added to this problem, the poor backgrounds of the new student intake required the university to select an off-campus accommodation strategy that would house many students at the lowest cost. Quality was the casualty of the prioritisation of quantity in the form of low- cost living quarters. The following interview text illustrates the facilities crisis experienced by North End students:
In the residence we have few stoves to cook and showers are also a problem. For an example, we have 120 students on the 1st floor, they all use 15 showers of which five are dysfunctional, and three of them don’t have a door, so you have seven showers alternating between 100 students. Maintenance also takes time before they are attended to3
In this text, the student highlights in some detail both the dysfunctionality of the residence facilities and the almost unbearable discomfort of so many students having to share limited communal facilities. He appears amazed by the fact that just 15 showers were allocated for 120 students on the first floor to begin with, that in practice 100 students have to share just seven showers and that the maintenance of the facilities is so painstakingly slow. He is clearly aware that his living conditions are not up to standard for student accommodation.
The student was evidently emotionally affected by the problem he faces in the residence. This problem plays a big role in inconveniencing his daily life because he has to contend with the inadequate cooking and shower facilities on a daily basis, if not more than once a day. Further, the description reveals the gulf between how a university is viewed at a macro-level as being an elegant place of middle-class prestige (Long: 2013), and a trusted institution that is educating professionals of the future (NPC, 2011: 296), while at a micro-level the accounts of
3 Participant 09, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 12 June 2018
42 | P a g e the students concerned paint the opposite picture – of cramped, unhygienic facilities at best, and inhumane conditions at worst.
Although the off-campus residence that this student refers to is privately owned and not under the university’s control, it is accredited by the university. This researcher views the university and this off-campus residence as a single entity because Mandela University and the residence have an established relationship with each other economically, legally, academically and administratively. It is an accredited off-campus residence of Mandela University. This means the residence is an official student living quarter that provides shelter for Mandela University’s students as does its on-campus residences. The university actively makes the accredited residences its own by having an evaluation committee appointed by its student housing department visit this off-campus residence at the beginning of each year and approve it as a conducive space that is suitable for students to stay in and have a reasonable chance of academic success in the process. The question is this: Why would a university accredit a residence that offers seven showers to more than 100 students?
The following insight from a Mandela University staff member is instructive:
In off-campus residences, well, that is where we dump them, if I can put it that way. However, despite the bad conditions that students [who] stay off campus stay in, they do very well, and such students deserve a chance to stay on campus4
The evocation of a dumping site as a metaphor suggests that there is little conscious planning institutionally and therefore these residences are in a constant state of crisis. In addition, it demonstrates the ongoing crises of student accommodation in the sense that off-campus structures also perform the role of a pressure valve. The insights of the student and the staff member show the lack of an integrated approach in making off-campus accommodation part of a student living community as defined by Tinto (2014). The off-campus residences of Mandela University have not been conceptualised as a living part of the university. They are an emergency space to release the pressure created by a high demand for student accommodation. In Tinto’s framework, this means that the life of a student at Mandela
4 Participant 05, Senior University Staff Member, Interview on 05 June 2018
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University is not properly integrated into an academic and social congruence as far as student accommodation is concerned.
The insights of the staff member also show that the university lacks the capacity to resolve the problem immediately. The staff member speaks of the possibilities of an off-campus student transferring to on-campus as a “chance” they “deserve” because “they do very well” despite their bad living conditions. This demonstrates that there is a perception that on-campus accommodation is a privilege for academically deserving students instead of it being a social right for potentially vulnerable students. In the discipline of political economy, Pyysiäinen et al (2017) conceptualise the expectation of poor people to take themselves out of poverty into prosperity as the “responsibilisation” of agents. This is consistent with the ideology of neoliberal meritocracy (Long: 2013) which suggests that disadvantaged people should “pull themselves out of misery” through “hard work and dedication” in order to access a human right, and thus deserve it.
Nevertheless, the staff member did highlight positive developments achieved by the university over the years regarding off-campus student accommodation:
We accredited residences because of poor students. We are the first university in the country that started this process of accreditation. The reason for this is because if you were staying off campus, NSFAS would only provide you with transport allowance only. So, we used accreditation so that NSFAS can pay for the full cost of accommodation no matter where you stay. During the Fees Must Fall period this university made big concessions that has brought in many students who are poor5
The staff member is pointing out that the university addressed the off-campus student accommodation crisis by introducing an accreditation system that enabled NSFAS to pay for student accommodation. The university has also made it possible for NSFAS payments towards accommodation to be within the socio-economic conditions of PE in order to enable students to have conducive facilities. The pairing of the staff member’s insights with that of the student show that the university is trying to address the student accommodation crisis by enabling an
5 Participant 05, Senior University Staff Member, Interview on 05 June 2018
44 | P a g e environment where NSFAS can assist low-income students. Nevertheless, this also shows that the accreditation process of the university needs to be scrutinised.
The final piece of the puzzle in trying to establish why a university would accredit a residence that offers seven functioning showers to more than 100 students lies in the business ideology of the property owner. The tendency of some operators in the private sector to neglect principles of good governance and their exploitative tendencies are disguised in the interview text below as “business rational normalisations” (“how life works in general”; and “expectations from payment”):
The students we have do not have an understanding how life works in general […] if I pay R4000 a month, this is the type of facilities that I would expect, whereas when it comes to the students, they want to pay as little as possible but they expect the facilities that are of about R4000 per month and it’s not easy to convince the students for them to see that […] According to the students, the facilities and the services that are provided should match Campus Key (an upper-income residence located in Summerstrand) but when you look at what it is that they are paying for, you will realise that it’s about half of what Campus Key wants6
The current model of funding provided by the government towards student accommodation creates instances of profiteering by the service providers, resulting in the exploitation of students. There seems to be a disparity between NSFAS payments and student expectations. This creates an inequality in the experience of university life. Students may perceive themselves as carrying the brunt of inequality based on the comparisons that they might make between themselves. They might see that those who stay on campus receive services that are superior to those on offer in their off-campus residences. This creates a problem for the university because its attempt to see itself as a holistic community within the broader context of what a university ought to be gets undermined by the living conditions of the off-campus students.
Since student accommodation continues to be a secondary issue as far as government priorities are concerned, the government outsources this service to the private sector. The outsourcing is
6 Participant 08, North End Property Owner, Interview on 11 June 2018
45 | P a g e done in an environment where the government is not entirely certain as to whether the money it pays for student accommodation does indeed translate into meeting the minimum requirements of decent accommodation for students. There is no funding mechanism in place that ensures that the government pays for the service and that the private sector, while still being able to make a profit, would also have to deliver a standard of services that students require.
3.2.Experiencing the city and the residence community
Summerstrand consists of non-accredited off-campus residences that are in a form of family houses. Students who stay in them are privately funded students who come from middle-class and upper-class families. This area of residence is in the same suburb as the university campuses. The student population in this area has been developing over the years in tandem with the growth rates of the university (Mandela University: 2014a). Students prefer being close to the university so that they can have the convenience of walking to and from classes, being closer to resources on campus and also have a sense of being integrated into the university community (Tinto, 1993: 226). Summerstrand has developed over the years into a student hub. It is a residential area in PE that resembles the identified features of studentification (Smith: 2002).
The studentification of this area has made it a target for criminal activity. Various incidents of crime have been reported in the area, which were mostly aimed at students who reside in the area (Trollip: 2017). It is important to highlight that Summerstrand ordinarily has houses that are equipped with sufficient facilities required by students for a conducive living and learning environment. In addition, staying in the suburb of Summerstrand is also linked to social privileges such as safety, enclosed entertainment, prestige and comfort. The problem with the area occurs the moment students leave their living quarters, begin to walk in the streets and interact with the Summerstrand community:
By the way, the thugs dress very smart in Summerstrand. They dress proper. But they’re there robbing you of your phone and your money. And the police would drive right past
46 | P a g e you and they wouldn’t think of anything happening to you. They would think that it’s just a guy and a girl talking7
The account of the student above shows that she has become pragmatic in normalising crime in her area of residence. In her perspective, the criminals are trying to fit in among students as a tactic to disguise their activities. The participant here reveals the socio-economic status of the students living in Summerstrand when she mentions that the criminals are robbing students of their “phones” and “money”. These materials are common possessions for students who interact digitally with higher education in the 21st century. In the South African context though, smartphones are expensive and regarded as privileges and scarce resources.
What is emerging from the student’s account is that the fear of crime in Summerstrand relates primarily to the loss of material possessions through theft whereas in North End the fear of crime is of life-threatening violence, as will be shown below. The presence of crime in student areas such as Summerstrand is consistent with urbanisation studies (Freund, 2007: 97), and particularly with research work on studentification (Smith and Hubbard: 2014) which has revealed a positive relationship between crime and “economically materialized” populated suburbs. In other words, areas where students go to live become areas where people go for criminal activity. This becomes a norm even though Summerstrand is a high-class area (Freund, 2007: 187).
The issue of a lack of visible policing in the student accommodation areas of PE was also revealed in the North End area of the city. Students living in North End experience similar challenges in terms of crime to their counterparts in Summerstrand. However, in the North End area, the student living experiences were more disturbing:
I don’t see any patrols or police here. I will [give] this place a 5 out of 10 (his personal rating of safety in his area of residence in North End). I was robbed personally here and going to the shop [tuckshop] is like three minutes away. A car was stolen here when a friend came to visit so I would not say that I am safe here at all8
7 Participant 01, Woman, Undergraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018 8 Participant 17, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 23 June 2018
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The revelations by Participant 17 of being personally robbed just outside the premises of his residence in North End speaks to the lack of safety and security experienced by the students. He emphasises how criminals seem to know that they will not be held accountable, where he links his experience of being robbed, and a bigger crime of a car theft, as two distinct cases of criminal victimhood that converge as evidence that crime, as experienced by him in North End specifically, is a traumatic, yet ordinary part of life that he has no power to apprehend. In other words, staying off campus means crime is a personal problem that students must deal with themselves, while for their peers who live on campus, crime is a problem of the university.
3.3.Gendered precariousness and infantilisation of women students
Certain experiences narrated by students seemed to have been influenced by gender, among other social demographics of division such as class and the geographical area of student quarters. It was notable for example, that women students in both Summerstrand and North End expressed more acutely the sense of insecurity than did their male counterparts. The women students in both areas expressed their lack of safety to a point where they became infantilised as adult women.
Men students in North End expressed also expressed a powerful sense of insecurity but their male counterparts in Summerstrand felt far safer. Therefore, the spatial setting of North End in PE creates a lack of safety for both male students and women students.
This woman participant in Summerstrand noted that women students depended on men for their safety:
So, as girls in Summerstrand we know that by 6 (evening), we must walk with guys. It must be 2 guys and 2 girls or else you would be easy to spot9
Her use of the term “as girls” demonstrates the gendered nature of her sense of vulnerability in this urban setting, her sense of victimhood and personal closeness with suffering. It appears that this particular type of danger would affect her as a woman regardless of geography or the societal status she would hold. Gqola (2015: 74) refers to the fear that this student faces at six
9 Participant 01, Woman, Undergraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018
48 | P a g e o’clock every evening as a female fear factory. This is a situation where women in their daily lives interact with society knowing well that their bodies are in constant danger and they should do everything in their knowledge and power to avoid rape, murder and attack (Gqola, 2015: 86). Therefore, off-campus accommodation in the context of a crime-plagued city constructs a female fear factory for women students in both Summerstrand and North End.
What also emerges from her insight is that the university must pay attention to gender when putting together a student accommodation system. In order to assist the integration of students and to care for their welfare, the prioritisation of gender and spaces would lead student accommodation to be viewed as a social right that is meant for everybody, outside of any other merit system. Tinto’s theory of student integration is silent on this critical demographic of gender in understanding student experiences in a university setting. In fact, research done on student accommodation tends to be gender-blind, especially on the questions of socio-political injustice.
But obviously in terms of safety it’s quite dangerous, so social life is not really social life because you have to watch over your shoulder constantly, whereas if you are on campus and there is an event on campus, you could simply walk back to your room10
This submission clarifies the question of safety as far as women students are concerned. Safety is something that is unattainable for a woman student living off campus, no matter which public space she finds herself in. Here, she is referring to her night life, her social life. What is generally regarded by students as a social life is “not really social life” for this woman student.
Though Summerstrand is close to the university, to her as a woman student, the suburb is far from campus because of the dangers involved in making the journey on foot at night. Walking across the street to a house opposite her own residence is far because, to this woman, the measure of distance is actually a metaphor for danger. According to this student, walking is a dangerous activity for a woman student in Summerstrand. This is emphasised by the latter part of her statement: “whereas if you are on campus and there is an event on campus, you could simply walk back to your room”. In other words, campus is also a dangerous place, but its level
10 Participant 02, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018
49 | P a g e of danger could be mitigated by its proximity to her room. Given the chance, she could run to her room for safety. That is how precarious life is for a woman student in PE.
A fundamental issue highlighted by off-campus students is the intersectionality of their experiences. They are (1) geographically isolated, (2) black, (3) women, and (4) frequently from low-income backgrounds. These demographical features of their layers of disadvantage resonated powerfully in their conflict with their residence community and the treatment they receive internally and externally in their student accommodation.
The woman student here narrates the intersectionality of her disadvantage as follows:
Accommodation is a crisis, you are so thankful when you get a place to stay, no matter how crappy it is but it’s hard to find a place when you’re funded by NSFAS, it is extremely difficult, so you are thankful for whatever it is that you can get and I think they know that. That’s why it’s so easy for them to say “if you’re not happy, go somewhere else”, because where is that somewhere else?11
This student is put into two precarious situations. She has to choose between having bad accommodation or have no accommodation as all. One of the male students interviewed in this study who also resides in Summerstrand seemed to be aware of this issue:
Most robbers attack women than males because they expect less resistance from females. So, females are more at risk because they lack the strength to fight12
Narratives of this nature show the precariousness of life for women students in PE. For women students, Summerstrand is a place where they are insecure, and their lives are controlled by the female fear factory. Danger is ever-present and attacks, rape, mugging and murder are all possible criminal acts that mainly target women students in Summerstrand. As previous studies on the political economy of cities and urbanisation have shown (Steady: 2015), the massification of higher education and the studentification of university suburbs such as Summerstrand has come at a greater cost for women.
11 Participant 11, Woman, Postgraduate, North End, Interview on 18 June 2018 12 Participant 18, Male, Undergraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 23 June 2018
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3.4.The intersection of government and business on student experiences
The cost of rent in Summerstrand is a matter that students have complained about in the interviews but their tone in making the point seems to reflect a position of powerlessness, resignation and coerced acceptance. There was a sense that their situation would not change because it seems to be the best of what the off-campus residence system has to offer, regardless of the cost involved. The university cannot be moved from Summerstrand. It is stationed there permanently. What can be negotiated to address the unmet expectations of students in the area would require changes of the funding model at the policy level of the state and private business.
This section begins with a short, yet courageous and precise statement by a student to highlight this intricate challenge:
I’m not satisfied at all because we pay too much for the rubbish that we are getting13
The fundamental challenge here is the commodification of student accommodation in both the Summerstrand area and the North End area. Once more, this speaks to the imbalance in revenue between the students and the property owner. At the centre of this relational breakdown is the secondary treatment of student accommodation by the state. In Summerstrand, the cost of rent in non-accredited residences in the area is unregulated. Property owners are in business to make a profit. The turnover that property owners make is subject to taxation laws by the local government (Trollip: 2017). As a result, students are at the receiving end of enduring high costs of rent charged in the Summerstrand area. These observations are consistent with the findings of Mhlonyane (2016) and the DHET report (2011: 140) about the financial environment created by the property relations of PE which make it possible for private businesses to appear to be exploitative in nature.
This Summerstrand property owner provided insight on how the financial value chain works between private business and government:
13 Participant 01, Woman, Undergraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018
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The perception of the municipality is that student accommodation is a business. So, if you live in these premises, we are called residential two, we are zoned as residential two. It’s not allowed to have no more than 4 individual tenants. The minute you have more than four tenants, it’s considered as a business. You can rent it out to a family of more than four people, no problem. But the minute you rent it out to more than four students, they are called a business because it’s individual tenants who pay individual rentals. And when it’s a business, you must pay business [rates]. Therefore, you have to apply for business rights in the municipality and they triple your rates. So, the municipality wants to make money out of student accommodation. Let me tell you how this increases the rent – if you apply for business rights, that is, you move your house from residential one to residential two, the monthly rent of the student will increase by an average of R150 to R200, to cover that additional expense. Our question to the municipality is that ‘so what do the students get in return? Do they get more lighting, more security and more recreational facilities?’ And the answer is ‘no’. So, we feel like that is an injustice. It needs to stop. So, we are not getting any support from the municipality, in fact, they are profiteering from student accommodation to such an extent that it’s going to affect the future of our students because they have a limited budget. So, to sum it up, the municipality is not co-operating in incentives as far as we are concerned, instead it’s [the reverse] that makes things expensive. That needs to be corrected14
The property owner here has explained how a developmental service for the country such as student accommodation also gets to be privatised by the revenue collection model of the local government. This is a contradiction between the national government and the local government. The NSFAS fees paid by the national government seek to facilitate student success, whereas the local authority taps into those funds for revenue collection. This highlights the lack of a co-ordinated relationship between the different layers of the government in ensuring the integration of students within a higher education institution that is located in the spatial planning dynamics of a post-apartheid city.
The effect of this problem also leads to the perception by students that their lives become their own financial responsibility:
14 Participant 10, Summerstrand Property Owner, Interview on 18 June 2018
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And that’s the problem here in terms of […] you have to pay for your life […] you have to pay for your security whereas the government is supposed to provide that as well […] Safety is something I know that you have to pay for15
It’s because off-campus life is led by people who have nothing to do with the academics of the university. They just provide you with the service and you provide them with their money. That’s all, in my opinion that’s where the relationship ends. Basically, it’s [a] give and take. Whereas in the university, its much less about the money that they get from this thing, it’s about enriching you academically16
These narratives by the students highlight the disassociation between them and the service providers of the student quarters in which they live. The prioritisation by the property owners of profitability of their business creates a perception on the part of students that their learning is not entirely recognised. This kind of a relationship causes the students to have a diminished interest in the social fabric of the residence. The residence gets to be perceived as a place to sleep in the evening and wake up in the morning to go to the university. The residence is no longer regarded by students as a space to enable a learning experience.
This dislocation from the residence is what the commodification scholars refer to as a “blase attitude” (Simmel: 1903). A situation in which a person functions in an environment where: (1) decision-making is done without due consideration for a person’s feelings, (2) human life is removed from its individuality and is viewed as a set of numbers, (3) a person is valuable for as long as he or she has money, and (4) human value is matched by the tasks a person’s able body can complete and the payments his or her wallet can make (Jeffrey at al: 2002; Simmel: 1903).
This is the kind of world that this student is describing in his interaction with his property owner in North End. The same can be said for the Summerstrand cohort of students. The university has to contend with challenges when it comes to taking full responsibility for these socio-economic dynamics and being able to address them on its own. Therefore, it is the intersection of these external forces, underpinned by a particular financial model, that ensures
15 Participant 02, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018 16 Participant 14, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 19 June 2018
53 | P a g e that private businesses and the state have a significant impact on the social experiences of students who live in the off-campus residences of Mandela University.
3.5.Concluding notes
The objective of this chapter was to highlight the social aspects of student life in the off-campus residences of Mandela University. The outlining of students’ living conditions has shown that the off-campus residence facilities differ according to the class character of the locations where the residences are situated. Summerstrand residences are suburban family homes where the basic necessities of students are met. In contrast, the North End residences are sited in commercial locations which were used as factories and supermarkets, before being converted, just a few years ago, into large residences which offer accommodation to hundreds of students. It is the North End residences that are faced with maintenance problems in their residence facilities.
The element of gender has emerged as a particular issue that plays a significant role in the arrangement of off-campus student accommodation. Women students expressed acute concerns regarding their safety in the city and this impacted on their level of integration with the university community. Tinto’s theory of student integration did not capture this aspect of a student demographic that has emerged in the context of a developing country where university cities are engulfed by the broader societal challenges of crime and violence. This spatial disparity of PE is also reflected in an imbalance between the different layers of government, the university and private business. Against this backdrop, studentification becomes an increasingly complicated sociological issue, in its practices and effects. The focus of the next chapter will be on students’ commuting experiences between off-campus residences and the university campus, a key social factor affecting student life.
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CHAPTER FOUR: Commuting as a permanent and psycho-social state of hardship
One of the issues that stood out in the participants’ narratives was the issue of the transport shuttle. This chapter will focus on this theme to attempt to answer the research question: What role do social factors such as distance from campus and access to transport play in shaping the students’ academic and social experience at university? The university bus shuttle service, which is free to students, operates between the student residences and the university campus on weekdays only. It operates during working hours, which are mostly aligned with the lecture schedule of the undergraduate cohort of students. It uses the same route and has the same pick- up and drop-off times daily. It does not take students to any other part of the city. It only goes to the university.
As an interface between residences and campus, the shuttle service becomes interlinked with the academic experiences of the university students. The shuttle service impacts on the attendance of classes, examination sessions, library visits and faculty interactions. The shuttle bus is the lifeline of a student who lives off-campus. This chapter examines three themes. First, it looks at how transport becomes an enabler of student mobility between off-campus residences and the university campuses despite the challenges brought about by the spatial planning of PE. Second, it looks at the how the shuttle times impact on the learning of students. Lastly, the chapter explores the impact of the commercial arrangement between private business, the government and the university governance system on the experiences of students.
4.1.Bus shuttles as an enabler of student mobility
The poor facilities of the off-campus residences in North End and their environment that were outlined in the previous chapter indicate that off-campus residences are places where it is difficult, if not impossible, to study. Therefore, commuting to the university campus becomes the most viable option for off-campus students in order for them to learn. The following text details the problem:
I study on campus. I stay on campus until 10pm because that is where I study in the computer lab. I can’t study here because of the noise level17
17 Participant 17, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 23 June 2018
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This student has to leave the computer lab at 10pm. The student synchronises his state of mind with regards to studying with being on campus, within range of a Wi-Fi router. This can be viewed as being a way of learning for students in the digital era: they depend on the internet in order to learn. When they are out of Wi-Fi radius, they do not learn. Conventional ways of learning such as taking library books home or printing copies of journal articles no longer seem to be the preferred way of learning for many students.
The high noise levels of the residence where this student lives is a major distraction when he attempts to study. The submission also indicates that even when the student is in the privacy of his room, he finds it hard to study. Studying on campus becomes a better option. He specifically mentions that his preferred area for studying is the computer lab, which signifies that (1) he prefers to study alone (2) he has to access his notes from a computer and use the internet (3) being in the lab allows him to use both computer and his personal notes at the same time (4) the lab is a quiet space that functions according to guidelines (5) it is open any time of the day. Being on campus offers him all these personal and material facilities that his off-campus residence is unable to offer. He has to stay on campus extensively in order to have the time to study (Schudde: 2011).
This student presents a studying strategy to accommodate the bus shuttle times:
The timetable of the shuttle is also a problem because sometimes as a student you want to work into the night, but you cannot as a student because shuttles end at a certain period of time, so you have to study according to the shuttle schedule and not according to the one you desire18
This student’s comment speaks to the studying strategies she has adopted to align the shuttle times to her schedule. It is not a crisis. The shuttle service schedule broadens her scope and choice of studying in a manner of her choosing.
18 Participant 02, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018
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This interchange between the researcher and a participant reveals some of the effects, including the psychological effects, of students having to tailor their study times to coincide with the shuttle timetable.
Researcher: How does living off-campus affect your academics?
Participant 15: Firstly, you don’t have time to study in the labs and then in the lab there a few computers and students are many, so ja, it affects us like that negatively. And we have to use the shuttle which have their times, so ja.
Researcher: What’s wrong with the shuttle times?
Participant 15: It costs the time you would have to use studying19
This conversation shows that for some students, travelling and transport takes on another dimension in which commuting is not only transport, but rather reflects a psychological effect of staying off campus. Students who reside off campus do things that their peers who stay on campus do not have to do. She has to spend some hours of her day commuting between the residence and the university whereas her peers do not lose that time. Instead, on-campus students utilise that time to study or do something else. A day for off-campus students is longer in the sense that they have to wake up early to catch a morning shuttle in order to be on time for their morning classes. They usually have to go home at around 10pm, as the student here indicated previously. That means they go to the university early in the morning and return to their residence late at night. Doing this on a daily basis must be exhausting.
Students who reside in Summerstrand are also not immune from the shuttle challenges. Though Summerstrand offers a degree of comfort in terms of its location and the option of walking to the university during the day (although, as discussed above, walking alone at night is extremely unsafe, particularly for women students). Students who reside in on-campus residences of the university might enjoy more privileges than those who reside off campus in Summerstrand (Koen, 2007: 81). To the latter, there are instances when they wish they could be on-campus
19 Participant 15, Woman, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 19 June 2018
57 | P a g e students or have a more efficient and flexible shuttle service to the university and back home again at times of their own choosing.
The shuttle is unreliable because it has rigid hours. Sometimes I want to quickly go to campus for 30 minutes, print something quickly and come but I cannot do that with these shuttles because they have set times20
The demand may be valid, but it does not seem realistic. The university is constrained. It cannot provide an all-compassing bus system because it has insufficient resources. The student has to create a different learning strategy that would work for him regardless of the shuttle’s timetable. This would appear to work against the student’s learning urgency as far as time management is concerned (Symes: 2007).
What emerges is that the off-campus student sees the use of the shuttle service as an option for studying on campus. Though he highlights the problem of its rigid schedule, which does not allow him to go to campus for 30 minutes and then return, he can bypass the problem by using other means to get to the university such as Uber or a taxi. Walking does not seem to be a viable option – in his case it would take longer than the shuttle itself – so he uses other options because he can afford to do so.
Added to the financial advantage of staying in Summerstrand enjoyed by more affluent students (Tinto: 2010), is the personal freedom and the extra time they have for leisure, relaxation, and thought while keeping up with their academic studies (Tinto: 1998). In other words, commuting and studying for them does not feel like a strenuous activity:
I work the whole day and after 4:30pm I go to the library. Afterwards I walk home or take a taxi. It depends on how I feel on that specific day. I cook sometimes. At night I go to my books and also rest for two hours21
This student’s comment demonstrates that, for her, staying in Summerstrand provides more flexibility to manage her day as far as commuting is concerned. This narrative is in direct
20 Participant 04, Male, Undergraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 05 June 2018 21 Participant 03, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 05 June 2018
58 | P a g e contrast to that of a student who resides in North End. The major contributing factor to the Summerstrand student’s social advantage is the location of her residence, which makes interfacing with the university and its resources quicker (Schudde: 2011). North End students do not enjoy these privileges. Using a shuttle for them is (1) a tiring exercise, that is (2) a necessity, because of (3) their low-income status, which affects (4) their learning experiences in the university.
4.2.Adapting the learning to a bus schedule
The shuttle is a learning asset for Mandela University students. Students who reside in North End depend on the shuttle for their academic survival. This student participant tells the full story:
You can’t do anything without stressing about the shuttle, you can’t do anything without stressing about, am I gonna [going to] wake up on time. You can’t do anything without thinking about how are you getting to res [residence] on time, are you going to have enough time to get everything done that you need to do for the day […] It affects it in a way that you don’t get enough time with your books because you spend most of the time trying to get to and from campus and there are also challenges you face in the residence, whether it’s no access to Wi-Fi or no space to study or computer lab. There are just a lot of challenges that you end up having to deal with that take away from your academic time, so you don’t spend enough time with your books […] the first shuttle leaves res at 06:45am but you need to be in the queue at 06:00am or earlier because there are a lot of us who have the 07:45am lecture and the transport that the university allocates for us is not just for us in our residence, so it’s for everybody around Korsten [North End area]. Now you find that there are so many of us and not enough transport. The first people to get into the shuttle are the people who will get to school on time, the others have to catch the 08:00am, or 10:00am and the other shuttles, so you end up missing class. So, the struggle of having to wake up early […] 06:00am you have to be standing outside in the queue so that you can make it. It’s the same struggle when you have to get back to your residence from campus, the first shuttle leaves at 13:30pm but already at 13:00pm you have to be standing in the line, if you’re not [then] you are going to miss it. There’s a 15:00pm one, same thing happens. From 17:00pm going down we no longer have individual shuttles where there’s a shuttle for town and a shuttle for Korsten, they make it one [for all the stops in off-campus
59 | P a g e residences] which now poses a much bigger problem because now there are even more of us and if you’re not in the shuttle [then] tough luck. You must now wait for the next one. Sometimes people come back as late as 22:00pm because there’s not enough shuttles. And this is something we’ve been complaining about for such a long time and to this day not much has been done about this. So, there’s not enough transport for the students not only in our residences but in the university as a whole22
Firstly, this student is describing how uncomfortable she is with the bus shuttle times, the system used by the university to transport students and the mode of the vehicle used to do this exercise. She seems to be speaking about a controlled environment that she is trapped in. The shuttle system does not cater for the human element of being a student such as choice and personal freedom to stay on campus for as long as you want. It obviously also does not cater for students’ social needs beyond attending classes. (Wallace: 2012). The way it is arranged, the service is premised on students simply attending classes and returning to their residences. The shuttle times are structured around class contact and they shape the learning strategies of the students.
The psycho-social state of these North End students is a sense of permanent, daily hardship. When they wake up, they must think about the bus shuttle. When they are in class, they have to apply some thought about returning on the shuttle. The shuttle service is crucial for the academic life of a student who lives far from the campus, but it is also a source of constant stress. (Muthwa: 2015).
For many students who commute to campuses, the importance of an efficient shuttle service cannot be overstated. Attending classes allows a student to know and understand how certain material will be covered in the tests and examinations. The particular sections to study are covered in class. In addition, attending classes gives students an opportunity to gather study tips from the lecturer, for example on further websites to consult and additional readings, which are sometimes not captured in the textbook or the course outline (Koen, 2007: 92). Also, attending classes assists the student to interact with peers and create a social network in the university for academic purposes in terms of finding people with whom to study and share knowledge and also to learn from (Koen, 2007: 92).
22 Participant 11, Woman, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 18 June 2018
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In some instances, Mandela University undergraduate classes are structured around group assignments where members of the class are required to form teams to do assignments (Matiwane: 2018). Attending classes also gives students the opportunity to compile their own notes and to participate in class debates which enhance critical thinking and help in creating a professional relationship with the teaching professor. When students miss classes due to the limitations of the shuttle system, they miss out on this entire package of a learning experience. This hampers not only their learning experience and chances of success, it potentially undermines their future (Sibelekwana: 2013).
The student cited above complains that there has been no action taken by the university to remedy the defects of the shuttle service that she has described. This appears to be a common theme from the interviews: that the problems with the service have been brought to the attention of the university’s management, but that little or no action has been taken. On the other hand, the university maintains that it is aware of the problems with the shuttle service that are experienced by students, but it lacks the funds to improve it. Consider this submission by a staff member:
Transport is a serious problem. The planning of it is wrong. I don’t know this notion of this bus leaves at 6 or leaves at 8. It creates pressure because everyone would want to leave at 6. If the bus can leave every hour, then it will not be full. The set times currently are causing problems to students. I was in a meeting now which talks to a new shuttle strategy which talks to what I am saying. It would make things easier if it could be rolled out23
The university clearly prioritises the bus shuttle service to meet the academic and social needs of students. The submission above intersects with the earlier account of the student participant by indicating that the university’s bus shuttle service is constrained by external forces that are outside its domain of control and governance. The staff member acknowledges that the current funding model in the provision of the shuttle service creates immediate challenges such as overcrowding and that limited travelling times, especially during peak hours of class attendance, impact on student learning (Symes: 2007).
23 Participant 05, Senior University Staff Member, Interview on 05 June 2018
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The senior university staff member agrees with this observation. He then takes on an institutional responsibility (Tinto: 2014) of trying to set up a different method of transporting students which would ease congestion and time pressure and give students more freedom to choose when to commute between the university and their residences (Delmelle and Delmelle: 2012).
4.3.Structural challenges faced by the university and business
Cheaper and quicker transport services such as Uber and state-led bus systems such as Algoa- Bus in PE have been met with resistance by the taxi industry (Department of Transport: 2016). Taxi owners say the industry offers employment to working-class South Africans and that any threat to their livelihood would breed a political crisis for the government and the economy (Pirie: 2005). The taxi operators’ level of rejection and discontent has escalated and ugly practices in the industry have encouraged a form of monopolistic behaviour over transport. Taxi drivers have been widely reported to have been involved in violent attacks on cab drivers and small transport business operators who dared to start their own operations. (Department of Transport: 2016).
The university has not been immune from these challenges. The distance between the residences and the campuses made it necessary for students to use taxis, sometimes on a daily basis, to get to the university. However, due to the extreme levels of poverty that the new cohort of students has been exposed to, the university was compelled to introduce a university shuttle service that students would not be required to pay for from their own pockets (Mandela University: 2014a).
This decision triggered conflict with the taxi industry, some of whose members felt that the introduction of the shuttle service was designed by the university to take away their target market – the students:
The first barrier is the transport system that is terrible. If we had an efficient transport system in the city, we wouldn’t be having these problems. The second problem is the taxis who interfere with us managing the whole issue of transport. If our off-campus residences were allowed to run their own transport, they would run it better than our shuttle service. The police are not playing their role in regulating taxis. The taxis just run their own thing.
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Another barrier is that the service providers are not given incentives when running student accommodation, they are treated like everyone else when it comes to paying for water, electricity, and stuff and, as a result, this makes them unable to extend their properties for the better in order to benefit students24
The taxi industry challenged the university’s use of a shuttle service for students. The university is highlighting the approach of the taxi industry to that effect, as a contributing factor to the problem of transport for students in the city. Since the public transport system is dysfunctional, unsafe, precarious and unaffordable (Department of Transport: 2016), it puts the entire burden of transporting students on the shoulders of the university. In other words, the university plays the role that should have been played by the government and private businesses.
What is clearly being highlighted by the university is that it appears that it has to go an extra mile to try to accommodate the taxi industry. Not only does the taxi industry hinder the university’s student integration efforts, it also hinders other businesses such as property owners from running a successful business value-chain wherein they could provide their students with both a place to stay and privatised transportation that will be more flexible and accommodative towards the preferences of the students who stay in that particular residence.
This could also potentially enable students to include a social aspect to their commuting experiences by being transported on weekends to attend socio-cultural activities that are not on the normal route to the university campus. This property owner describes the unfair business practices that they face from the taxi industry:
The taxi association makes it difficult for us to run our own transport. They say that we accommodate students and they deal with transport. It’s their bread and livelihood. So, the university through Shuttle Company X subcontracts the taxi association so that they can have a share on the slice of the cake25
The taxi industry appears to decide, either by persuasion or force, to lay down the law to operators in other sections of the economy about how they must run their affairs. This
24 Participant 05, Senior University Staff Member, Interview on 05 June 2018 25 Participant 08, North End Property Owner, Interview on 11 June 2018
63 | P a g e practice cannot be explained outside the ambit of dictatorship. The university seems to have also bent its rules to accommodate the taxi industry. This makes the taxi industry both a business partner of the university and a stand-alone entity that runs private transport, for all citizens of the city, including students. At the receiving end of all these structural challenges faced by the university and business is the student experience that gets impoverished, both academically and socially.
4.4.Concluding remarks
This chapter has shown how the university was compelled to introduce a commuting system for off-campus based students to address PE’s spatial divide and the location of its off-campus residences coupled with growing socio-economic disparities and a lack of finances for the new cohort of students. Moreover, the bus shuttle service’s schedule shapes the students’ learning rhythm and the students, in turn, make the necessary psychological shifts in accordance with the bus schedule. The lack of a functioning public transport system in PE generally compels the university to carry the load of providing the shuttle service from its limited funds. This imbalance of public services creates the structural challenges, such as limited travel times and buses that are packed to capacity, that are experienced by students who use this service. The next chapter explores how hardship has been normalised by off-campus students as a coping mechanism in trying to overcome their distressing living and learning conditions.
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CHAPTER FIVE: Resilience and forms of solidarity among students
The question to ask at this stage is: given the hardships many off-campus students of Mandela University endure in their daily living, commuting and learning experiences, how do they manage to maintain a student life? In other words, how do they cope with their experiences? What modes of self-management and peer support emerge among students in dealing with off- campus life? The discussions in prior chapters indicate that their off-campus lives are almost an afterthought to the university. This chapter seeks to relate how students manage to create a social network among themselves to cope with their daily challenges.
In this regard, it focuses on four areas. The first method of coping sees affected students focusing on their aspirations and hopes. The second mental technique they employ is to deliberately disengage from thinking about their tough reality. In other words, they become numb to their hardships. Third, it will be shown how students take their safety in their own hands by forming solidarity networks and looking after one another. Finally, the chapter will examine how the property owners and university staff offer the students their support when there are unexpected gaps in the system.
5.1.Hope: Pain is temporary but eventually it will subside
Higher education is a challenging stage of learning that requires a particular set of skills on the part of students to succeed. Among those skills are discipline and resilience. The concept of student resilience tends to be tagged alongside the academic activity of learning and how that specific variable of being a student requires effort to succeed (Tinto: 1998). This is attributed to the fact that learning at a university entails a lengthy period of class attendance during a semester and a pre-examination phase of countless readings (Walker et al: 2006). Added to this activity is the requirement of adaptability. Students who come from underprivileged socio- cultures of learning are required to adapt and be resilient in trying to be successful students in a university system that is foreign to them (Long: 2013). This is mostly alluded to in respect of international students who attend western universities (Fincher and Shaw: 2009) or disadvantaged students who attend universities that are framed around middle-class values (Long: 2013). In the context of this study, however, the question of resilience goes beyond the learning experience and includes the actual daily living experiences that the students have to
65 | P a g e endure against a backdrop of underdevelopment. These students who enter the system are also themselves the products of pre-existing demographics of socio-economic disadvantage (Tinto: 2014).
Students in this study, both from North End and Summerstrand, described how, though they go through difficulty, they keep telling themselves that such hardship is temporary, and that it shall pass. They possess endurance to persevere against the odds that are stacked against them by the off-campus conditions. This line of thinking is also futuristic in that they are conscious of their future and hopeful that it will be positive. In other words, in their quest for personal achievement, they would do what is necessary to reach that destination. This student highlights this ethic from an individual point of view:
I think it is personal discipline that makes you cope. When I was staying at North End, they had study times and quiet hours placed on notices. They had those kinds of [guidelines] to shape you into what is supposed to happen at a point in time during the day. There was always space for the social element of being a student. I did that for three years and it became a culture for me. Going to a non-accredited residence became easier to adapt but I survived. Determination and disciplining yourself is important26
This student is highlighting three things about her understanding of resilience. First, she is indicating that endurance is a skill that she acquired socially at some stage of her previous life (Feinstein and Hammond: 2004). Previously, she stayed in an accredited residence of the university that is in North End which had structures in place to assist her to set time aside to study and there were also study times. This taught her the skill of time management as far as studying is concerned. She felt like she was part of a student community that had a peer-sharing model of studying. When she moved recently to Summerstrand – and to a smaller, more individualised environment – it was necessary for her to carry with her the discipline she had acquired previously as a tool to assist in the time-management of her studies.
Second, another endurance skill she had to possess was adaptability. This is a form of resilience that a student acquires and gains over a period of time. Living in Summerstrand for her must have entailed a form of isolation and independence in a suburban and non-accredited residence.
26 Participant 02, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 04 June 2018
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She had to modify her approach and source from her social capital some of the values she assimilated when she was learning and living with a group and try to implement these in an individual context (Tinto: 1998; Walker et al: 2006). She had the capability to see her isolation positively, managing to adjust her form of living and learning to satisfy her self-development ambitions.
Third, the student is a postgraduate candidate. She has already obtained a qualification from the university and now knows how resilience requires personal discipline and being able to push oneself to the end (Tinto: 1998). This is an added advantage for her in the sense that she has seen what personal discipline and hard work can achieve. Accordingly, she does not go on with student life carrying hope only but looks at the hardship of student life as something that will bring another form of success to add to her achievement. The historical memory she has of seeing how resilience has assisted her to get her previous qualification is what informs her to keep those values intact in her everyday life (Tinto: 1998).
In other instances, some students do not have a historical reference of how their future will look. The slight progress that they make in their studies, while enduring hardship with their living and learning experiences, gives them a glimmer of hope:
You have no choice. If a place is built in an area that doesn’t favour you then you have to create space. You have to adapt, you have to, well, when we are here in varsity we are here to get our degrees, we are determined, so any challenge that comes our way we have to stand and try to believe in yourself and everything because really it’s difficult. So, I feel sorry for the 1st years here because they are going through the same thing that I went through whereby they are struggling with everything, the environment and everything, but I managed to be at 4th year because I told myself27
The idea of dropping out of the university for this student appears to have crossed his mind but the advantage that he could achieve after enduring the hardship is far greater than the pain of exiting the university system. This could be attributed to the fact that the student is from a low- income family background and, therefore, access to higher education (DHET, 2011: 133) and being retained in it (Tinto, 1993: 226) has the possibility of elevating his lifecycle with the
27 Participant 17, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 23 June 2018
67 | P a g e promise of a better standard of living in future. He points to his determination to receive his qualification as the key to how he keeps his life together despite his challenges. It is his hope for a better future, that a degree will translate into a livelihood, that helps him to cope emotionally with his daily learning experiences and challenging off-campus living conditions.
The student also links his strength in coping with off-campus life with the label of seniority, saying first-year students are at far greater risk of dropping out. He emphasises that the North End area poses not only a learning risk for first years, but also a threat to their physical safety. The clear message from these narratives is that these students seem to have disengaged their reliance on the university system for support and instead, have used their physical, intellectual and emotional strength as a source of sustenance.
5.2.Growing numb but being resilient
The focus here will be on the hardships resulting from some of the living conditions that the students endure and how these affect their student life. In other contexts, the living conditions described below could drive students to withdraw from higher education (Tinto, 1993: 105; Tinto: 2014). Off-campus student residences should have basic assets such as water, electricity, a decent property, consistent maintenance, internet access and transportation. Many of the students interviewed described their living conditions as inhumane and have raised their discontent with the university and property owners in vain. Because some of the students are from low-income families, and the fact that the city has limited student accommodation for low-income students, they get trapped in a situation where they are unable to look for alternatives.
The poor living conditions that they endure lead them to become numb to their plight. They must possess a higher degree of resilience. They desensitise the hardship in their lives while being mindful that it should not deter them from their life objective, which is to make a success out of their lives in higher education. The following narratives describe the inhumanity that the students endure in off-campus residences:
I think just me personally, I always try to look for the positives in everything and I think particularly pertaining this place [her residence]. I think just the thought that this was my final semester, I’m just like ‘okay, it’s just for this six months and things could change
68 | P a g e afterwards’. And even if it gets to that [and] I still need to stay for longer, I think at the back of my mind I’m like, ‘this is not permanent for me, it’s gonna [going to] change. I still have a chance to move next year […]’ I mean it’s not that bad. It’s bearable28
Another factor of resilience is that students have to protest to improve their conditions, as Participant 17 indicates:
The problem here is that you have to fight for something to happen. You have to fight. I remember last year we had a strike because of Wi-Fi and because we had cold water for four months. Imagine. So, we have to show different faces to get something. When you compare on campus with off campus, they [university staff] don’t get involved, it’s like we are treated differently, and we are not part of the university. We felt neglected at that particular moment29
As stated previously, learning is a multifaced issue that takes place in a variety of sites in a university environment. The insights from the students in this case show that they experience a lack of integration into the university architecture. These students cannot study without Wi- Fi and they cannot cope without warm water. Apart from the structural challenges that create a perception of inadequate governance by the university and the property owner, it also raises questions about their sense of courtesy. The student states that they had to stage a protest to press home their demands for hot water and Wi-Fi, which is an indication perhaps, that the available forms of communication are proving to be insufficient in bringing about material change for the students.
A key factor that may affect some of the conditions is whether NSFAS has paid the full amount of rent that is required for a decent student life in a conducive environment. This adds another layer of complexity to the governance architecture. The national government administers the funding of students and it may be inadequately serviced by its local financial administrator – the university – into paying for services that students expected.
28 Participant 13, Woman, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 19 June 2018 29 Participant 17, Male, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 23 June 2018
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The following submission shows how leakages in the governance architecture affect the daily life of a poor student at a micro, everyday level:
I think with telling myself that, what I face there is better than not having a place at all because I know how it feels like to be desperate for a place to stay. When I was looking for a place to stay last year, I was literally knocking on every door and it wasn’t a nice feeling. I know that my friends went through a hard time getting a place to stay […] you know […] it’s hard not to have a place to stay. You go through the day just being grateful for having a place to stay, to have a roof over your head, to have a place to sleep, to have friends, that sense of belonging that I am part of a community, no matter how messed-up it is30
The student here is admitting that she faces depressing levels of poverty as a person and is also experiencing the hardship of poverty even when she is in a university environment. It also emerges from her experience that a low-income student cannot always rely on a family structure while at university as far as material support is concerned (Schudde: 2016).
The comment that, “when I was looking for a place to stay last year, I was literally knocking on every door and it wasn’t a nice feeling”, could be interpreted as the student trying to narrate to the researcher that, in her struggles at university, she was alone and was working hard on her own to rescue her situation. In her narrative, and also in the submissions of others in this section, a family member or a relative does not seem to be mentioned as a support structure that students are able to call upon for material and emotional support. Therefore, the university community becomes their sole source of support.
The support that the student seems to be receiving is in the form of a peer-group-support mechanisms wherein disadvantaged students organise themselves in a form of solidarity towards each other as friends. They share the little that they have materially, and they listen to one another’s stories that relate to each other. It is clear from this research study that this form of emotional support is one of the most effective strategies employed by students as a means of coping and as a survivalist tool at university. This route that students choose also gives them some sense of privacy in that they believe they will avoid being stigmatised by university systems or other forms of assistance that may be more public than
30 Participant 11, Woman, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 18 June 2018
70 | P a g e approaching their friends for support. The next section will look at these forms of solidarity that students create for each other to enhance their safety.
5.3.Your safety is my safety
Almost all the participants in the research study highlighted the question of safety in PE and complained about the response of the local government and the police. The theme was that as students generally, and women students in particular, their safety while on the streets of PE suddenly appeared to become no-one’s responsibility. There was a satisfactory level of safety on the university campus and in their living quarters, but they believed they were on their own the minute they stepped outside – where students are required to walk and commute in the city.
To limit their vulnerability, they take the question of safety into their own hands by forming social networks and forms of solidarity among themselves and look after each other as a community of students. The students realised their lives were not safe because of the dysfunctional system of safety applied by the local government, their property owners and the university. This is how they describe their solidarity networks of safety, which serve as a coping mechanism:
[…] with church, our residence is situated in a very dangerous area so walking from the res [residence] to where you get a taxi to go to church is a matter of life and death, if I can put it that way. You need to decide if it’s a risk worth taking […] am I going to be safe? Or you need to ask some male students to accompany you31
I have a lot of students who stay around Summerstrand. Everyone who stays in Summerstrand is almost a student. So, when we go out, it’s all of us together as students, when I come back it’s all students in the area32
Using friendship networks to ensure interpersonal safety among students is a preventative measure to cope against crime. They seem to have internalised as a social group the fact that isolated students – and women students in particular – are especially vulnerable to crime
31 Participant 11, Woman, Undergraduate, North End, Interview on 18 June 2018 32 Participant 16, Woman, Postgraduate, Summerstrand, Interview on 22 June 2018
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(Holtzman: 2018). They see public spaces of the city as areas to go to as a group in order to feel that they belong (Nakano: 2007). At the centre of this action is the value of Ubuntu, which espouses that individuals exist because of other people: “Umntu ngumntu ngabantu” (Fassie: 1990). In this instance, each student is aware that he or she is responsible for the protection of another student. By behaving in this way, they ensure that the others are safe.
The Summerstrand student quoted above needs her group of students to go out when she goes out. It has to be a mutual decision and a mutual activity involving each individual. The student in North End requires protection of the men students to be safe. For her to be safe, the men must also put their lives on the line for her protection. However, when the male students decide not to accompany her when she walks to church, she is vulnerable to danger. The same applies to the individuals who go out as a group in Summerstrand. If members of the group decide not to go out, the student interviewed becomes vulnerable to attack. So, the networks of solidarity that students form among themselves are dependent on each individual’s preparedness to take responsibility and make sure that every other student is kept safe as a way to cope with crime in the city (Holtzman: 2018).
5.4.Social responsibility by business and the university
This section explores the involvement of property owners in assisting students socially to cope with the living and learning challenges that come with university. It will also outline suggestions that have been made by university officials in this regard. First, this Summerstrand-based property owner gave a submission on how he has attempted to intervene in the problem of low-income students who seem to have been priced out of the conveniently located suburb of Summerstrand due to lack of funds and the expensive rentals that charged in the area:
We have sharing rooms that are available to NSFAS students […] the private rooms for NSFAS students. I believe, if such a student says maybe, should be given a right, to say ‘I have an aunty’ or ‘I am doing some work in the evenings to make extra money so I would like to have a single room’, which would be more expensive […] if you offer that to the student and say ‘okay, your budget is not sufficient for a single room, we [will] allow you to top-up’ [pay the extra money that NSFAS is unable to pay], when the university, now that’s the off-campus office […] they say she [the student] needs to pay the top-up upfront,
72 | P a g e for the whole year. So, if he [the student] stays two semesters, which would be 10 months, of course it would be five months for a semester, let’s say, that student has to pay R500 a month, okay, but now it must be R5000 upfront [R500 multiplied by 10 months], for the privilege of a single room […] the students couldn’t afford it because there is a difference between paying R500 a month and paying R5000 upfront [at the beginning of the year]. So maybe students who would like to study and take on a private room [in Summerstrand], they have now been forced to take a sharing room, which introduced another problem […]33
The Summerstrand property owner is discussing four key issues. First, he is indicating that he is willing to compromise the design of his properties and create double rooms from the current single rooms, where students from low-income families can be able to stay and be located closer to the university. Second, he says that the option of the single rooms in his properties can also be made available, but that kind of a room will be more expensive. Therefore, he suggests that the university allows students from low-income families on NSFAS support to seek another form of financial support, such as working part-time in the evening, and use their earnings to pay rent every month, adding to their limited NSFAS allowance.
Third, the landlord is appealing to the university, as the financial administrator of the NSFAS system on behalf of the national government, to apply flexible governance systems where payments could be made monthly and not just upfront as semester or annual lump-sum payments. Fourth, he is suggesting a new way of imagining the political economy of off- campus accommodation at Mandela University where the class status of a student would not determine where they stay in at PE. This could be achieved if NSFAS adapted its approach to payments to accommodate the needs of Summerstrand property owners who, potentially, could make more space available in the area for low-income students.
A similar situation arose in the UK (Hubbard: 2009) and in Ireland (Kenna: 2011) where studentification induced property owners in university suburbs to alter the architectural structure of their properties from being ordinary houses where students were tenants into being rezoned, purpose-built student accommodation. There is a pattern here of suburban businesses generally, and property owners in particular, shifting their business strategies to accommodate
33 Participant 10, Summerstrand Property Owner, Interview on 18 June 2018
73 | P a g e an influx of students carrying its own unique demographics in terms of age, income, gender, preferences and tastes. Therefore, the submission of the property owner could be viewed as the beginning of a discussion at Mandela University to shift the patterns of student settlement as a way of limiting the current challenges facing low-income students.
A North End property owner described how he attempted to assist students waiting for their NSFAS payments:
Over 90% of our students are on NSFAS. And NSFAS does not give them their allowances on time. This becomes difficult for us. We do try to find on how can we assist if we know of someone that can provide inexpensive meals, we contact them so you would see them selling samosas at the gate, which would be the food students eat before NSFAS kicks in34
As indicated earlier, low-income students at Mandela University are funded by NSFAS, which is faced with administrative challenges (NSFAS: 2015). This presents students with challenges of their own: they cannot buy textbooks and stationery on time for the beginning of their classes. Also, they cannot always pay for meals due to their financial situation. As a coping mechanism, the property owner steps in and ropes in small business operators with whom he has had dealings to provide food at low prices to students. This shows the humane side of business – ubuntu – in seeing the provision of student accommodation as more than just about profits, but also about trying to look after the needs of his tenants, in this instance low-income students (Holtzman: 2018).
A university staff member makes a useful suggestion to assist students who have to contend with off-campus living:
I have an assumption that students who are out there [off campus] work harder than those who are on campus. I would rather have first-years living on campus and take students that are already used to the environment off campus. Let the new students to have the company of the res manager [residence manager] and a protected environment. In most American universities, I’m sure they do that. The freshman [first-year student] stays on campus and the adults stay off campus. This should be done […] so that students can be used to the
34 Participant 08, North End Property Owner, Interview on 11 June 2018
74 | P a g e real outside world. Staying off campus is a preparation for the outside world, it’s a grooming for you35
The university official argues persuasively that on-campus residences should be reserved for the intake of new students. At present, a large number of first-year students – the new cohort of Mandela University enrolments post the free-education announcement – are from low-income families and live in residences in the North End area (Swartz: 2017). The DHET report (2011: 130) indicated that such a living arrangement poses the risk of an early dropout rate for first-year students due to their lack of understanding of how a university system works (Tinto, 1993: 107) and the forms of resilience that are required to succeed in it (Tinto: 1998). At other universities such as Rhodes, it is compulsory for first-year students to stay on campus so they can benefit from the university’s infrastructure and systems and give themselves the best chance of academic success (Tinto, 1993: 209; Mabizela: 2017). Finally, the suggestion by the staff member to take senior students off campus speaks to the expectation, at universities, that established students should be resilient (Walker at al: 2006). The expectation is that resilience is acquired over the years until it becomes the norm of student life (Feinstein and Hammond: 2004).
5.5.Conclusion
Personal resilience acquired over time by students living in the off-campus residences of Mandela University helps them to cope with the many challenges of this form of living. Holding onto the hope that tomorrow will be better than the hardships of today is what keeps them in the university system. The poor backgrounds of students as well as the rigid way in which aid from NSFAS is administered makes it impossible for students to seek alternative forms of accommodation when they are subjected to undignified living conditions by their landlords. Also, the lack of a co-ordinated governance architecture in the administration of the off-campus accommodation system, especially with respect to the component of monitoring and evaluation, allows property owners to get away with providing poor facilities, which impact on the socio-academic experiences of students, who are expected to simply endure the challenges.
35 Participant 07, Middle University Staff Member, Interview on 05 June 2018
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Students end up relying on each other as a community, resorting to innovative forms of solidarity to ensure their safety and employing a social network of their peers to unburden themselves by sharing their common stories of hardship. It also emerged that some property owners and university staff members were prepared to intervene to assist students in the short term and recommend long-term solutions.
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CHAPTER SIX: Conclusion, recommendations and possibilities
This research study explored the living and learning experiences of Mandela University students residing in the off-campus accommodation and found the following:
First, the concept of studentification, in the context of Mandela University in PE – a city in a developing country that is facing huge socio-economic challenges – shows that there are other critical student demographics, such as gender, which shape the phenomenon. The literature has been silent on gender when analysing student life generally and student accommodation in particular.
Second, Tinto’s theory of student integration requires further demographic work, especially in the context of a developing country that is still grappling with the socio-economic legacies of colonialism, such as class and gender divisions. These societal issues have an impact on the provision of higher education and on university students.
Third, this study has gone beyond Tinto’s notion of support, and the concept of studentification to highlight the fact that spatial problems of post-apartheid South Africa shape a hierarchy of oppression. Class and gender patterns in student demographics present the higher education system with a number of challenges. In terms of the provision of adequate student accommodation, an innovative and pioneering model of funding, governance and coherent planning at the macro level of the state and at the micro-level of university planning and private business co-operation is required to ensure an outcome where profits can be sustained along with social responsibility.
Fourth, the legacy of apartheid wherein cities were divided according to race, class and gender in the form of spatial planning and geographical zoning of residential areas has created structural challenges for universities and students’ experiences, which are mainly driven by class. The level of income that students bring to the university city determines where they live in PE. The upper-class bracket of students resides in Summerstrand and the lower-class of students in North End. This demarcation of the city is as a result of apartheid planning and it was intensified by the convergence of businesses in the central area of Summerstrand, which
77 | P a g e has always been earmarked as a space of economic opportunities. The location of the university there is evidence of this fact.
Fifth, this study has found that the current model used by the university wherein on-campus accommodation is offered to those who are academically deserving becomes a challenge in the context of a developing country, and in a spatially planned city such as PE. Instances of inequality of opportunities, poverty and violence require that access to student accommodation is viewed as a social necessity for all vulnerable students rather than as a privilege afforded to those who show academic accomplishment.
Sixth, the commuting system of the university is evidently overburdened. The university carries virtually the entire responsibility of providing transport for students in a city environment characterised by a failed public transport system. This creates an imbalance in respect of the university’s limited resources because the shuttle service falls short of satisfying the academic and social commuting needs of students in so far as their time management is concerned. As a result, students who live off-campus, particularly the low-income cohort in North End, are induced into a permanent psycho-social state of having to structure their learning activities around the shuttle service.
Seventh, this research study has also found that off-campus student accommodation, in the context of a developing country grappling with massive socio-economic challenges, needs be understood in terms of the vulnerability of students rather than student autonomy. Students in other societal contexts voluntarily decide to stay in off-campus residences as a sign of seniority, independence and adulthood. However, in the South African context, many students feel vulnerable and unsafe in an off-campus environment in which they have been placed because of the universities’ infrastructural shortfalls.
Lastly, failure to recognise this key dynamic results in student accommodation in South Africa being viewed as a secondary issue that is distinct from the core business of teaching, research and learning. Consequently, off-campus accommodation gets outsourced to the private sector without a funding model in place that will govern the public-private partnership. It is the vulnerability of students that leads them to create forms of solidarity and social networks as a strategy to ensure their emotional wellness, physical safety and environmental security.
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6.1. Limitations of the study
First, this research study was conducted in a single university and its findings cannot be uncritically related to other universities that are based in other South African cities. Expanding the scope of the study by conducting it in another university could broaden the contextual landscape of the study.
Second, students interviewed in this study reside in the Summerstrand and North End area of the city and they attend their lectures at the North and South Summerstrand campuses. Interviewing students who attend classes in other campuses of the Mandela University, such as Missionvale campus and George campus, could have yielded different outcomes. The same observation can be made had the study included students who reside in other areas of the city such as Walmer, Humewood and Bluewater Bay.
Third, though the study made reference to the local government of PE and its police, it did not interview police and government officials who could have provided further triangulation possibilities.
Fourth, the qualitative method employed and sample size of this study could have yielded a limited perspective in terms of student voices. Employing the qualitative method with a larger study sample or applying a quantitative or a mixed-method approach would have provided more in-depth analysis in terms of situating the academic performance and living circumstances of the off-campus students.
Fifth, the nature of the study required the participants to narrate personal and sensitive information about their daily lives. In the case of the university staff members and property owners, the study required them to self-reflect on their professional practices and careers. In the process, details might have been omitted by the participants, who might have contributed more freely in a different environment such as their family settings or in peer circles.
Sixth, the study interviewed three staff members of the university who are based in the department of student housing. Had interviews also been conducted with other university staff members, such as members of the accreditation committee, additional insights might have been gleaned and supplementary conclusions reached.
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Seventh, the study focused on students who pay rent to stay in accredited and non-accredited off-campus residences. The students who stay in their own homes as adults or the young adults who stay with their families in PE were not examined in terms of their perceptions of their off- campus student social and academic experiences.
6.2. Recommendations
This section will highlight the actions that should be taken by the affected parties as a result of this research study. The nature of the identified issues requires an inter-stakeholder initiative, that will be carried through collectively in all the different levels of institutions, both in the short and long term. The recommendations are divided into four categories: (1) student socio- academic activism, (2) a student-centred governance architecture, (3) city-integrated transportation and student villages, and (4) the policy measures needed for a significant student life.
6.2.1. Student socio-academic activism
First, student organisations such as the SRC should ramp up the vigilance and militancy of their activism to challenge wrongdoing by property owners and the university towards students. They must hold the university and the property businesses accountable.
Second, students should utilise the available platforms of legal review to report transgressions by the university and property owners.
Third, students should use their constitutional right to freedom of expression through social media to expose injustices that they encounter to the world as a strategy to mobilise support and apply public pressure on wrongdoers.
Fourth, students must take responsibility for their conduct by looking after the facilities of the property they occupy, obey their rules, and adhere to the stipulated terms of the lease agreement they sign with their property owners.
6.2.2. A student-centred governance architecture
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First, careful deliberation is required by university and government officials as well as property owners in identifying locations, facilities and residences in the city that could be transformed into conducive spaces for students of both genders.
Second, property owners and the university must hold each other accountable on a monthly basis as far as the provision of student services are concerned through regular meetings that have recorded and signed resolutions and timeframes for implementation. In the event of an intractable disagreement arising between these parties, legal processes need to be utilised as a mechanism to resolve disputes.
Third, the university should appoint an independent committee that will deal specifically with the monitoring and evaluation process of the accreditation policy on how it is being implemented and adhered to by the property owners, the university and students. The members of this committee should not be staff members of the university and they should also not have a business relationship with the property owners.
Fourth, the university should move some divisions of the student-related departments to locations in the city, closer to student off-campus residences. The university should image itself differently and begin to grow into the city and move away from being physically located solely in the Summerstrand suburb. Departments such as student counselling, NSFAS, information technology services, protection services, the SRC, the university clinic, support services and the maintenance division, should all be entities that work in an activist and pre-emptive fashion and should also have offices located in the city.
6.2.3. City-integrated transportation and student villages
First, the government should implement an affordable public transport system across the city that will serve university students and other sectors of the PE economy
Second, the university and the government should roll out access to free Wi-Fi to students in all parts of the city.
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Third, the university should utilise technology as a form of teaching, learning and research. Other forms of class material and assessments should be made available on students’ communication devices to reduce the frequency of trips by off-campus students to the university.
Fourth, the university shuttle service should be reconfigured to allow buses to move between off-campus residences, the university and recreational facilities of the city on weekdays and weekends.
Fifth, Summerstrand and North End should be rezoned as student villages by the local government and the university and subsequently be enriched by the establishment of student- friendly utilities such as 24/7 shops, public libraries, computer labs, lounge facilities, entertainment areas and 24/7 transportation services.
6.2.4. Policy measures for a dignified student life
First, the government should provide incentives and tax cuts to the providers of student accommodation in the form of discounted rates of electricity, water, property tax and rates bills.
Second, a student housing policy must be adopted by the government, in consultation with the affected stakeholders, to regulate the rent charged by student accommodation businesses and to stipulate the basic facilities that are required on their premises for student tenants.
Third, NSFAS should deposit funds into the accounts of low-income students on the day their university registration is confirmed. These funds should cover fees for their academic courses, residence fees, textbooks and cash allowances.
Fourth, the university should consider a compulsory mechanism of ensuring that first-year students stay in the on-campus residences of the university. On-campus accommodation for senior students should be prioritised for women students.
Fifth, the government should enable a flexible business environment that will allow for more service providers of student accommodation in PE to enter the market in order to promote competition that will offer diversity in terms of prices, services and facilities.
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Sixth, the government and the university should acquire land that is located in close proximity to the university for the public purpose of building student accommodation. These two public institutions of the state should also utilise other available legislative mechanisms, such as expropriation, to acquire urban land and urban property to build student residences for the citizens of South Africa and abroad to receive higher education in a dignified and empowering environment.
Seventh, the government should decentralise the provision of higher education by building more universities and training colleges closer to where people stay in the townships and rural communities of the Eastern Cape and neighbouring provinces in order to reduce the migration of youths to PE and, most importantly, to ensure that higher education across the country is viewed as a space of excellence and achievement, regardless of the socio-economic status of the university locations.
6.3. Suggestions for future research
The researcher proposes that the following problems should be explored further in upcoming research projects:
First, a follow-up study should be conducted at Mandela University and at other universities across the country to look at a more representative sample that will utilise a mixed-method approach in order to provide more in-depth findings.
Second, extensive research should be conducted to focus on the learning aspects of student life in off-campus residences. This study would cover issues such as teaching, conducting research, the accessing of library services and assessments.
Third, a thorough study should be conducted to investigate the living and learning experiences of postgraduate students who reside in off-campus areas of the university.
Fourth, future studies should look at how students who own private vehicles interface with the university campus for learning purposes.
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Fifth, explorative research should be conducted to identify and analyse case studies of public- private partnerships in the sphere of student accommodation.
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Tinto, V. 2014. Tinto’s South Africa Lectures. Journal of Student Affairs in Africa. 2(2). 5- 28.
Trollip, A. 2017. State of the Metro Address. Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality: Port Elizabeth.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. 2017. Six Ways To Ensure Higher Education Leaves No One Behind. Policy Paper: New York.
United Nations. 2015. Population facts: Youth population trends and sustainable development. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
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US Department of Housing and Urban Development. 2015. Barriers to success: Housing insecurity for US college students. Office of Policy Development and Research.
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Appendix A: Ethical clearance from Nelson Mandela University
Chairperson: Research Ethics Committee (Human) Tel: +27 (0)41 504 2235 [email protected]
Ref: [H18-ART-SA-001 / Approval]
11 May 2018
Prof N Mkhize Faculty: Arts South Campus
Dear Prof Mkhize
THE LIVING AND LEARNING EXPERIENCES OF NELSON MANDELA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS FROM DISADVANTAGED BACKGROUNDS RESIDING IN OFF-CAMPUS RESIDENCE ACCOMMODATION
PRP: Prof N Mkhize PI: Mr M Mzileni
Your above-entitled application served at the Research Ethics Committee (Human) for approval.
The ethics clearance reference number is H18-ART-SA-001 and is valid for three years. Please inform the REC-H, via your faculty representative, if any changes (particularly in the methodology) occur during this time. An annual affirmation to the effect that the protocols in use are still those for which approval was granted, will be required from you. You will be reminded timeously of this responsibility, and will receive the necessary documentation well in advance of any deadline.
We wish you well with the project.
Yours sincerely
Prof C Cilliers Chairperson: Research Ethics Committee (Human)
Cc: Department of Research Capacity Development Faculty Officer: Arts
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Appendix B: Research Information Sheet to Participants
26 April 2018 To whom it may concern
M MZILENI, MASTER OF ARTS SOCIOLOGY, RESEARCH PROJECT: The living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students residing in off-campus residences
This is to invite you to participate in a Master’s research stated above. The purpose of this study is to explore and understand the unique living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University staying in off-campus residence accommodation to make a meaningful contribution to knowledge and to better inform an improvement in the quality of student life, university planning, institutional governance, policy making and progressively position the political economy of higher education in future.
You are requested to kindly participate in the interviewing process, a one-on-one and open- ended interviews with the researcher in a assigned venue of the university. Your participation in this study is voluntary and you may choose to withdraw at any point in time. In addition, your identity and the information given in this study will be confidential. A summary of the results may be presented in conferences or be published in academic journals without reference to individual and personal opinions.
The interview will take approximately 45 minutes to complete and please take note that there are no wrong and right answers.
Thank you for your time and cooperation
Your sincerely,
Pedro Mihlali Mzileni Researcher
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Prof. Nomalanga Mkhize Supervisor
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Appendix C: Consent Form signed by participants
Consent for Participation in Interview Research
I volunteer to participate in a research project conducted by Mr Mihlali Mzileni, a Master’s student in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, incorporating History from the Nelson Mandela University. I understand that the project is designed to gather information about academic work of the Faculty in the university. I will be one of approximately 15 people being interviewed for this research.
1. My participation in this project is voluntary. I understand that I will not be paid for my participation. I may withdraw and discontinue participation at any time without penalty. If I decline to participate or withdraw from the study, no one will be told.
2. Participation involves being interviewed by the researcher from Nelson Mandela University. The interview will last approximately 30-45 minutes. Notes will be written during the interview. An audio tape of the interview will be used for research purposes only. If I don't want to be taped, I will not be able to participate in the study.
3. I understand that the researcher will not identify me by name in any reports using information obtained from this interview, and that my confidentiality as a participant in this study will remain secure. Subsequent uses of records and data will be subject to standard data use policies which protect the anonymity of individuals and institutions.
4. Faculty and administrators from my campus will neither be present at the interview nor have access to raw notes or transcripts. This precaution will prevent my individual comments from having any negative repercussions.
5. I understand that this research study has been reviewed and approved by the Faculty Ethics Committee for Studies Involving Human Subjects at the Faculty of Arts Committee at the Nelson Mandela University. For research problems or questions regarding subjects, the relevant Institutional Committee can be contacted through
6. I have read and understand the explanation provided to me. I have had all my questions answered to my satisfaction, and I voluntarily agree to participate in this study.
7. I have been given a copy of this consent form.
______Participant Signature Date
______Printed Name of Researcher Signature of the Researcher
For further Information, please contact:
Mr Pedro Mihlali Mzileni Cell: 063 287 2852 Email: [email protected]
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Appendix D: List of Participants
Participant Gender Level of Study Location Interview Date Participant 01 Woman Undergraduate Summerstrand 04 June 2018 Participant 02 Woman Postgraduate Summerstrand 04 June 2018 Participant 03 Woman Postgraduate Summerstrand 05 June 2018 Participant 04 Male Undergraduate Summerstrand 05 June 2018 Participant 05 - University staff - 05 June 2018 Participant 06 - University staff - 05 June 2018 Participant 07 - University staff - 05 June 2018 Participant 08 - North End North End 11 June 2018 Property Owner Participant 09 Male Undergraduate North End 12 June 2018 Participant 10 - Summerstrand Summerstrand 18 June 2018 Property Owner Participant 11 Woman Undergraduate North End 18 June 2018 Participant 12 Male Undergraduate North End 18 June 2018 Participant 13 Woman Undergraduate North End 19 June 2018 Participant 14 Male Undergraduate North End 19 June 2018 Participant 15 Woman Undergraduate North End 19 June 2018 Participant 16 Woman Postgraduate Summerstrand 22 June 2018 Participant 17 Male Undergraduate North End 23 June 2018 Participant 18 Male Undergraduate Summerstrand 23 June 2018 Participant 19 Male Postgraduate Summerstrand 23 June 2018
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Appendix E: Interview Questions to off-campus students
01 June 2018
To: Student Participants
M MZILENI, MASTER OF ARTS SOCIOLOGY, RESEARCH PROJECT: The living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students residing in off-campus residence accommodation
In no particular order, the main interview questions I will be asking the participants of this study, with possible follow up questions, will be as follows:
1. Do you see your off-campus stay anywhere linked to your academics? 2. How satisfied are you with the living conditions of your residence? 3. How satisfied are you as a student with the safety measures employed by the government of the city and the management of your residence? 4. Could you tell me what positive/negative impacts has the university transport had on your living and learning experience? 5. How did you end up staying here? Did you choose to stay here? 6. Please, could you describe to me your typical 24 hour weekday as a student staying off- campus? 7. What would you change in your residence to make it a conducive environment to stay and study as a student? 8. How did you learn to cope with your living conditions and learning experience? 9. What would you change about the location of your residence for it to offer and cater for all your basic necessities as a student? 10. How does living off-campus affect your academic life and social life? 11. How satisfied are you with the location of your residence from the university and the resources of the city?
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Appendix F: Interview Questions to property owners
01 June 2018 To: Property Owners M MZILENI, MASTER OF ARTS SOCIOLOGY, RESEARCH PROJECT: The living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students residing in off-campus residence accommodation 1. How does the municipality and government assist your business? 2. Do you think Port Elizabeth is a conducive city to run a student accommodate on business? 3. What are your main challenges with running student accommodation? 4. How satisfied are you with Nelson Mandela University as a business partner? 5. What would you improve about students as customers, the government and the university? 6. How is the location of your residence conducive for student accommodation? 7. What can you say are the most important items that students demand from you as a landlords 8. Could you tell me what are the positive/negative impacts has the university transport had on the living and learning experiences of students and your business? 9. How does the university staff manage and regulate landlords who provide non- accredited off-campus accommodation? 10. How satisfied are you with the accreditation policy of the residences? 11. How do your management systems cater for disadvantaged and poor-income students staying in your property? 12. What do you think is the barrier on the city of Port Elizabeth in rolling out a good off- campus accommodation system? 13. What would you change in your property to make it a conducive environment to stay and study for a student? 14. How is academic achievement part of your off-campus accommodation philosophy? 15. How do you think students cope with their living conditions and learning experience in your property? 16. Do you think the university has enough and capable staff to rollout a good off-campus accommodation service? 17. How is the service linked to the academic project of the university? 18. How does living in your property affect the academic life of students?
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19. How does living in your property affect the social life of students? 20. How satisfied are you with the location of your property from the university and the resources of the city?
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Appendix G: Interview Questions to university staff members
01 June 2018 To: University Staff Members M MZILENI, MASTER OF ARTS SOCIOLOGY, RESEARCH PROJECT: The living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students residing in off-campus residence accommodation
1. How satisfied are you with the living conditions of students staying in off-campus residences in Summerstrand suburb? 2. How satisfied are you with the living conditions of off-campus residences in North End? 3. How satisfied are you as a staff member with the safety measures employed by the government of the city and the management of the off-campus residences and your university? 4. Could you tell me what are the positive/negative impacts has the university transport had on the living and learning experiences of students? 5. How do you as university staff manage and regulate landlords who provide non- accredited off-campus accommodation? 6. How satisfied are you with the off-campus accredited residences? 7. How do your management systems cater for disadvantaged and poor-income students staying off-campus? 8. What do you think is the barrier on the city of Port Elizabeth in rolling out a good off- campus accommodation system? 9. What would you change in off-campus residences to make them a conducive environment to stay and study for a student? 10. Is academic achievement part of your off-campus accommodation philosophy ? 11. How do you think students cope with their living conditions and learning experience in off-campus residences? 12. Do you think the university has enough and capable staff to rollout a good off-campus accommodation service? 13. How is the work of your department linked to the academic project of the university 14. How does living off-campus affect the academic life of students? 15. How does living off-campus affect the social life of students?
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16. How satisfied are you with the location of off-campus residences from the university and the resources of the city?
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Appendix H: Site entry permission acceptance letter from the Dean of Students
North Campus Student Affairs Tel. +27 (0)41 5042221 [email protected]
27 October 2017 Dear Mihlali Thank you for your letter and the interest you demonstrated in conducting research on 'The living and learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students from disadvantaged backgrounds residing in off-campus residences'
I hereby grant you permission to conduct research in the Department as per your topic. I do believe that the Department would benefit from the outcomes of your research, and as such would appreciate to receive a copy upon completion. I thank you and wish you all the best in your studies.
Mr Luthando Jack Dean of Students Nelson Mandela University
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Appendix I: Correspondence with the Registrar requesting university documents
Monday, 18 June 2018
To : Dr Faroon Goolam, Registrar, Nelson Mandela University
From : Mihlali Mzileni, Student, Master of Arts in Sociology, s213223708
Title : Request for University documents to assist my research study
Dear Registrar
I write this letter to kindly request university documents for purposes of my research study towards a Master of Arts in Sociology in the Department of Sociology at Nelson Mandela University titled: The Living and Learning experiences of Nelson Mandela University students residing in off-campus residences. This study has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the university, the letter is attached, and its reference number is: H18-ART-SA-001
The three documents I kindly require are as follows:
• Nelson Mandela University. 2018. Annual Performance Plan: 2018.
• Swartz, D. 2017. Vice Chancellor’s Report to Council: Second Quarter 2017. Nelson Mandela University: Port Elizabeth. • 1983 on-campus residence numbers and demographics for University of Port Elizabeth and PE Technikon
Literature obtained in these documents will be acknowledged and will be kept at my disposal for academic purposes only. The documents will not be shared with the public.
For further information, kindly contact me or my supervisor, Professor Nomalanga Mkhize on [email protected]
Kind regards
Mr Mihlali Mzileni
Researcher
Department of Sociology
Nelson Mandela University
Email: [email protected]
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Appendix J: Email correspondence from the Department of Institutional Planning
From: Sheppard, Charles (Dr) (Summerstrand Campus South) Sent: 16 July 2018 10:33 To: Nel, Heather (Prof) (Summerstrand Campus South); Mzileni, Mihlali (Mr) (Summerstrand Campus North) Cc: Moodley, Kumaree (Mrs) (Summerstrand Campus South) Subject: RE: #MA: Pedro Mzileni - Request for Documents
Dear Heather and Pedro The combined enrolment data for 1983 that I have on the system are as follows (UPE and well as the Port Elizabeth Technikon — the databases have been merged):
Enrolments (Excluding all cancellations)
White 2864
Coloured 160
Indian 25
Chinese 29
African 77
Total 3155
I have given the Chinese enrolments separately. In earlier years they were included as white enrolments, but recently we have been instructed to classify them as Coloured.
No data were captured on residences but we assume that the residences that existed were fully occupied which would mean that approximately 430 students were in residences.
Regards
Sheppard
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