Il-haam Petersen

Adjustment to university and academic performance: brief report of a follow‐up study

This study presents data that extend an earlier analysis of predictors of academic performance from one to three years. None of the adjustment and other psychosocial variables (help‐seeking, academic motivation, self‐esteem, perceived stress and perceived academic overload) could predict success at university at the end of three years of study. The only significant predictor was academic performance at the end of the first year of study.

Connecting capabilities in highly unequal developing countries: The case of the Square Kilometre Array telescope in South Africa

ABSTRACT Innovation and skills development require interactive capabilities to function effectively. Interactive capabilities mediate between skills supply and skills demand actors in an innovation system, and in the knowledge economy more broadly. This article investigates such interactive capabilities, and the manner in which they facilitate labour market alignment. Within a case-study focus on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope in South Africa, we investigate how organisational capabilities, structures, and mechanisms facilitate or constrain interaction between the SKA and its network partners, including universities, firms, intermediaries, and a technical college. This illustrates how pockets of excellence within an unequal South African skills and innovation landscape were effectively connected in order to build a critical mass of skills and technologies that were highly competitive on the international stage. This shows how, in highly unequal developing countries, interactive capabilities form a lever for access to the global science and technology frontier.

Bridging skills demand and supply in South Africa: the role of public and private intermediaries

ABSTRACT Demand-led skills development requires linkages and coordination between firms and education and training organisations, which are major challenges considering that each represents a ‘self-interested’ entity. The need for a ‘collaborative project’ involving government, firms, universities and colleges, and other bodies is thus increasingly recognised. However, the crucial role of intermediaries has been largely overlooked. The article addresses this gap by investigating the main roles of public and private intermediaries across three case studies: sugarcane growing and milling, automotive component manufacturing, and the Square Kilometre Array sectoral systems of innovation. The research highlights the need for a move towards systemic thinking, to bridge across public and private objectives. It shows that private intermediaries play a larger role than is recognised in policy; that public–private intermediaries play crucial roles in coordination; and the potential for public intermediaries to contribute more effectively to systemic functioning.

Innovation Studies from a Southern Perspective: What New Insights for Comparative and International Education?

Abstract The chapter reflects on research that rethinks classic concerns of comparative and international education – the relationships between education and work and the role of education in development. The promises of knowledge-led economic growth have instead yielded increased inequality, poverty, environmental degradation and a decline in the quality of life for the majority, whether in advanced economies of the North, or least developed economies of the South. For education and training systems, the ability to understand these complex social, economic and technological challenges, interpret implications and integrate new practices in response, becomes critical. We reflect on the use of an innovation systems approach in the South, over time, to investigate the ways in which higher education responds to and interacts with, demand for skills from the economy. By highlighting the role of university actors and their interaction in networks, comparative and international researchers can move beyond dominant human capital accounts that focus only on the responsibility of higher education to become more responsive to firms, or on individuals to prepare themselves to be more employable, in a mechanistic reactive manner. This is a promising new emphasis for comparative research.