Funding Open Educational Resources in Higher Education: A South African Public Policy Perspective

Abstract

The direct crediting of book allowances to student accounts was, among other reasons, underpinned by the belief that students would be able to substitute prescribed study material with online content. The article attempts to understand if the local open educational resources (OER) funding policy environment was prepared for this significant transformation. The paper applied a critical theory paradigm and a documentary research strategy to identify policy-level documents on OER funding in the South African higher education sector. Content analysis was then applied to review what they said about OER funding. These outcomes were then measured against the National Policy Development Framework 2020, which also dominated the study’s conceptual framework. The study’s significant findings were that the OER funding policy did not meet the policymaking principles of the framework, and this exposed Higher Education to a poorly funded OER environment. The study recommended hastening the finalization of OER policy and the flexible application of current policy terms to include OER as a fundable higher education cause.

1. Introduction and Background

In South Africa, there has been a growing trend toward the use of open educational resources (OERs) in higher education (HE) (DHET 2020). The Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities defines OER as intellectual work for which the authors and/or producers have explicitly given:

“a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship”.

(Open Access 2022, p. 1)

The University of the Western Cape was among the first South African higher education institutions (HEIs) to announce a formal recognition of OER for teaching and learning as early as 2005 (Hylen 2021). For this paper, interest in OER in universities was reignited by changes in the National Students Financial Aid (NSFAS) book allowance funding regime. The government communicated a view—not necessarily a policy—that by giving students all their book allowance paid in cash instead of textbook vouchers, it created an opportunity for students to benefit through online educational resources that were becoming widely available (DHET 2020). A view from the NCOP Education and Technology, Sports, Arts and Culture (2020, p. 1) was that book vouchers were tantamount to denying students an opportunity “to access information through downloads and streaming” and further “prevents students from entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Afterward, a severe reduction in textbook sales was noted, indicating various possibilities, including OER usage and misallocations of book allowances to other uses (DHET 2020). The article attempts to understand if the local OER policy environment, specifically the funding part of it, was ready and prepared for this significant transformation.

The Transforming Academic Environment

Research shows a general trend towards open and online teaching and learning mechanisms and open access to the material. A DHET-commissioned study, “Students’ access to and use of learning materials—Survey Report 2020”, captured close to 49,000 responses in 24 of South Africa’s 26 public universities. The report notes a considerably high dependency on online open educational resources. Among the sampled students, 23% relied on OER-prescribed textbooks regardless of whether or not they received textbook allowances from NSFAS. In the same report, during the COVID-19 lockdowns, 29% of NSFAS-funded students and 38% of non-NSFAS students relied on OER as non-prescribed learning material. This increased from 26% and 34%, respectively, before the COVID-19 period. The DHET survey, therefore, highlights an increasing uptake of OER among South African higher education students.

The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) directly links the OER movement to eight sustainable development goals (SDG), especially SDG 4, to ‘Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’ (Hewlett Foundation 2015). This linkage, in addition to the increasing adoption of OER as well as the transformational benefits it holds for an unequal country like this one, the researchers vehemently argue that it is good public administration to have an OER funding policy for higher education. This argument is centered on constitutionality, specifically section 195 (c), which demands that “Public administration must be development-oriented”. South Africa’s membership to UNESCO could also be a justifiable reason to adopt Recommendation 2 of the UNESCO 40th General Conference of 2019, which encourages members to develop a “supportive policy for OER”. In full, this conference’s Recommendation 4 also covers the issue of OER funding sustainability—“Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER” (UNESCO 2019, p. 1).

This paper, therefore, refers to the above recommendations that call for explicit and coordinated OER policies, explicitly focusing on funding policies. This is also motivated by extensive discussions and concerns over OER funding gaps in South Africa and beyond. Goodier (2017) notes the limited information on the South African government’s OER funding structures and how this affects a general evaluation of OER benefits to South African education.

2. Materials and Methods

This paper was designed as a secondary qualitative study. It applied a documentary research strategy centered on identifying legal, regulatory, strategic, operational, and policy-level documents directly or indirectly covering OER funding in the South African higher education sector.

2.1. Critical Theory Paradigm

The study took a Frankfurt School critical theory approach guided by the works of Max Horkheimer (Fuchs 2016). Critical theory was defined as a paradigm that questions current socio-political and economic structures to identify impediments to liberating or empowering change (Bronner 2017). Critical theorists believe that a domination-free society is what humanity desires and attempts to uncover the relationships, ideologies, assumptions, and theories that drive society from such a world (Fuchs 2016). The study identifies the extension of the OER movement under the guidance of adequate, transparent, and socially empowering policy as the needed change. As highlighted, OER is considered a force for equality, affordability, and decolonization of education (Hilton 2016).

As the above authors posit, the adoption of critical theory by authors in this paper is based on the equality and class argument on Open Educational Resources in Higher Education. The critical theory paradigm questions economic class issues in Higher Education, and OER is seen by some as a movement that promotes equality by challenging the commercialization of educational resources. Furthermore, on quality and class arguments, critical theorists believe that Open Education Resources holds transformational benefits for an unequal country like South Africa. This paper argues that it is suitable for public administration to have an OER funding policy for higher education. Moreover, it is essential to reflect that because the OER as a concept is yet to fully consolidate itself within South Africa’s higher education domain, it becomes imperative to understand how the unequal distribution of funds, attention, and educational means amongst students can be addressed from a policy perspective. This is essential to ensuring the inclusivity of higher education in South Africa. Therefore, this paper must reflect on the arguments and narratives of theory to comprehend how South Africa (considering its unjust higher education system during apartheid) can provide a balanced, fair education that can lead a person to a better position in society. This highlights the importance of critical theory and its application in an educational setting.

2.2. Population and Sampling

The study identified various documents that were considered relevant in meeting its goals. All identified documents were considered for the research. The criteria for document consideration were:

• A South African governmental and parliamentary level legal, regulatory, strategic, operational, and policy-level document;
• Produced between 1996 and 2022;
• Is officially recognized as an authentic government document;
• Has an effect of identifying, describing, explaining, commenting, discussing OER funding, research funding, or any terms that may imply OER funding;
• Is publicly available from the government, government agencies, and parliamentary websites.

These documents consisted of its population.

3. Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using content analysis. This involved identifying and analyzing the content and context in which specific words and terms were used in a document (Krippendorff 2013). Essential terms for analysis related to the funding of higher education activity, including research, training, and OER production. Semantic coding (Braun et al. 2016) was applied to denote meaning in contexts where the term ‘OER’ was explicitly highlighted. Latent coding (Braun et al. 2016) was instrumental in many cases where OER funding scenarios were not directly expressed but implied through text usage (terms that suggest OER funding regardless of whether they used the terms ‘OER’ and ‘funding’). The objective of the analysis was to identify the extent and level to which the sampled documents highlighted the actuality, potentiality, and possibility of OER funding in South African higher education. Overall, this would enable the research to conclude on the state of OER government-level funding.

Conceptual Framework

In this paper, policy is broadly defined as an “organization’s stated position on internal or external issues (RSA 2020, p. 8). This definition comes from South Africa’s National Policy Development Framework 2020, from which seven “Principles for Effective Policymaking” are also drawn. These are necessity, simplicity, proportionality, predictability, accessibility, timeliness, coordination, consistency, and competitiveness (RSA 2020). This paper adopts these as part of its OER funding policy analytical framework focusing on whether the existing policies meet these principles. The study’s framework takes a broad definition of policy that includes acts of parliaments, regulations, and government strategies as a manifestation of public policy. Within policy and related legal discourses, such actions or non-actions can be explicit, clearly and unambiguously expressed, and communicated or implicit (Torjman 2005).

Regarding policies, implicit actions are assumed based on government actions and context-based interpretations. This paper sees the benefit of seeing government actions as both explicit and implicit. It, therefore, critiques some government research and higher education funding procedures as implied OER funding actions.

The conceptual framework looks at whether OER funding policies meet the seven principles highlighted above and what implication this has on OER development in HEIs. Competitiveness, as a principle, is not discussed (Figure 1).

4. Review of the Literature

4.1. OER Funding Motives

One of the contentious OER development areas is funding (Hylen 2021). The most familiar view of OER is that these are free resources as nobody pays to use them (Morgado et al. 2014). In reality, OERs have value chains that demand varying forms and funding levels for development, continuity, and sustainability (Awolabi 2021). Among the longstanding basic principles of economic theory is an adage that no economic resource is available for free (Chiang 2019). Attached to this simple statement is that resources need to be paid for by one or more value chain participants (Chiang 2019). If some value chain participants get “free” resources or services, it means someone else within the value chain has borne the cost burden of such resources. This raises the question of who bears the OER funding obligation (Downes 2007).

The literature shows OER has many advantages, especially for low-income students. Firstly, its open availability enables poor students without textbooks to afford these resources (Czerniewicz et al. 2020). In this regard, it has been associated with reducing economic barriers to education among the poor and, therefore, working as a force for promoting equality in education (Hilton 2016). Such cost and affordability arguments are part of debates on the justifiability of high textbook prices, which some believe to be unreasonable (Hilton 2016). Such lines of thought have even promoted OER beyond a content availability supporting process into a paradigm or a movement driven by the need to foster equality in education (Hodgkinson-Williams and Arinto 2017). South Africa’s higher education (HE) environment is dominated by Eurocentric textbooks and, therefore, imported ideologies (Heleta 2016); OERs have somewhat risen in the debate for localized education and concepts. The debates and movements on the decolonization of higher education see localized OERs as an immediate solution to imported textbooks and a tool for intellectual empowerment for the previously colonized and marginalized (Olivier 2020). Thirdly, OER, as argued, increases the breadth and depth of intellectual resources available to HEIs, thus facilitating the production of a widely informed and critical student (Dutta 2016).

A standard narrative is that OER benefits, advantages, and merits are highly conditional on the quality, and possibly the quantity, of produced output (Miao et al. 2019). For such quality and quantity to be realized, the economic issues of production costs cannot be ignored (Awolabi 2021). In a liberalist sense, the production of intellectual resources, focusing on textbooks, is borne mainly by the private sector driven by the profit motive. Much is invested into textbooks with the hope that once they sell, revenues received will be above production costs (Carbaugh 2020). In the OER environment, the absence of the revenue factor demands other cost funding mechanisms besides sales. Some scholars, including Amiel et al. (2020), highlight that poorly publicly funded OER efforts can disintegrate the OER movement. It can result in the delocalization of knowledge as countries with poorly funded OER structures rely on “offshoring” of OER production by adopting any foreign sources considered free and available. Going back to the HEI decolonization discourse, such efforts would be retrogressive in creating and disseminating knowledge that resonates with local contexts and identities.

While the HE decolonization issues are highly philosophical and paradigmatic, the OER quality concerning funding is a closer concern. Common debates around this are whether a self-funding entity that would not get any income from their work goes to produce work of a similar quality to an established profit and capital-funded profit-motivated entity (Amiel et al. 2020). Under a profit motive consideration, the above is only possible sometimes. However, arguments are that human activity, including economic thinking and behavior, is not wholly driven by the economic or wealth creation agenda (Joseph et al. 2019). The value motive approach is a viewpoint that society is also motivated to act by the desire to instill and be of value (Hylen 2021). Arguably, under value-driven motives, it would be possible to churn out high-quality output even if no profit results from this. Nevertheless, as highlighted in the introduction, the rising challenge is the production cost. This needs to be present regardless of the motive one operates under; although in different proportions by motive.

OER cost of production issues has birthed an OER sustainability concern on the long-term availability, supply stability, and continuity of these resources (Tlili et al. 2019). In Farisi (2013) argument, however, OER sustainability should not be strongly tied to the existence or non-existence of a financial motive. This is because OER development is motivated by three non-financially driven goals: altruism, ego-boosting needs, and a combination of the two (Morgado et al. 2014). However, Morgado et al.’s argument neglects the cost aspect of OER production that may still need to be funded under these three motivations.

4.2. What Needs to Be Funded?

One of the most discussed aspects of OER funding is content development. However, OER has a whole value chain from the content developer to the student or lecturer as beneficiaries (Miao et al. 2019). Within this value chain, several activities need funding, firstly, OER administration services, (Management and maintenance of OER production processes, administration of information systems, OER communities, rules, procedures of content.), secondly, OER content production (Research processes, analysis, writing, editing), thirdly, OER assessment and evaluation (Peer reviews, assessments to meet institutional and community quality standards), fourthly, OER distribution systems (Online and physical distribution systems, including learning management information systems) fifthly, OER access (Cost of online and physical access, data costs, ICT devices, printing) and finally OER maintenance and upgrades (Revisions, content upgrades, retractions) (Schuwer et al. (2010) and Miao et al. 2019).

OER administration systems are all processes that logistically support OER existence, including copyright and licensing administration, quality standards determination and management, and research on OER needs, among others (Miao et al. 2019). OER distribution occurs via repository systems and tailor-made and turnkey information systems (Schuwer et al. 2010). Schuwer et al. (2010) found that human costs were the major expenditure item in institution-supported OER production processes. These include salaries and incentives for personnel across the OER production value chain. In some institutional systems, OER assessment and evaluations, including peer reviews, were done by community members voluntarily, and this minimized, but did not eliminate, the overall OER cost burden (Schuwer et al. 2010). Furthermore, OER quality assessments may be done before release in an institutional setup. At the same time, assessments can also occur once a resource has been released (Schuwer et al. 2010). OER access is primarily a user-side issue, and concerns arising at this stage are whether the targeted users can economically access OER content (Miao et al. 2019). Joseph et al. (2019) asserts that the bulk of global OER is produced using applications from commercial software producers, implying that licenses and fees have to be incurred. They suggest that OER production could be cheaper if products from Apple, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are eliminated from OER production processes. At the same time, these fees may be necessary for OER quality and production efficiency reasons, noting that open access alternatives often fail to produce comparable quality and efficiency characteristics (Joseph et al. 2019). These costs come with questions on possible OER funding sources.

4.3. Possible OER Funding Sources

Philanthropic funding for OER was discussed as a growing approach in Africa and developing southern hemisphere regions in general (Hodgkinson-Williams and Arinto 2017). Philanthropic organizations discussed include global multilateral-level entities, such as UNESCO, and private foundations, such as the Hewlett Foundations (Hodgkinson-Williams and Arinto 2017). However, this funding source exhibits a declining trend, which has motivated HEIs to look for other sources. Several institutions have adopted policies allowing internal OER funding (Hodgkinson-Williams and Donnelly 2010). This means income generated from HEIs can be channeled into OER creation. Government funding is the most talked-about source of OER funding. This funding includes subsidizing OER producers’ costs (Downes 2007; Stacey 2013). Amiel et al. (2020) suggest that to improve OER quality and quantity, the government must subsidize OER production costs among individual and small producers. Other forms of government funding are OER grants and allocations made to institutions and individuals (Marín et al. 2020). Overall, five forms of OER funding are identifiable in theory and practice. These are individual, academic institution, foundation, private sector, and government funding, or any combination of the above (Downes 2007).

Government funding assures long-term OER sustainability (Hylen 2021). Furthermore, as suggested by Goodier (2017), the government may need to fund OER as part of responsible educational cost management. As argued by some, philanthropy-based funding is only widely available to some and for the desired duration (Czerniewicz et al. 2020). Chikuni et al. (2019) also highlight potential risks that OER content funded by non-government players, including through collaborations with institutions, may reflect the views of the major funders rather than equality-driving discourses that the OER movement has come to be associated with. This suggests that government funding could have less influence over the content and could have a better capacity to empower the student.

Institutional funding is another common source of OER development funding locally and globally. Locally, however, the extent to which institutions can sustainably fund OER is questionable, given the consistent narratives of HEI underfunding in the country. Jansen (2018) asserts that local universities are underfunded, with this funding percolating to poorly resourced students. There are suggestions that only a few institutions can internally fund OER (Chikuni et al. 2019). This also highlights a strong need for government HEI funding for OER development. According to Hamilton and Nielsen (2021), the underfunding of universities affects the already poor and marginalized more than other groups. The above suggests that the equality and accessibility discourses of OER, as discussed by Chikuni et al. (2019), are not entirely achievable through an already struggling HEI system, and this, too, points to the need for dedicated lines of funding directly linked to government OER policies.

The need to ensure financing of OER is driven by the need to ensure access to relevant study material. South Africa’s case is driven by the need to address past injustices in higher education. However, globally, there have been growing calls to ensure consistent long-term financing for OER programs. In Canada, the British Columbia provincial government’s Ministry of Advanced Education funded the BCcampus OER program (annually) to all public postsecondary institutions in British Colombia. The funding period was from 2003 to 2010 at USD 9,000,000 (Stacey 2013). The JISC OER program in England was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and distributed public money to universities and colleges in England that provide higher education. The funding was in three phases: one (2009–2010) GBP 5.7 m; phase two (2010–2011) GBP 5 m, and phase three (2011–2012) GBP 2.8 m, totaling GBP 13.5 m or roughly USD 21 million (Stacey 2013). In the United States, the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grants Program had become a vital policy approach in consolidating OER. The first round of grant funding in 2001 made USD 500 million available, but a total of USD 2 billion over four years had been committed. Funds were made available through a Notice of Availability of Funds and Solicitation for Grant Applications in 50 states, Puerto Rico, and the district of Colombia (Stacey 2013). In Brazil, the city of Sao Paulo has decreed that all educational resources paid for by the city must be OER licensed using a Creative Commons license.

In 2012, a study by UNESCO showed the growing use of OER is widespread worldwide.

The above table reflects that, while OER is gaining traction regarding its usage globally, regional disparities still exist. Moreover, the use and adoption of OER programs are primarily driven by institutions and engaged individuals rather than government-driven initiatives. Therefore, it becomes essential to ask what drives the use of OER and the motivational factors behind it (

Table 1. Nature of OER activity per region.

Response Options	Africa	Arab States	Asia and Pacific	Europe and North America	Latin America and Caribbean	Total Across All Regions
Yes, through initiatives by institution and engaged individuals	50%	11%	52%	40%	41%	43%
Yes, through specific projects or programs with public funding	25%	11%	52%	55%	46%	41%
Yes, through specific projects or programs with private funding	33%	0%	26%	10%	9%	18%
Yes, through government initiatives including specific measures and incentives	17%	22%	39%	35%	23%	28%
No	8%	33%	13%	5%	32%	16%
Yes, otherwise	33%	22%	17%	30%	5%	21%

Source: Hoosen (2012).

).

From the above, OER offers more flexible learning opportunities, efficiency, and quality learning resources. Therefore, this, coupled with the cost efficiency of OER, has increased its use worldwide to ensure the availability of required study materials (

Table 2. Motivation to be active in the OER movement.

Response Options	Africa	Arab States	Asia and Pacific	Europe and North America	Latin America and Caribbean	Total across all Regions
Open and flexible learning opportunities	67%	44%	57%	45%	64%	57%
Increased efficiency and quality of learning resources	58%	44%	52%	45%	41%	49%
Cost-efficiency of OER	50%	44%	48%	35%	46%	45%
The innovative potential of OER.	63%	33%	48%	35%	46%	47%

Source: Hoosen (2012).

).

5. Findings

5.1. Government Policy: OER Funding in South Africa

This section briefly reviews selected public policy documents to understand what they say or imply about the funding of OER in the South African HE sectors.

5.2. White Paper for Post-School Education and Training 2013

The White Paper for Post-School Education and Training mentions and briefly discusses OER on the peripheries (DHET 2013). It adopts UNESCO’s OER definition as “educational resources that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or license fees” (DHET 2013). On OER funding, the 2013 White Paper states that:

“The DHET will support efforts that invest a larger proportion of total expenditure in the design and development of high-quality learning resources, as a strategy for increasing and assuring the quality of provision across the entire post-school system”.

(p. 54)

The term “a larger portion” suggests expectations of other supporting funders who would meet a minor proportion of total OER funding needs. The White Paper makes no mention of the NRF. It proposes a new institution through which OER would be developed—the South African Institute of Vocation and Training (SAIVCET). The Parliamentary Monitoring Group on Higher Education, Science, and Innovation (PMGHEST) also states that “The SAIVCET unit would be DHET and National Skills Fund (NSF) funded for five years and the unit would drive curriculum and lecturer development”, p1—highlighting that the NSF would play a funding role in OER. The 2013 White Paper, therefore, points at the need to fund OER, but in general and peripheral terms. It, however, puts this burden on an institution that is still operationally non-existent—almost ten years later. This puts OER funding under the White Paper as existent on paper rather than in practice. The SAIVCET entity discussed in this subsection is further explored.

5.3. The South African Institute of Vocation and Training (SAIVCET)

A 2016 DHET report titled “Presidential Commission on Higher Education and Training 5 October 2016” outlined the legislative functions of the SAIVCET. Among these, the following are directly related to OER funding and development: the “Development of teaching and learning and assessment material”, the capacitation of HEI staff and the establishment of “a library information service” (DHET 2016, p. 23).

The first directly puts the SAIVCET as the responsible authority for OER “development” and its “assessment”. The second function is the authority responsible for OER production skills development. Noting that in the 2013 White Paper, the SAIVCET was described as the institution to spearhead “the development and availability of well-researched, high-quality national learning resources (made available as open education resources [OER])” (DHET 2013), it is logical to assume that the library information systems highlighted above could be OER-driven. As noted, the SAIVCET is still operationally non-existent, and in the above, there is no mention of its OER funding roles despite this being mentioned in the 2013 White Paper. It can only be implied rather than mentioned with certainty that OER would be fundable from this entity.

5.4. National Research Foundation Amendment Act 19 of 2018

South Africa’s guiding regulation on research funding, the National Research Foundation Amendment Act 19 of 2018 (RSA 2018) does not explicitly recognize OER output as part of research or human capacity development. This view is pursued by assessing the NRF and DHET’s funding requirements for research as highlighted in the amended Act versus the procedural guidelines set in funding policies under both institutions. These procedural guidelines are reviewed next.

5.5. The Research Outputs Policy 2015

Procedurally, the NRF funds research output that meets a predetermined criterion (DHET 2015b). It must: be peer-reviewed, not be co-funded by the private sector, consist of new and original output, be systematically carried out, be in written form and be in the form of journals, textbooks, and conference proceedings (DHET 2015b). The policy states that its niche market differed from the HEI student body, suggesting its low coverage for OER content. At the same time, it highlights that student-targeted content was fundable, albeit less regularly:

“The focus of subsidy is on ‘scholarly publishing’ which refers to publications by scholars (academics and experts) for a niche market consisting mainly of academics and researchers (not normally students)”.

(p. 5)

OER can or cannot be peer-reviewed (Santos-Hermosa et al. 2020), could be co-funded (Downes 2007), exists in multimedia form (Miro et al. 2018), and takes a broader form beyond journals, textbooks, and conference output (Santos-Hermosa et al. 2020). Thus, the policy is limiting in terms of what types and forms of OER can be funded. The policy generally points to funding any research that meets the above, including research work that ends as commercial output. Using the Research Outputs Policy the NRF cannot fund OER in its broad sense; although, some work that meets its criteria could be passed off as OER (DHET 2015b). Thus, OER funding is implied rather than explicitly guaranteed under this policy.

5.6. Further Education and Training Colleges Amendment Act 3 of 2012 and the Further Education and Training Colleges Act 16 of 2006

The Further Education and Training Colleges Act 16 of 2006 (RSA 2006) contains no direct clause on OER funding. It presents general, implicit, supportive clauses for open knowledge development. In its preamble, it is stated that the Act endeavors to:

“PROVIDE optimal opportunities for learning, the creation of knowledge and the development of intermediate to high-level skills in keeping with international standards of academic and technical quality”.

(p. 3)

Its focus on providing an environment that fosters equality among students and that also redresses “past discrimination and ensures representativity and equal access” (p. 3) also resonates with OER movement thought (Czerniewicz et al. 2020). Nonetheless, this cannot be implied as an OER funding support guarantee. Section 23 of the Act provides for general funding of HEIs, and this reads:

“Subject to the Constitution and this Act, the Minister must, after consultation with the Council of Education Ministers and the Minister of Finance, determine minimum norms and standards for the funding of public colleges”.

Key terms in the above are “norms and standards” The term reappears concerning the responsible minister’s power to reallocate funds used. Section 42 traces these “norms and standards” to the National Education Policy Act 27 of 1996 and SAQA. The former mentions “learning standards” and “the standards of education provision, delivery, and performance development” (Sec 8(1)) as part of its objectives. Judging by Section 8(1), norms and standards are what the relevant minister determines as necessary for progressing current educational policies, albeit within South Africa’s constitutional framework. If OER is determined as falling within such norms and standards, there is a possibility that it is fundable under current structures. However, there are general debates over the value of OER and whether it indeed affords the cost and accessibility benefits it promises (Goodier 2017). Until government fully institutionalizes OER policy, the researchers believe that classifying its funding under the “norms and standards” implied under the Further Education and Training Colleges Amendment Act 3 of 2012 (RSA 2012) is equally open to debate.

5.7. NSFAS and the NSFAS Act 56 of 1999 (RSA 1999)

The NSFAS is mandated to fund students with educational expenses and needs as highlighted in the introduction, the Fund’s change of book allowance disbursement procedure has been associated with a decline in textbook sales (DHET 2020). The Fund supports prescribed textbooks and other fundable study material—it, therefore, finances an area that was diametrical to the OER movement. This movement views commercial textbook sales as manipulative, exclusive, and expensive (Hilton 2016). The NSFAS’ also funded laptop purchases. Its view that a laptop was substitutable for both a textbook voucher and a textbook cash disbursement suggests a view that digital content serves as an alternative to traditional print textbooks (NSFAS 2022). The NSFAS academic material funding includes data for accessing digital content and, therefore, financed the OER and general digital educational content distribution (DHET 2020).

Nonetheless, there is no direct mention of OER funding, either via the students or their institution. NSFAS suggests that students should access the same prescribed commercial textbooks, but via online means. No strong wording, comments, or suggestions on using OER to alleviate student-prescribed material issues was found in its documentation. This again highlights the lack of precise positions on OER funding, forcing implied rather than explicit deductions on the status of OER funding under NSFAS.

5.8. National Skills Development Strategy III

The NSDS III does not explicitly mention any terms and concepts directly related to OER funding. Instead, it highlights the need and significance of systematic research incapacitating the country’s skills development objectives:

“This requires the development of research capacity, particularly research related to building new knowledge linked to sector and national industrial plans. The Department of Higher Education and Training, in collaboration with HEIs and SETAs, will be encouraging increased capacity to conduct research, as well as the establishment of sector-relevant research projects”.

(p. 14)

The strategy also points to the need for an academic staff that can deliver the desired quality of education for meeting NSDS III objectives:

NSDS Outcome 4.3.3: The academic staff at colleges are able to offer relevant education and training of the required quality.

(p. 17)

The broadness of the strategy’s objectives invites speculation on whether the educational resources requirements necessary for its successful implementation intentionally include OERs. Such broad and open terms can compel such implications primarily when later policies and documents (e.g., PMG and DHET) refer to the NSDS III as part of the OER guideline documents. The strategy’s OER funding interests can, therefore, be implied, including from the PMG and DHET’s assertions, rather than be explicitly determined.

5.9. Open Learning Policy Framework for Post-School Education and Training

The Open Learning Policy Framework for Post-School Education and Training is the most explicit government document on OER funding and support (DHET 2017). It puts the DHET at the center of OER policy creation, as well as creating an OER-supportive environment (DHET 2017). On OER funding, this policy mentions that it will support the development of “an enabling policy environment for the development, use, and distribution of OER”; and would make “all materials developed by the DHET and institutions through public and donor funding will be made available as OER”; p. 28. The draft policy puts the SAIVCET’s role as a facilitator and does not mention its OER funding (DHET 2017). Nonetheless, the draft policy promises to coordinate OER funding and give OER enough policy support. It does not mention the roles of the NRF and NSFAS in the proposed OER systems. The draft also creates a conviction that OER is generally still not recognized as a norm and standard that warrants public funding. At the same time. The fact that NSFAS changed its processes on prescribed academic resources allowance funding before the conclusion of this policy highlights a policy gap where reliance on OER has been put into practice (DHET 2020), while adequate policies are still in their formative stages.

6. Discussion

The findings show that South Africa recognizes the OER funding needs of HEI, and policy for this activity exists across various regulatory documents and in pieces and fragments. The current problem was, therefore, the issue of policy quality rather than policy existence. There is much evidence of both explicit and implied, draft and concluded, fragmented and poorly coordinated OER funding policies across higher education, research, and training policy documents. The study’s desired policy status supports adequate OER funding across its value chain while meeting the policymaking principles discussed in the conceptual framework. This state enables students to access and rely on OER as a conduit for academic excellence while eradicating structural, historically imposed economic barriers to accessing prescribed and non-prescribed educational content (DHET 2017). The policy analysis processes show several gaps between the current and desired state. From a critical theory perspective, the policy environment can be seen as an impediment to HEI’s open knowledge-driven student empowerment. The identified gaps are discussed using the seven policy principles mentioned in the conceptual framework. The discussion starts with timeliness as a principle because the researchers believe it is a major and significant observable gap in South Africa’s OER funding policy.

Timeliness (RSA 2020) could be the most compromised OER funding policy principle. The researchers argue that government actions have gone far ahead of policies in OER funding and development. For instance, while important OER policy considerations still existed in draft formats (The Open Learning Policy Framework for Post-School Education and Training and the SAIVCET), the government via the NSFAS had gone ahead to decide to directly credit prescribed study material funds to students’ accounts (DHET 2020). As discussed, one of the reasons behind this was that this would enable students to access various resources, including OERs (DHET 2020). The timeliness principle, which has been compromised as a statutory body that will take charge of OER, has existed in the formulation stages for over ten years, while the open learning framework has been in its draft since 2017. The above case highlights the adverse impact of slow-moving policymaking processes on equalizing access to educational resources. Hudson et al. (2019) note that such delays can result in policy failures, as policy implementation can occur long after contextual changes that were not catered for in the initial planning. The non-existence of a concrete finalized OER policy as per UNESCO recommendations appears to have compromised the state of the other policy principles listed in the National Policy Development Framework 2020.

The data indicate a narrow to a non-existent gap in terms of OER funding policy necessity. Reviewed policy documents highlighted structural inequalities as the status quo that demanded government-driven emancipation measures. By implication, with OER being seen as a practical social equity movement (Hilton 2016; Tlili et al. 2019), equality intervention concerns in the policy documents hint at the necessity of OER as a fundable socio-economic cause. This was exemplified in the DHET (2015a) National Skills Development Strategy III and the DHET (2013) White Paper, among others that mention the need to create an equal, non-discriminating educational environment. Thus, a core strength in the SA OER policy environment is a regulation-backed view that policies that equalize the highly skewed HE environment are needed. Policy proportionality concerns whether existing and drafted policy fragments are justifiable given the nature of the problem at hand (RSA 2020). Explicit policy terms and statements on OER funding could also be found in the 2013 White Paper that highlights the need to fund “learning resources”, further emphasizing the necessity of this by indicating that a “large proportion” of DHET expenditure needed to be put towards this (DHET 2013). These terms demonstrate that some policy documents see OER development and funding as proportional to the inequality in HE problems that South Africa faces.

Simplicity was another policy principle discussed in the NPDF 2020 (RSA 2020). Whether a gap exists in the policies’ effectiveness in conveying a “clear statement of purpose, expressed in clear and plain language” is open to argument. Notably, some policy documents leave room for doubt in cases where the term OER is not used, leading to the previously discussed implicit versus explicit policy debates. An example is whether the NSDS III’s view of fundable research and knowledge development processes meant to “increased capacity to conduct research” also captures OER since, in theory, OER does contribute to enhanced research capacity (Czerniewicz et al. 2020). This leads to questions about whether the policy implies systematic research that includes secondary research processes that support OER development.

Predictability as a principle is also compromised by the simplicity issues discussed in the paragraph (RSA 2020). With OER funding being implied rather than explicitly stated in current policies, the extent to which a common understanding of such policies among stakeholders can be attained could be compromised (Konca 2021). The current state is that OER funding policy occurs in tiny pieces across Acts of Parliament, government strategies, and policy papers, and the desired state, as theorized by the researchers, is a single policy framework that can be found in the same place. Some of the implied OER funding policy fragments are found in statutes. This can create interpretation unpredictability when strict wording and textual and contextual meaning are measured in legal arguments (Konca 2021).

Another questionable principle is accessibility. While policies exist, they have to be dug from multiple records that include not so easy to interpret legal documents that one needs to know about (Konca 2021). This, in the researchers’ view, compromises policy accessibility, as the risk of missing one or more policy components is high. The highly fragmented nature of OER funding policies creates policy accessibility and uncertainty risks, especially in the absence of a master policy of central reference that is referred to when conflict or inconsistencies occur (Cejudo and Michel 2015). Coordination and consistency issues can be found across the reviewed policies. For instance, the Further Education and Training Colleges Amendment Act 3 of 2012 states that higher education funding would be based on the “norms and standards” of the National Education Policy Act 1996 (Act No. 27 of 1996, RSA (1996)) and SAQA, yet these two entities do not explicitly or directly highlight any such norms and standards, even though the word “standard” is used in several contexts. The DHET’s (2015a) research outputs policy also openly excludes OER funding through subsidies through its insistence on funding primary research. Furthermore, there is no direct policy linkage between NSFAS procedures and OER development and funding policies, even when there is a political view that NSFAS students will be able to offset high textbook costs through online content that includes OER (DHET 2020). Cejudo and Michel (2015) believe that such inconsistencies challenge governments to work towards policy harmonization and integration prerogatives that may include rewriting and rephrasing policy documents to attain coherence. Fortunately, perhaps, policy advisers also recognize the need to “modify the relevant budgetary frameworks and funding norms to recognize the importance and status of open learning, including the development of quality OER” (Commission of Enquiry into Higher Education 2016, p. 376).

Concluding this section, the researchers looked at the differences between actual policy principle application and desired application and attempted to popularize these policy principle gaps (Hudson et al. 2019). At the same time, policy gaps refer to divergences between desired and actual policies. This paper assessed gaps in policy principle application using the government’s policy framework guideline. With this logic, the researchers identify timeliness, predictability, accessibility, and coordination gaps as significant challenges with the OER funding policy environment in South Africa. These gaps are driven by the implied nature of terms that refer to HEI funding, casting doubt on whether OER funding can be accommodated under such terms. Although most of the consulted policy documents were formulated and implemented before OER became a concern, uncertainty exists on whether they are scalable enough to support OER as a fundable HEI phenomenon. Thus, South Africa’s OER funding policy could benefit in two main ways. The first is to expand the use of policy-defining terminology to accommodate OER. This is important considering that some policies of HE, research, and content development funding came into effect before OER as a concept was popular. The second and possibly more effective means is the creation of OER-specific policies under a single, coordinated framework, including the conclusion of draft policies that affect OER funding.

7. Conclusions and Recommendations

The South African higher education policy environment needs to exhibit faster movement towards predictable, simplified, and coordinated policies that support the availability of adequate resources to fund OER. There is a highly significant time gap between the desired and actual policies. The delayed finalization of the Open Learning Policy Framework for Post-School Education and Training and the implementation of the SAIVCET shows this. Consequential decisions, such as the NSFAS book allowance disbursements that would have benefitted from a transparent policy environment on the funding and, therefore, availability of adequate and quality OER, have also been made. This creates a risk of depending on an OER environment that is yet to be fully supported by current policy and funded by the government. Coming back to the HEI student, the research implies that they are exposed to underfunded or poorly funded OERs and their potential quality risks. This could also compromise educational attainment among the current cohorts, which might put more resources into OER and focus less on buying textbooks. The study recommends the finalization of SAIVCET, the conclusion of the open learning policy framework, and the coordination of policies to support OER funding in HEIs fully. The paper also recommends that HEIs forge ahead with capacitating OER value chains through alternative funding means as a stopgap measure to cover the highlighted policy gaps and ensure that students who rely on OER get the right resources. Furthermore, as a stopgap measure, the government is encouraged to relax its interpretations of policy terms on systematic research funding, learning development, and learning resources so that these also capture OER as a fundable research cause under NRF, National Skills Development Strategy III, Further Education and Training Colleges Amendment Act 3 of 2012, and the Skills Development Act.