'Adopt student-centred institutional cultures'

African universities should adopt student-centred institutional cultures and modes of teaching in a bid to produce a cadre of ‘organic intellectuals’ who can change the ways in which society thinks about itself, according to Yunus Ballim, who recently completed a six-year term as the founding vice-chancellor of Sol Plaatje University (SPU) in Kimberley, South Africa, and a former deputy vice-chancellor at the University of the Witwatersrand where he was responsible for the academic programme.