Igniting Student Development Through Collaborations

Many structural societal problems are common in the villages, townships, squatter camps, hostel dwellings, ghettos, and shanty towns. The worst-case scenarios are the areas surrounded by universities where the universities are supposed to be changing lives. The values of the public good must drive universities’ services and involvement in community engagements and empowerment. The university’s role must be to change society, mainly those surrounding it. South African universities must drive the African way of co-existence. It must be characterised by communal sharing, empowerment, ubuntu, communalism, common co-existence goals, responsiveness and responsibility. Universities’ curricular and extra-curricular programs must serve the public towards the surrounding poverty-stricken communities. The programs must provide positive spin-offs and spill-over effects into the communities. The positive effects must minimise the pains of the powerful and the downtrodden who find it challenging to make ends meet in terms of survival because of abject poverty. Universities must form collaborations and or partnerships to serve the public good toward the surrounding power communities. Universities must be driven by a non-internal, inclusive approach and be outward-looking. The goals of a university must be to be in service to the community. They must strive towards active civic and social engagement, investment, and community development. This paper suggests that universities require open-ended partnerships with their surrounding poor communities in an unconditional and non-legalistic manner.