Higher education and the imperative of social reconstruction: faculty perspectives on societal challenges, system responsiveness, and structural impediments

Abstract

Guided by Social Reconstructionism, this qualitative study examines Ethiopian university faculty perspectives on the nation’s multifaceted societal challenges and the higher education system’s capacity for responsiveness. Data were collected from 31 faculty members across seven public universities through Online Qualitative Surveys (OQS) and unstructured interviews. Thematic analysis reveals a shared consensus on a triple crisis characterized by a governance-conflict interplay, pervasive economic precarity, and systemic structural inequality. The findings indicate that the higher education system exhibits constrained responsiveness to societal needs. Rather than serving as a transformative agent, the system is perceived to function as an Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) that reproduces existing power structures. The study identifies a self-reinforcing ‘architecture of unresponsiveness’ underpinned by three pillars: epistemic alienation, political instrumentalization, and the neutralization of intellectual agency. Theoretically, the study enriches Social Reconstructionism with an Althusserian critique, illustrating how systemic forces impede educational transformation in complex socio-political settings. Ultimately, the study contends that dismantling the cycle of ideological reproduction requires a pedagogy of hope driven by higher education’s curricular indigenization, reclamation of institutional autonomy, and restoration of academic agency as essential prerequisites for reconstructing a society in crisis.