Minister Asmal said this was important in harnessing the processes and resources of globalisation in building bridges and facilitating exchanges across the division of an increasing polarised world.
Professor Asmal was yesterday addressing the Conference on Policies and Models for International Co-operation in Higher Education that ends in Norway today.
Professor Asmal said the South African Department of Education intended on drawing on all three elements in the process of building a case for higher education as a public good.
"It is therefore imperative for a country like South Africa that our higher education institutions become innovative, high quality power houses of knowledge production and dissemination," said Professor Asmal.
He added that to succeed in this venture, the country's transformation agenda had to take full cognisance of the need for efficiency, effectiveness and responsiveness.
Professor Asmal said in a country like South Africa the transformation of higher education had to be seen in the context of the broader reconstruction and development of the country.
Like other developing countries, South Africa required increasing graduate outputs in areas such as science, engineering and technology.
The minister said the National Plan on Higher Education in particular highlighted the role that fields of study such as African Languages, literature and culture could play in the development of a common nationhood.
A major initiative was underway to transform the teaching of history in the primary and secondary phases of schooling.
Professor Asmal said while the current position of English and Afrikaans as languages of instruction in higher education was acknowledged, the policy strove to promote, in the medium to long term, the development of other South African languages for use as academic/scientific languages.
"Only through due attention to quality, including the building of inclusive institutional cultures, can there be meaningful access to higher education especially for those who were denied opportunities in the past," said Professor Asmal.
He added that too little or inadequate attention was given to the transformation of the core work of teaching, learning and research.
"We strive to pay due attention to those key areas because what we do or do not do in this arenas has a huge impact on what kinds of graduates our institutions produce and what kind what kind of contribution they make to the society,"added Professor Asmal.
Education, he added ought to embrace the intellectual, cultural, political and social development of individuals, institutions and nations.
Professor Asmal said South Africa was also deeply committed to its responsibilities in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).
He said since 1994, South Africa had witnessed a tremendous increase in the flow of students, particularly from other parts of the region and Africa - from about 5 000 students to some 40 000 today.
In cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the department was developing a proposal to offer scholarships to foreign students from least developed countries in Africa with no higher education capacities of their own, such as the Comoros and Madagascar -BuaNews
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