South African Schools & SA Politics

There has been much talk here regarding South African DL schools. I had initially been skeptical of their acceptance here because of the "legacy" of racism in that country, such as trying to explain why you got your PhD from a South African University to a black interviewer here in the US, etc.

But perhaps a more relevant concern would be: What about the political turmoil there?

Will that ultimately affect the availability/quality of education there?

Admittedly, these articles are somewhat alarmist, but even if they are half-way true, it sounds like the country is devolving as we speak. E.g.:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23804
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23871

 

Nonsense.

Ike

 

Graduating from the same institution as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu might be a plus.

The links you posted are indeed alarmist; they also are not relevant to distance learning. One might argue that the Internet monitoring proposal could affect distance learning -- it was just introduced and there's no telling if it will pass in any form.



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Kristin Evenson Hirst
DistanceLearn.About.com

 

I do think that the political turmoil in SA is relevant to DL in that some DL schools in SA require residency. Many times I've heard of Johannesburg referred to as "the carjacking capital of the world", and recently on this board was reported that a SA professor (Song?) was the victim of an armed home invasion. I for one would never go to SA for a residency, out of concern for my own safety.

Bruce

 

DL schools do not exist in a vacuum (well, at least the SA ones don't as they are tied to brick & mortar campuses). A few highly relevant concerns are (in addition to the travel concerns for North Americans already mentioned):

1. whether the academic people will stay if things truly go bad (one could be half-way thru a program and one's advisor flees the country/gets murdered/gets "black-listed" (no ethnic connotation here) by the gov't;

2. the extent of, or lack of public funding for these institutions if things go really bad or severly communist;

3. the internet/postal monitoring-potential censorship thing ;

4. currency issues, I suppose.

 

Or F.W. de Klerk (Potchefstroom), former president of SA, who along with Nelson Mandela, is a Nobel prize recipient!

Russell

 

Which is a major reason why, even though UNISA isn't on my short list for first doctorates, I'll probably end up signing on for one of their theology degrees one day. The temptation to study from the same school as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, the world's most credible Anglican, is just too great to resist.


Peace,

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Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

Although the articles you posted were intersting and South Africa certainly has its share of challenges, the following observation are in order.

Regarding the issue of crime in South Africa (car jackings etc), a poster on a South African forum pointed out that if we look at situations like that in a sensational manner we can end up drawing inaccurate conclusions. For example, he pointed out that if you look at the United States and issues reported in the media, someone from another country would get the impression that all of our schools are very dangerous based on the school shootings reported in the media and that it is not a safe place for children to go.

I would add to the above scenario that if we looked at Florida a couple of years ago when several tourists were car jacked and murdered a foreigner could also conclude that Florida was a dangerous place to visit where you stood a good chance of being shot and robbed. Looking at our media and programs like Prime Time one could conclude that husbands are murdering their spouses and girlfriends at an alarming rate and that rampant gun violence makes the US a very dangerous place to visit. Not to mention in any given year in the US there are foreign students killed and victims of crime in this
country.

I certainly would not say that South Africa is as stable as the US but they are trying. The government is promoting a multi racial society and judging by reading things like their on line defense magazines that does not mean the wholesale exclusion of white South Africans who are still being promoted along with others who have been historically under represented (eg women). They seem to be earnestly trying to avoid the mistakes of other former white ruled African
countries.

The issue with DL is that South Africa has a quality education system. I think even if one had to do a residency which many programs do not require (even at the doctoral level) you would likely be safe.
Heck, there is a 60 year old couple from our church who are going to tour Africa (including Zimbabwe (?) and South Africa).

North

 

I once thumbed through a booked entiled "The Most Dangerous Placed on Earth" or something to that effect. It profiled some dangerous places in the middle east, africa and several cities in the United States.

 

I would hope so, but that's not a chance I'm willing to take. If I recall correctly, the person who used to write the guide to UNISA that BG used to list was carjacked while in South Africa. I also saw a TV program that detailed the anti-carjacking devices being used in SA, including a flamethrower you can attach to your car. Things must be bad if it's come to that.

I'd rather do my residencies in a US or UK city and take my chances there!

Bruce

 

Bruce,

I hear where you are coming from. Better than devil you know than the one you don't. Unfortunately as I said above, the US itself does not necessarily come across as safe when we look at media accounts. In the US: kids are murdered in school, people are murdered when they turn down the wrong street in a ghetto, mass murder seems to have become a common occurence at work places, tourists are targeted and killed in Florida, I live in a city where most homes have bars on the windows, kids are killed by super predator children, 9 year olds are committing rape, women are molested and raped in a New York street festival, convenience store clerks take their lives in their hands, women are abducted raped and murdered all over the country, etc. etc. etc.

I guess the difference is that we are much more familiar with how to be careful in our own backyard.

North

 

North, I agree with much of what you're saying. Bottom line, IMO, is that even if the media accounts of crime in SA are overblown, the point is that people worldwide are viewing SA as out of control, and that will eventually trickle down to hurt their tourism, and probably their DL programs. If people feel unsafe, they are unsafe.

If you remember about 10 years ago, there were several highly publicized murders of tourists in Florida. The FL tourism industry was going into the tank, and the state government took drastic action (posting troopers in rest areas 24-7, etc.) to stem the tide. Now that ugly little chapter is forgotten, and tourism is back. I'm just not sure if the current SA government (which seems very unstable) is capable of stopping the bleeding.

BTW, I didn't mention it before, but I want to make it clear that anything I've said shouldn't be taken as being against any SA DL program. I think they have many excellent options, and I was considering UNISA myself at one point, I just decided that a US RA program would be best for me.

Bruce

 

That may be one of the factors to consider to study at DL programs of South African universities.

The exchange rate was around $1=R2 (Rand is the South African currency) some ten years ago when I studied at UNISA and now it is $1=R8.

 

An interesting anecdote about the danger factor of pursuing higher education in the US: Just a couple of days ago, I was talking with a gentleman who completed his PhD in Teaching and Learning at the University of North Dakota here in Grand Forks. He told me that he turned down a full-ride scholarship offer from a highly-respected southern California university to come to UND. His only reason: the So-Cal university was located in a less-than-wonderful area of the LA metropolitan region. This guy simply wasn't willing to take the risk of taking his family to a community where he felt they might not be safe.

 

While, for the most part, as one who has given serious consideration to pursuing a South African doctorate, I share the concern expressed here about the safety and stability of that country, I do think we have to avoid drawing unfounded, universal conclusions about the risks of life in South Africa.

For example, it would be unfair for me to use data about the crime rates in Buffalo, Richmond, Oklahoma City, Yakima, or Sacramento to draw conclusions about the risks of living in Wichita, Peoria, Akron, or Shreveport. The crime rate simply isn't consistent from region to region and city to city. One faces much greater likelihood of victimization in certain places than in others.

Similarly, we know places like Johannesburg or Durban to be rather dangerous places to visit or live. I don't believe that the reports I've seen about these localities are necessarily exaggerated. Thus, if I were planning to undertake a residency for the Rand Afrikaans University DLitt et Phil in Johannesburg, or the University of Natal PhD in Durban, the dangers of life in those places would have significant relevance to me. However, the fact that these places are rather unstable tells me nothing of what life, travel, and study is like in Pretoria or Potchefstroom.