Goodbye to Unisa...

... and hello Olusa, effective Feb 1. http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/news.html#merge

That link will probably not work after today, since it's the Mail & Guardian current news page and so will change tomorrow. I will try to find a good web address for archived story. In any case, here are the first few sentences:

• 
  "The University of South Africa (Unisa), Technikon SA and the distance education centre of Vista University are to become a single institution, the Open Learning University of South Africa, from February 1.
  In a notice in the Government Gazette, Education Minister Kader Asmal also announced that former Mpumalanga premier Mathews Phosa, who currently leads Technikon SA's council, would be the chairman of the university's interim council. ..."

I have reported this before (in Off Topic forum) but now it's been officially gazetted.

Not a happy day, IMHO.

 

It sounds like UNISA didn't want to go in. Can you blame them? Vista isn't exactly a stalwart player. (Administratively, it seems like a mess.) TSA seems okay, but now they're in charge? Oh, fine.

Rich Douglas

 

TSA was established to provide continuing education for law enforcement practitioners. This was an urgent need in a country where the police were previously regarded primarily as goons. I believe that TSA started offering degrees in 1995, and that a high proportion of students still focus on law enforcement, legal administration, and related fields. TSA also offers many vocational majors -- for example, real estate, agricultural management, floristry, recreation management, tourism, coal mining.

Vista was aimed at continuing education of teachers. VUDEC was formerly the "Further Training" division of the government's Dept of Education. I'm not sure when (or even if) it started offering degree programs.

Unisa, on the other hand, has long been a fully-fledged university (South Africa's first) with a focus on fundamental education and has been a peer of the major Commonwealth residential universities.

The educational goals of TSA and VUDEC are worthy, even necessary. But I am skeptical of the value of merging vocational training with university education.

Organizationally (at the highest level -- i.e. the "council" level mentioned in the article), TSA is probably the strongest since it is the most focused on the real world (as one would expect from its mission) rather than dreaming about social reconstruction, etc.

 

Incidentally, I believe that Olusa will have over 200,000 DL students. Which will probably give it a larger student population than the famous UK Open University.

 

I know a guy who will complete his Unisa Th.D. in about 1 year. I wonder if all current students from the three schools will be allowed to graduate with the degree they began, or, as of Feb. 1, if all grads from each of the three schools will receive an Olusa degree?

Russell

 

The name OLUSA is not as good as UNISA.
Why not keep the UNISA name?

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Jonathan Liu
http://www.geocities.com/liu_jonathan/distance.html

 

When Asmal originally proposed the merger there was a great deal of concern (on part of TSA especially) that it really be a merger and not a takeover. So keeping the old Unisa name would be politically incorrect (though desirable, I agree).

 

The original story is archived in the ANC daily news summary at http://www.anc.org.za/anc/newsbrief/2002/news0110.txt

New story in today's Mail & Guardian: Asmal committing a 'travesty of justice'. (Again, this link will be no good tomorrow.) Unisa has applied to the High Court to set aside "this decision, or alternatively, its implementation."

 

That sounds more African than UNISA and Technikon and I am sure that many Africans won't have any problem with the name.

 

Point taken. And it's a good one.

I am concerned, however, that they don't throw away the good part of their history along with the bad. Unisa was South Africa's first university, founded in 1873 and granted its Royal Charter in 1877. It has focused entirely on distance education since 1946, and was the first full university in the world to focus entirely on DL, predating upstarts such as Open University by decades.

I hope the university doesn't get too distracted by the political machinations and too diluted by the mergers to fulfill its continuing promise.

Incidentally, in a separate thread John Bear found a report of a Nigerian with surname Olusa, and asked if the word had any meaning. Does it?

 

Unisa to tackle Asmal's merger plans in court

 

Of course it does. I am a Nigerian (Ibo) but Olusa is basically a Yoruba word (Timmy Ade can help me with this).Olu means any of the following: God, god, king, ruler, etc. So Olusa could mean God's own, king's own, God's help etc. In Ibo, Olisa means God.

 

UNISA has published a "position statement" regarding their opposition to the acceleration of the plans to merge the three institutions. It contains an interesting description of the chain of events (obviously from the UNISA perspective). You'll find it at: http://www.unisa.ac.za/0110.html
Jack

 

Great link. Thanks Jack.

An interesting aspect of this battle between Education Minister Kader Asmal and Unisa, is that Asmal actually has a soft spot for Unisa. He got his Bachelor's degree from Unisa, while working as a teacher in Natal. Asmal went on to teach Law at Trinity College, Dublin (the legitimate Trinity College!) for 27 years. He was ultimately Dean of Arts at Trinity College, before returning to South Africa about a dozen years ago.

 

I'm a foreigner living half-way around the world, but I certainly get the impression that this reorganization is being rushed. Merging three large bureaucracies, creating new offices, officers and responsibilities, needs to be planned in detail and carefully implemented.

I have some questions:

What benefits are there to merging the institutions? Are there really large savings to be had from eliminating duplication? Will it make UNISA's assets and expertise available to the less well endowed schools, thus helping to upgrade their offerings?

How will they be organized, once they are merged? Will they be totally folded into one another? Or will each of the three retain some kind of independent identity?

The University of California is technically one university, but its different campuses (Berkeley, Davis etc.) have separate identities and are essentially separate universities.

Am I wrong when I see politics at the heart of this? It seems at least in part to be an attempt to seize control of UNISA and to replace its management under the guise of reorganization. If there is any truth to that, how deeply will the upheaval spread? Will large numbers of current faculty lose their jobs?

I have always admired UNISA, but its bureaucracy was tough to deal with at the best of times, at least for those of us outside SA. This turmoil could make it collapse entirely, as far as student support goes.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't consider enrolling with them until the dust clears and OLUSA's new form is apparent.

 

Well, I'm afraid that I don't have many answers. It's one of those stories that I've been semi-following as it has occurred to me that I might wind up at UNISA (OLUSA) someday. It's difficult to tell who the "good guys" are in this whole development but it looks like it will come to head soon. Here's an article from the Mail and Guardian that might illuminate things a bit for you. http://www.mg.co.za/mg/za/news.html#strife
Jack

 

I don’t know the answers to your questions, especially the ones about how the merged universities will be organized. I don’t think that we’ll see a federation like the UC system – VUDEC in particular (along with the rest of Vista University) seems definitely intended to disappear (with the 8 other campuses of Vista merged into other universities).

As far as the benefits of merging, here are a few that come to mind:

1. Although TSA and Unisa are each already huge, further economies of scale and scope are sought. In particular, the nature of distance learning is changing as information and communications technologies advance. Adoption of these technologies is a challenge in South Africa, where most people lack the income necessary to purchase personal computers and the like. So there is a strong desire to roll out new technology in a measured way (e.g. consistent technology used for programs from TSA, Unisa, Vudec) and to enable widespread use of the technology through a nationwide system of learning centers to support students.
   
2. I mentioned South Africa’s “certificate sham” (similar to “degree mill”) scandal in another thread. This was a result of for-profit organizations exploiting the demand for higher education by introducing non-wonderful distance education programs. Although Unisa and TSA were not involved in the scandal in any way, I think the current push to consolidate and control distance programs is in part a backlash against this recent history.
   
3. There’s a desire to ensure that historically-disadvantaged institutions and population groups are given an opportunity to compete on a level field with the historically-advantaged. So, as Bill intimated, one of the goals is to ensure that the country’s expertise and experience in distance education is exploited as broadly as possible.
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Merger to be postponed by 2 months if Unisa withdraws interdict application

 

Merger to be postponed by 2 months if Unisa withdraws interdict application

 

Another question:

Are these changes going to be restricted to just the three institutions named, UNISA, VUDEC and TSA? Or is this meant to eventually bring all of South African distance education under one roof?

Will it continue be possible for other DL providers to offer programs in competition with OLUSA? What will the implications for schools ranging from Potchefstroom to Zululand?