South Africa: 15 institutions to be axed

South African government plans to eliminate 15 of the current 36 institutions of higher learning. 11 universities and 4 "comprehensive institutions" (that fulfill a combined university and technikon role) will remain.

The plan will be officially gazetted next week.

15 institutions face axe in Asmal's plan

 

What South Africa needs are *more* higher education institutions, not fewer.

It seems to me that advanced nations have at least two universities per million people. The UK with 56 million has upwards of 112 universities, California with 36 million has at least 72.

Assuming 40 million for SA, that would give a target of 80 universities. Given SA's lower per-capita wealth, the current 36 might be more realistic, but as a minimum level.

But even more than universities, what SA really needs are institutions patterned after American community colleges. The need is for trades and vocational schools with open admissions policies. Besides teaching a vocational skill, the school can provide remedial secondary-level work for adult students, and perhaps the beginning classes in a university transfer program of some kind.

I'd think that you would need lots of these places, since you would want to locate them where people live. So SA needs at least as many community colleges (technikons) as California (with a similar population) provides. That's 100 or so.

If the current SA government really wants to serve the country's black majority, it should be thinking about bringing people realistic opportunities to improve their lives. And this has to be done as quickly as possible.

My question is: How in the world are the nation's educational administrators supposed to concentrate on bringing education to the people when none of them knows if they will have a job in six months? Every higher education administrator in South Africa will be totally fixated on his or her place on the new organizational charts, and their poor suffering students will be forgotten entirely.

 

Here is Kader Asmal's statement.

See also:

Transformation and Reconstruction of the Higher Education System.
Snippet:

• The provision of distance education in contact institutions will also be regulated as part of the programme and qualification profile process. No new programmes would be approved unless they address identified national and/or regional needs and do not duplicate or overlap with programmes offered by the dedicated distance education institution to be established through the merger of the University of South Africa, Technikon South Africa and the distance education campus of Vista University. Furthermore, institutions would not be allowed to continue with existing programmes if they do not comply with the above criteria.

A New Institutional Landscape for Higher Education in South Africa.
Snippets relevant to this board:

• The University of Pretoria will be retained as a separate institution, incorporating the Mamelodi campus of Vista University.
  ...
  The Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education and the University of the North-West will be merged.
  ...
  The University of Zululand will refocus its mission and become a comprehensive institution offering technikon-type programmes as well as a limited number of relevant university-type programmes, with its future growth linked to the Richards Bay region.
  ...
  The University of Stellenbosch will be retained as a separate institution.

 

A couple of clarifications:

• No campuses are being closed. But some independent campuses are being merged with other institutions.
  
• The documents cited in my post above are similar to those I cited earlier in the year, but these are dated 30 May 2002 and have a few differences --e.g. Fort Hare and Rhodes will remain independent, whereas RAU and Technikon Witwatersrand will now merge.
  
• One change that may affect a few people on this board is that the Dept. of Education is planning to take steps to reduce the percentage of students in the "humanities" (currently 40%). How they will address this issue remains to be seen.

 

Are they planning to change the name of any of the merged institutions. Is there any discrimination against Afrikaaner schools, language, or programs?

North

 

There has been considerable recent debate about the name of the "Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education" and the languages of instruction. Decisions made were:

• To retain the "Christian Higher Education" part of the university's name.
• To retain Afrikaans as the primary language for face-to-face programs.
• To retain English as the primary language for distance programs, with Afrikaans introduced when appropriate.

These are all off the top of my head, because I can't access www.puk.ac.za this evening. If you can get to the web site you should find a discussion of this. I'm not sure whether this is subject to change when the universities are merged.

 

A massive triumph for Asmal.

This article from Mail & Guardian has a nice summary of the plan.

 

The web site is accessible this morning, and the relevant article is: PUK's name and foundation currently unchanged.

 

Statement from Potchefstroom following Dept. of Education announcement yesterday: PUK and UNW already looking at consortium cooperation.

About the name and language of merged university:

• With reference to the name of the PUK, a task group was appointed last week during the PUK's strategic planning to investigate all possibilities and to take external factors, such as proposed merging into account.
  
  Concerning the university's language policy, the decision is generally in accordance with the recently accepted strategy at the university to take multilingualism into consideration. Decisions will have to be made on which areas are to be considered as "strategic and high cost". This report and its recommendations present the PUK with interesting and unique challenges, which will be addressed in a constructive and positive manner.

 

Education shake-up faces rocky road.

The Association of Historically Disadvantaged Tertiary Institutions has scheduled a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki next week to complain about the plan approved by South African Cabinet earlier this week.

 

Thanks for the updates. It is very interesting. One of the great things about this board is the wealth of perspectives from different disciplines and from the international perspective.

North

 

SA Universities Vice-Chancellors Association (Sauvca) generally supportive of government plan: Co-operation is key say university heads.

 

As South Africa continues to implode from uncontrolled lawlessness, it seems that if they can just maintain what they have, then they'll be doing good. Maintaining their infrastructure is a miracle unto itself. It could all easily come crashing down... to include their educational infrastructure... and then nothing will remain... except a factional government with tribal factions that continue to wage war for control of "the power."

What is going on over there is very sad.

 

When this last round of articles came up, I quickly wrote to my contact at UNIZUL, Dr Myrtle Hooper of the English Dept. I asked her about UNIZUL being transformed into a Technikon, etc. This was her reply,

"Yep, you're right in your reading of the restructuring proposals, but we think they're a little less drastic than threatened! since despite the rhetoric there are some places that have been "left untouched". UZ is turning into a comprehensive institution with a majority of technikon-type courses plus a proportion of university-type courses. What that means in practice will need to be thrashed out, I guess - the council (on which I'm a senate rep) is off to a jolly strategic planning workshop on 14-16th June, so perhaps we'll find out a bit then. The plan makes provision for a couple of other comprehensive institutions round the country, but the rest have been created by merging existing technikons with existing universities, so UZ is on rather new ground. In the merger stuff I've read there are clauses guaranteeing things for existing students, so I don't think our current students will be affected. "

clint

 

Black University Principals in Last Bid to Convey Message to Mbeki.

 

Mbeki Moves to Pacify Black Universities

Snippet:

• ... It is understood that his move is intended to build consensus between government and the education sector, rather than signalling looming changes to Asmal's plans.
  ...
  The education department is expected to publish government's proposals later this week. According to the Higher Education Act, this must be followed by a three-month window period to allow for public comment. It will then go to cabinet for final approval.

 

The university heads have been hitting at Asmal, so now he's fighting back: Concern over pay packages.

Snippet:

• Kader Asmal says he is to ask for a probe into the hefty pay packages enjoyed by the heads of some tertiary institutions. ...

Politics as usual...

 

Asmal given 2 weeks to justify university plan.

Snippet:

• The Education Minister has been given a two week deadline. Within a fortnight Kader Asmal will have to to convince President Thabo Mbeki that his higher education plan is in line with government's programme to address regional inequities. ...

 

Gert

I keep coming back to this and similar threads and I ask myself what is going on here? Is this an African solution to a perceived problem that no one else can understand? Educate me.

I don't understand what an historically disadvantaged school is. I understand what historically disadvantaged people are.

The Canadian solution to being a disadvantaged whatever is to pour money into it, money being a commodity in short supply in South Africa.

Is the true solution to the perceived problem better funding? Conversely, lacking funds, a reorganization will make do.

An historically black school would soon gain new respect if it had research grants, scholarships and well paid academic staff. Turnarounds happen in schools everywhere, why not South Africa.

 

Gotta agree with your concerns; when we talked about historically disadvantaged schools in Mississippi, what happened--granted that it took 27 years, but it happened--was that the HBCUs got increased levels of funding consistent with the more "established" historically white schools so, for example, Jackson State and Alcorn may one day be as well-known as Ole Miss and State. What I see with the South African proposal is: Hey, let's have the white schools simply absorb the black schools, and get rid of their identity altogether. Is there any black school that is going through this change without having its status somehow fundamentally altered in a way that gives it less autonomy? Even UNISA, here again, is going through the embarrassing name change and, as has been pointed out, the presumed status change to an open university; and they seem to be itching to turn Zululand into a technikon in a country where the technikons are theoretically being abolished. I guess this will give more black college students some "white" resumes, but I don't see why they couldn't have also given a few white college students some "black" resumes.


Cheers,