/ 22 July 2016

Spiral of degeneration: If #FeesMustFall achieves its goal, quality will suffer

With no fee increases, universities stand to be more like other failed state institutions.
With no fee increases, universities stand to be more like other failed state institutions.

The #FeesMustFall movement was widely lauded as a repeat of the 1976 student uprising. Many commentators applauded the “bravery” of the “born-yesterday crowd” who took on the establishment 1976-style and won.

Some went on to cite Frantz Fanon, who said “each generation, out of relative obscurity, must discover its mission, fulfil it or betray it”, and argued that the current generation of youth have now discovered their real mission.

It was further argued that these students had achieved in 10 days what university leaders could not achieve in 10 years.

But that was only true in the sense that the students had brought universities to their knees in a shorter time than even the most incompetent university leader could do.

The movement fought for the downfall of fees and hinted that part of the bigger agenda was free education. But their demand was not new as it was simply a follow-up on the post-apartheid promise of free quality education made by the ruling party and the South African Communist Party.

The tail was now wagging the dog, as the adage goes. Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, who is general secretary of the SACP, has been a champion of free education and the students had timed it right. He was the right person to put into practice what he had preached for the best part of his political career.

But, in the bigger scheme of things, #Feesmustfall was largely influenced by the factional politics of the ANC. Nzimande, a communist, was being targeted by the ANC Youth League, an appendage of the so-called premier league, which comprises the premiers of Mpumalanga, Free State and North West, in a proxy succession battle of the ruling party.

The league, which has had running battles with Nzimande’s Young Communist League for some time, had found some alliances in the Economic Freedom Fighters Student Command and in the South African Student Congress. The Young Communist League, which was party to the protests, were hoodwinked into believing that the protests were about their agenda of free quality education. The stratagem of Nzimande’s nemesis in the ruling party had worked.

The government acceded to the demand for a freeze on fee increases for the 2016 academic year. Universities were instructed not to raise fees for the year and the state provided a temporary reprieve.

A commission of inquiry to investigate the feasibility of free education was established. But the universities find themselves between a rock and a hard place over whether to increase fees or not.

The student formations are generally of the view that there should be no further fee increases until the commission has completed its investigation on the possibility of free education.

But the commission itself has not begun its work, which it appears will start only next year. Universities are now in limbo. They need financial resources immediately to alleviate the pressures that comes with running a university, such as the ever-increasing costs of journals and books.

With the current foreign currency exchange rate being highly skewed against the rand, the costs of these resources have also skyrocketed.

Without these resources, universities will fail in their duty of providing both cutting-edge research and internationally competitive education.

They will become more mediocre, as will our nation. But, more importantly, the concept of a free, quality education will not be reached either, because quality would be severely compromised.

Just as the Zimbabwean government printed currency that then devalued, the universities will resort to printing degrees that will not be worth the paper they are printed on.

Another elephant in the room for higher education is the recent settlement over outsourcing. Many universities have agreed to insource security and cleaning personnel, thus adding more woes to their payroll. For the students, it was another victory. They were lauded by the public once again for having now succeeded where trade unions had failed.

The universities agreed to insourcing despite being fully aware that there are no financial resources available to sustain added personnel costs. But buildings have been torched, too, and some of the universities are crossing their fingers and praying that their insurance claims are successful and that there are no shortfalls.

Should the claims not be successful, universities may be left with two options. The first is they will have to try to find the money themselves, which, in all likelihood, without fee increases, they will be unable to. The second, more obvious, one is to have the students study under the trees and pray that it does not rain.

With no fee increases, universities are likely to be more like other failed state institutions such as the Post Office, SAA, the SABC and many others, which are forever begging for a bailout. We should look no further than the state of our no-fee schools.

A few years ago, I visited the Mankhole High School in Limpopo where I matriculated. It is now categorised as a no-fee school. It was in a state of disrepair when I visited and teachers pleaded with me to talk to the local branch of the basic education department. The paint was peeling. There were no toilets. Almost everything I set my eyes on was falling apart. They had been waiting for their annual funding for almost a year.

It confirmed the saying that “what belongs to everybody belongs to nobody”.

Those with money have now taken their children to better schools, where they happily pay hundreds of thousands of rands with no qualms. Thus, if universities continue on the no-fee trajectory, the same thing is bound to happen. The wealthy will take their children to overseas universities and the poor will be dispensed mediocre education.

Students, universities and the state are all in a dilemma. The state, like the universities, is in a crunch with competing social needs and a failing economy. The economy, with high levels of unemployment, has a negative effect on the source for the funds that students need for their studies. Some of our universities are already in “intensive care” because of the zero fee increase this year and a repeat of this might send them straight to the morgue.

To arrive at a sensible solution requires all these stakeholders to come to an understanding that, for the university machinery to perform, it needs to be oiled. And, unfortunately, the oil is fees.

Although 1976 marked, in a way, the culmination of intensified mobilisation and resistance against apartheid by the young lions, #FeesMustFall marked the beginning of the end of the concept of a university as we know it.

Lesiba Seshoka is the executive director of corporate relations at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity