Turfloop University closed early this week amid student strife. Philippa Garson asks what has gone wrong
WHEN Njabulo Ndebele took up his position as vice-chancellor of the University of the North over two years ago, he was glowing with optimism about the institution’s future, believing not only in its “tremendous potential”, but wanting “to be a part of the process tapping that potential”.
Now, service staff are on strike, the university is closed and a vociferous band of students has united against him and is demanding his resignation. Where did this acclaimed author and educationist go wrong, if he went wrong at all? Were the problems faced by one of the country’s poorest univerities simply too huge for one person — even an individual of Ndebele’s calibre — to surmount? Or are the students simply seizing on the only available scapegoat to vent growing frustration over their dire financial straits?
Amid increasing tensions on campus last week, with students protesting outside Ndebele’s office, the university has closed prematurely — a week before vacation was due to begin.
SRC president Musa Zuma told the Mail & Guardian that “students feel dissatisfied with Ndebele’s service and believe the institution has not been running properly”.
Some students accuse Ndebele of travelling too much and of not being available to tackle their problems.
“Had he been physically present daily to address the problems of the institution perhaps we would not be where we are. Even when he is present he is unavailable. We find this unacceptable. When we need his advice and direction he is not there,” said Zuma.
“We are not averse to him travelling to raise funds and project the image of our institution, but as the principal, he has to see to our problems. Our grievances are not directed at him as a person but to his office.”
Also a thorn in the side of the students is the fact that Ndebele has been short-listed as one of three candidates for the post of vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town for 1996. What irks them is that “we found out about it in the press”.
As South African Students Congress (Sasco) national president David Makhura put it, “the students feel they have been deserted by Ndebele. The problem at Turfloop is there is no back-up staff. When he is not there, the campus is left without a leader.”
But Sasco’s national office does not support the calls for his resignation. “Our position is that he should stay and deal with the problems at Turfloop. If he leaves, who will replace him? He will be leaving the campus on the brink of disaster,” said Makhura.
The SRC and local Sasco branch are also demanding the resignation of Ndebele’s assistant, John Wiltshire, whom they accuse of sowing division among striking university workers.
“As students, we need our demands met. Those people prohibiting progress of the university should move out of the way,” said Zuma, adding that Ndebele’s commitment to the transformation of the university had been called into question.
One of the students’ major grievances is the alleged administrative bungling over the distribution of bursary funds allocated by the Tertiary Education Fund of South Africa (Tefsa). Students claim that R800 000 of the R15-million allocated to the university this year was returned to Tefsa, despite the fact that 4 500 students are only provisionally registered because they cannot pay their fees.
Ndebele told the Mail & Guardian that calls for his resignation had “come out of the blue”. He said students had given no prior warning before he was dragged off to the university stadium last week to hear their demands. “I would have preferred the students to come and talk to me about it first.”
Ndebele said he would not resign unless Council ratified the students’ demands at an emergency meeting scheduled for this weekend.
He said he had “vigorously pursued a strategic planning process of the university” to ensure that all stakeholders were represented and to bring about “shared values” on campus. The issue of his travel had been explained at a transformation meeting in June where all student groups were present. “I clarified that the purpose of a chief executive of an institution like this is to play a public relations excercise, to fundraise and provide executive direction to the institution.”
Ndebele said the management structure of the university had been streamlined with unnecessary posts abolished and a new management tier created which would be in “charge of the day-to-day running of the university”. Several of the new positions still had to be filled.
Today’s technology and the presence of a new management tier implied, he said, “that I should not be missed when not on campus”.
Ndebele said students had to understand that changing the university would take several years. It was unfortunate, he said, that leading academics visiting the campus as a result of his recent trip to the United States arrived to find the university closed in the wake of the disruptions.
The enormous problems experienced by the financial aid department were being addressed, with recommendations from a highly qualified financial aid officer from the University of Chicago who visited the university to be implimented. Ndebele said he had not applied for the UCT position, but was nominated. “The fact that I have been short-listed means that I will have to think about the position carefully.”
Wiltshire said an investigation into student affairs showed that the SRC had overspent its budget, that a student leader had used a forged document on an SRC letterhead to pay his own fees, and that further “cases of suspected corruption” would be investigated. He said that through his travels, Ndebele had succeeded in raising millions of rands for the university and had established links with many universities and government agencies abroad.
* Fort Hare University also closed a week early, with students boycotting classes to protest against scheduled fee increases for next year; Mangosuthu Technikon reopened this week after closing for 10 days when students demanded the expulsion of three allegedly racist lecturers; Unisa has recently reopened after tensions between staff and students over the “unilateral” restructuring of the university led to its temporary closure; and students and striking workers clashed at Pretoria University this week, leaving four people injured.