Two high-profile task teams set up to investigate racism at universities have been criticised for ”duplicating work” even before they have even started their inquiries.
Three weeks ago, Higher Education South Africa (Hesa), representing higher education institutions and rectors, announced an emergency working group after intense pressure from the public for the country’s academic managers to deal with racism at places of learning and teaching.
This week the Department of Education appointed a ministerial committee to look into the same issues.
Transformation and social cohesion at higher education institutions are the mandates of both teams, the Mail & Guardian has learned.
South African Human Rights Commission chairperson Jodi Kollapen questioned the need for the appointment of two task teams to look into the same problem. There would be an overlap in their operations.
”It’s logical that there should be a collaboration between the two task teams,” Kollapen said.
Education Minister Naledi Pandor announced on Monday that University of Cape Town academic Crain Soudien will chair the ministerial committee. He will be assisted by Olive Shisana of the Human Sciences Research Council and Sipho Seepe of the South African Institute of Race Relations, among others.
The ministerial committee will focus on the ”progress towards transformation and social cohesion and the elimination of discrimination in public higher education institutions”, the Department of Education said. It will also identify implications for other sectors of the education system.
Sources close to Hesa have said that the ministerial task team is not representative of ”Afrikaner culture”, asking why there is no Afrikaner representative on it to promote diversity.
University of South Africa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana heads the Hesa working group. Other members include Derek Swartz (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), Frederick Fourie of the University of the Free State (UFS), Calie Pistorius (University of Pretoria) and Roy du Pre (Durban University of Technology).
Hesa chief executive Duma Malaza said the working group would advise the organisation on mechanisms to monitor and promote good relations on campuses. He said Hesa would consider all relevant information emerging from the UFS incident to address the issue.
The racially motivated video made it clear that something had to be done urgently on campuses, Kollapen said.
The appointment of the two committees follows the recent national and international outrage over the video produced by four students from UFS. It showed five elderly staff cleaners at the university being tricked into eating food that had been urinated into by white male students in a mock residential integration exercise.
The South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) welcomed the appointment of the ministerial committee, but railed against the Hesa initiative as ”hypocritical and suspicious”.
Sasco questioned the credibility of Hesa’s emergency working group: ”Why should vice-chancellors decide on a peer-review mechanism parallel to the one of government? Why did they wait until now? What are the intentions of the vice-chancellors? Where was their leadership all along?”
Malaza and Pityana met on March 2 to finalise the date for the first meeting and the terms of reference for the Hesa working group. Soudien and Pandor have been scheduled to meet on April 4 in Pretoria for the same reason.