The man who exposed the `Verwoedian’ methods of Unisa’s education faculty now faces disciplinary action. Pat Sidley reports
AFTER 25 years of editing and translating University of South Africa (Unisa) study guides, Sam van den Berg blew the whistle on the “morally outrageous” material the correspondence university was providing to education students.
As a result, Unisa this week announced the redesign of its education faculty curricula and all the material it provides to the 18 000 students in its courses.
But within an hour of this announcement, Unisa officials informed Van den Berg that he would face disciplinary measures for misconduct — a charge that could cost him his job.
Last week, the Weekly Mail & Guardian exposed the “Verwoedian” lessons still being taught to would-be teachers, many of them black, by the education faculty.
Van den Berg was by then in deep trouble, having been singled out by Unisa principal Marinus Wiechers, who insisted to the WM&G that Van den Berg must be its source of information.
This was a point Wiechers raised again at a press conference this week, when he told journalists that Van den Berg, with colleague Stephen Hayes, had been responsible for the press coverage — adding that he would not impede the right to freedom of expression of anybody who wished to go to the press.
Wiechers was surrounded at the press conference by the commissioners of the all-white male and Afrikaans internal inquiry called to decide the future of education teaching. He announced that significant changes would be made to the faculty’s courses and teaching — and that the faculty itself would handle the changes.
“It would … be unthinkable that the faculty of education does not assume the responsibility to lead our reform.” It was “certainly not a place of resurrection of past apartheid ideologies,” he said.
Despite the display for the press of an intimation of changes to come and the vague hint of enlightenment, as the press headed off to meet deadlines, Van den Berg, a normally reticent man who shies away from publicity, received a letter which could spell the end of a long and solid career at Unisa.
The department he heads carries out most of the editing and translation of all material sent out to
130000 students. This was why he found it so important eventually to intervene. The editorial department provides the last chance for quality control before educational material goes out to students.
Van den Berg was finding some of that material, often from the education faculty, beyond the pale. His own dissatisfaction had grown over the past 10 to 15 years but it was only in the past five years that he and a group of colleagues had stepped up their challenge, both to the faculty of education and to the university.
After years of discussions, it became clear to him last year that the talk was going nowhere. He’d sat back for a while when Wiechers became Unisa principal, believing he would carry the fight forward. But nothing had changed.
When the university began to register the 1995 education-student intake, Van den Berg said he realised the faculty had no real desire to change itself drastically.
He was, he said, “morally outraged” that 18 000 students should be sacrificed for the sake of the education faculty’s staff. So he told the faculty that he did not want to edit or translate its work any longer.
It was this move, he believes, which has brought upon him the wrath of the principal.
Although this was not made explicit to him, Wiechers confirmed to the WM&G that the reason for the disciplinary hearing related to this issue and that “it involved insurbordination”.
The letter, sent to Van den Berg once the journalists had left the campus, told him that the university had received written and signed complaints about him as head of department.
Wiechers had concluded, said the letter, that there were grounds for a charge of misconduct. Accordingly, a disciplinary committee had been convened and he would be told what the charges were “in due course”.
Wiechers said the timing of the letter was coincidental, and that the issue had been building up over time. He did not want to comment on whether Van den Berg was being victimised as he would be chairing the hearing and it would be up to Van den Berg to raise the issue himself if he believed it.