Stefaans Brmmer
THAT former bastion of Afrikaner nationalist education, the University of the Free State, declared 1996 “MK year”. But the change of heart is not quite as radical as the name – usually short for the African National Congress army, Umkhonto weSizwe -suggests.
The university fathers (for it remains a university where most top positions are held by men, and white Afrikaans men at that) declared this year the year of multi- culturalism. MK is their Afrikaans abbreviation for “multi-cultural”.
The university has appointed its first black vice-rector, Professor Bernito Khotseng. He did not make it in the race to become the university’s new rector and vice-principal, although he was shortlisted.
The university, like Pretoria University, has taken its first halting steps towards transformation. No longer do they portray themselves as ideological homes of the Afrikaner. Phrases like “democratic inclusivity”, “service to the wider community” and “relevancy” are the buzz.
If black student enrolment is a measure of this transformation, both universities have paid more than lip service. The University of the Free State increased its black first- year intake from 8% in 1990 to 52% this year. Of the total student body, including post-graduates, 33% are black this year. Pretoria’s total black student component changed from 2% in 1990 to 23% this year.
Both universities have just elected new rectors – both Afrikaans white men. And in both instances, this elicited spirited opposition from black students, mainly from the ranks of the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco).
The Pretoria campus was trashed, while Sasco leaders in Bloemfontein said they had given the transformation process the benefit of the doubt for too long. They said they would meet soon to discuss a response, which might include sit-ins. In both cases the epithet “racist” was flung at the incumbent designate or at the university’s top management.
A Free State Sasco leader said the student movement was reconsidering its earlier stance of co-operation with management to transform the university: “They thought they could blindfold us … They said we should co-operate so that they could say the university has changed. But we don’t see any change; it is still dominated by white Afrikaners.”
Replied Free State rector-designate Professor Stef Coetzee: “I have quite a lot of understanding for the way they [Sasco students] feel. The new South Africa … raised expectations.”
His Pretoria counterpart, Professor Johan van Zyl, explained why the choice of a new rector had to take account of the historical baggage of a university: “One has to be careful. If one wants to transform, it is not just a case of the rector laying down a policy. The staff have to be taken along. They have to trust the rector, otherwise there will be no transformation.”
Both rectors-designate are relatively youthful over-achievers with a solid grounding in change management. Both are given to using motivational turns of phrase, like Coetzee’s oft-repeated “win-win situation”.
Ironically, their Afrikaans grounding may make it easier for them to take their traditional constituencies towards an acceptance that their universities now have a wider society to serve.
Both agree that the demands of transformation now imposed on Afrikaans universities differ little in many respects from those which they faced with the rise of Afrikaner nationalism in the first half of this century.
Then, as now, entrance qualifications were lowered and imaginative ways found to give advantage to the disadvantaged. Then they were Afrikaners; now they are black students, academics and administrators.
Said Coetzee: “There are remarkable similarities between the two nationalisms – Afrikaner nationalism and African nationalism. South Africa is being transformed again, but this time we have to look at the problems of the entire population. Then it was smaller in scope; it was focused on white Afrikaners.”
Coetzee, who specialises in development economics, has been vice-rector of Potchefstroom University since 1994. An Afrikaner Broederbonder until he resigned from the organisation five years ago, he now also chairs the economic advisory council of North-West Premier Popo Molefe.
Van Zyl, until now the dean of the Faculty of Biological and Agricultural Sciences at Pretoria, has done a stint with the World Bank, and has served on government bodies in South Africa, old and new. An expert in agricultural economics, he helped compile the new White Paper on agriculture. He was appointed assessor to the Land Claims Court this year.
Both rectors-designate see transformation as a top priority. Coetzee said universities were all about innovative thought and solutions: “That is why I find it strange that universities find it so difficult to change.”
Van Zyl is miffed at the “racist” label some have saddled him with. Perhaps he has reason: as dean of biological and agricultural sciences, he turned the faculty around from one despised by black students as a reserve for white farm interests to the place to go for black students.
In 1991, the faculty had less than 1% black students; now it is more than a quarter. Over 80% of black graduate students in the field in South Africa are enrolled in his faculty.