Toil and trouble in the cauldron of the University of the North. Ann Eveleth reports on the issues
UNIVERSITY of the North students returned to classes last week after a three-week boycott over an issue directly affecting about 300 of the 14 500 students.
But a tangled web of conflicting views over transformation remains – and further conflict looms.
Transformation may mean different things to different people, but a common goal in South Africa is the reform of apartheid-era institutions to reflect democracy and non- racialism.
While the road to transformation has been turbulent for the University of the North, it is not alone: other campuses, including Wits, the University of Durban-Westville, the University of Cape Town, Fort Hare and many others are, or have been, experiencing similar problems.
At the University of the North, discord between students and the management of vice-chancellor Njabulo Ndebele – who lost out in last year’s contest to lead Wits – over the withdrawal of a Higher Education Diploma course for students still completing their primary degrees has been brewing for some time. Last month this relatively minor dispute mushroomed into full-scale confrontation complete with demonstrations, sit-ins and suspensions.
Criminal charges are threatened against the strike’s alleged “ringleaders”, and relations between management and most of the campus’s constituencies are in a shambles.
The shutdown was the second incident this year in which Turfloop campus – once at the forefront of transformation in university education – has been brought to a halt by a relatively minor issue. In February, the dispute was about financial exclusions.
Students have lost more than five weeks of instruction in the first five months of the year.
Four issues are behind the dispute.
1. Transformation: Students and the Broad Transformation Committee (BTC) – now generally known as Broad Transformation Forums – accuse Ndebele of stalling transformation. This is at the heart of the troubles.
In February, the committee ousted Ndebele as its convenor, claiming he failed to call meetings and relied instead on the senate – a body they say is dominated by “old-guard academics” and whose powers are inflated by the 1969 Act still governing the university.
“When we talk about transformation, management tries to stall things on the grounds of this 1969 Act,” says Students’ Representative Council (SRC) president Gilbert Kganyago. “The first thing that needs to happen is the democratisation of structures of governance.”
That started in 1991 when the university led the country in forming its BTC, which in 1992 appointed a new council. In 1993, there was wide involvement, albeit not agreement, in Ndebele’s selection. However, the committee has now set its sights on the senate.
Ndebele denies the senate is conservative: “Significant numbers of senate members are committed to this institution and to transformation. The senate composition does need to change, but this can only be done when the Act is amended.”
Ndebele, who also leads the Committee of University Principals, says he supports government recommendations on Broad Transformation Forums, but warns they are not a substitute for “professional leadership”.
He says: “The BTC is only an advisory body. It is not a statutory body on academic matters – these decisions still belong to the faculty boards and the senate and the management must be allowed to manage the university.”
BTC convenor Arnold Msimeki disagrees: “It appears the senate is dragged in when council takes a decision that is not favoured by management. We still need to transform governing structures from the top.
“The BTC should lead this transformation. It should be a policy-formulation body, a troubleshooter and a forum for reconciliation between different constituencies. The BTC is the university Parliament where all stakeholders can speak to one another.”
2. Curriculum: The next issue likely to inflame the transformation debate is the long-awaited curriculum reform. Students say this should reflect the “new national ethos”.
“We should be involved in discussions on what kind of courses we want to take, what kind of material we want to learn and even how many lecture rooms we have,” says SRC secretary general Ishmail Malale.
Ndebele agrees the curriculum “needs to be totally revamped”, discussions are already taking place.
But he and senior academics might again anger students and the BTC. “Stakeholders will have ample opportunity to interject their views when the recommendations are fed back into the faculties,” says Ndebele, but argues that this responsibility lies with the faculty boards and the senate.
“After [proposals] are drawn up there would be no harm in asking for the views of the BTC, but decisions like how many lecture halls to have require a high degree of professionalism. I doubt that any of the students has the capacity to take such decisions.”
3. Staff: The BTC traces the lag in curriculum development to another simmering conflict – between management, the senate and the Concerned Lecturers and Academic Support Services Group. This group of junior lecturers claims to carry more than its share of academic responsibilities, but lacks recognition or senate representation.
“There is a tendency to ignore that this campus was created to produce people to run the bantustans,” Msimeki says. “Most of the course offerings are from the old order and the people who are supposed to lead the curriculum changes – the doctors and professors – are just not there. It is their juniors coming up who are pushing for transformation.”
The group’s vice-chair Tsitso Moalusi, a junior industrial psychology lecturer, says its demands centre on staff development, senate representation and faster transformation.
“Although we are called junior lecturers, many of us have higher qualifications than those who are called senior lecturers. We teach most of the classes, and while the professors are supposed to mentor junior lecturers, masters and PhD students and publish articles, they do very little of it,” says Moalusi.
Ndebele concedes the mentoring process has fallen behind, but blames this – and many other campus shortcomings – on lack of capacity. “We have changed the promotion requirements so it is virtually impossible to get promoted without proving you have done mentoring, but our departments still lack the capacity to monitor the situation.
“In the old system, many of the basic procedures and processes of the university came to a halt, so we are virtually rebuilding a university from nothing. That’s why transformation is such a long process.”
4. Higher Education Diploma: The diploma saga demonstrates the practical level on which these ideological differences play out.
Ndebele says the senate resolved in 1995 to drop the diploma course for non-graduate students, because: “The students couldn’t cope. Only 40% were passing and there were logistical problems around scheduling. The SRC agreed to this decision in 1995, but this year the SRC has been campaigning for the students to be registered.”
But the SRC’s Malale says the diploma issue is hardest on poor students with one degree course to complete: “We come from working- class backgrounds and we cannot afford to study for a whole year if we’re not taking a full load.”
The matter is still unresolved: though the council last week overruled the senate’s refusal to allow students to register for the course, a senate meeting this week asked the council to reconsider its position. If the council agrees, the issue will go back to square one with possible implications for further conflict.
“The BTC feels the diploma issue is not a matter that should have brought the university to a halt if proper lines of communication were open … It just shows we have a long way to go to transform this university,” says the BTC’s Msimeki.