Andy Duffy
The University of the Transkei (Unitra) is to embark on a massive reshape involving widespread job losses after a drop in its government funding.
Management plans include rebuilding and streamlining the university’s academic programme, merging operations, farming out non-core activities and cutting staff perks such as housing allowances.
The proposals follow a large cut in the subsidy Unitra is due to receive this year from the government – the main source of income for universities and technikons.
The university received a R112,4-million subsidy last year – 83,9% of its needs, according to a long-standing funding formula.
The Department of Education is aiming to keep tertiary institutions’ total subsidy level for 1998 on par with 1997’s figure, allowing for inflation.
But the department has told Unitra its subsidy this year will fall to just 64,3%. Unitra is waiting for the department to confirm the cash value of the new subsidy.
The department has limited additional funds available to Unitra, but these will only be released once the university has tabled a convincing academic and financial plan.
“We were concerned that we didn’t just give them the money without some commitment from them to do something,” one department insider says.
The department is adopting the same funding strategy for other former homeland campuses.
Unitra’s restructuring plans are being discussed with senior education department officials, and were released on the Umtata campus this week.
Unitra’s management says it has still to finalise retrenchment plans among its 1 300-strong staff. It wants to draw up cost-saving targets with individual departments.
But personnel costs account for more than 75% of its expenditure, and some departments are more than 30% overstaffed.
“Wages and salaries have consumed a disproportionate slice of our budget,” vice-chancellor Alfred Moleah told staff in a recent memo.
“[This] is unsustainable and untenable. Unless the restructuring process is instituted as a matter of extreme urgency, Unitra will be faced with a financial crisis within the next few months.”
Management negotiations with unions over the reshape and retrenchments will run for the next three months, with job cuts going through from June. Unitra wants its new academic programme finalised by October.
Moleah adds that Unitra management will consider alternative proposals tabled by affected workers during the negotiations.
“Not all aspects of our enterprise will be altered,” he told staff. “Some will be refocused, others will be improved.”
The institution was established in 1976, originally as a branch of the nearby University of Fort Hare.
It now operates six faculties, with 5 500 students expected to register for 1998.
Its planned reshape is in line with restructuring initiatives by universities and technikons across the country.
Years of decline in government subsidies have forced campuses to pull in their belts.
Heavy student debt, particularly among previously disadvantaged institutions, has also piled the pressure on management.
Unitra is carrying student debt of R11,8-million.
The government, however, has also recently raised the stakes, insisting campuses justify their claims to taxpayers’ money with evidence of long-term academic, management and financial planning.
Campuses engaged in reshaping include the universities of Pretoria, Natal, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Zululand and Fort Hare.
Minister of Education Sibusiso Bengu has also said some campuses will be closed or merged as the government undertakes a radical rethink of tertiary education needs.
Fort Hare, which has been restructuring in negotiation with the education department, has previously indicated it was considering merging operations with nearby institutions. Unitra management said this week it is not involved in any merger plans.