Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane The South African Universities Vice- Chancellors Association (Sauvca) this week rejected the heart of the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) recent recommendations for restructuring tertiary education. The core of the recommendations are that all institutions be re-arranged to create what Sauvca refers to as “a three-tier system”, one that it says would merely perpetuate existing inequalities – despite the CHE’s stated intentions to the contrary. Sauvca opposes such a system and communicated its rejection in a detailed report to Minister of Education Kader Asmal on Tuesday. While Sauvca says that it supports the CHE’s broad vision for restructuring higher education, it says the three-tier system is flawed on both educational and strategic grounds. It calls for negotiated mandates for differentiation of institutions based on academic programmes. Sauvca also argues for collaboration and sharing of resources among institutions. Sauvca says the CHE recommendations on combining institutions are poorly conceptualised, inadequately motivated and lack an operational plan; the whole question is handled in a superficial and partial manner, creating a great deal of unnecessary animosity. These particular recommendations, according to Sauvca, have already been damaging for those institutions committed to serious efforts of reconstruction and development.