Power struggles at the huge university are jeopardising distance education in South Africa
David Macfarlane
The future of distance education in South Africa hangs in the balance following extraordinary turmoil at Unisa this week.
The shock resignation of Unisa vice-chancellor Professor Antony Melck exposes massive power struggles at the country’s largest university. Events leading to Melck’s resignation raise disturbing questions about Unisa’s commitment at its highest levels of governance to playing the crucial part defined for it in the government’s national education plan.
At the centre of the turmoil is yet again the controversial chair- person of the Unisa council, advocate McCaps Motimele, who appears to have declared war not only against many of his own council but against the government as well.
Human Rights Commission chairperson Dr Barney Pityana is now on a shortlist of two for the vice-chancellorship. The other candidate is Unisa vice-principal Professor Simon Maimela.
But worried educationists say Motimele’s “autocratic and irresponsible” reign is jeopardising the institution’s pending merger with Technikon SA (TSA) and Vista University’s Distance Education Centre (Vudec) a merger that is a central pillar of the government’s national education plan released in March.
Unisa has always served the poorest of the poor, and has 170 000 students currently registered about a third of all university students in the country. Its history stretches back to 1873, when it opened as the University of the Cape of Good Hope.
Distance education has changed beyond all recognition from the days of correspondence courses. New technologies and methodologies make this form of teaching and learning a potent force in world education. The government’s national education plan envisages a single, dedicated distance education institution with “a formidable infrastructure and array of technical expertise”.
Melck told the Mail & Guardian he “initially agreed to a shorter term [than the usual five years] as vice-chancellor, because of my commitment to transformation at Unisa”. But circumstances then changed, he says: the impending merger with Vudec and TSA led to Minister of Education Kader Asmal formally urging Unisa earlier this year not to appoint a new vice-chancellor for now.
“I indicated I’d be happy to stay,” Melck says, “but I received no response [from the council] to this offer.” Unisa sources say that recent council minutes merely record the council’s determination to press ahead and appoint a new vice-chancellor very soon.
“I think it’s shameful we’ve come to this,” says Franklin Sonn, chairperson of the working group Asmal appointed to oversee the merger of Unisa, Vudec and TSA.
“The structures [some council members] are defending are apartheid ones they can’t be defended at all costs just to preserve fiefdoms. That amounts to holding a very big vision for the country the national education plan to ransom … Antony Melck is outstanding it’s terrible that he’s left. Unisa’s loss is the University of Pretoria’s gain [Melck takes up a post there next month].”
At a hastily convened press con- ference on Thursday, Motimele said that when Melck accepted the vice-chancellorship, “he had been fully aware it was only for two years and that in the third year the position would be re-advertised … This year the position was advertised in April. Professor Melck had not re-applied and therefore had not been considered for the post when it became vacant.”
The M&G understands that this is far from the full picture: Motimele’s statement makes no reference to Asmal’s specific request that no new appointment be made and that Melck continue in office until the merger is well under way. Motimele refused to speak to the M&G telephonically on Tuesday, asking that questions be faxed to him. He had not responded to these questions when the M&G went to press.
Councils are the highest decision-making bodies of universities and technikons. By law at least 60% of council members must be outsiders: they are usually high-profile business people and other professionals.
Motimele has been stalked by controversy since his appointment to the helm of Unisa’s council nearly two years ago. Senior female staff members have accused him of sexual harassment: legal action is still pending in one case, that of Professor Margaret Orr, who resigned from the council and the university, citing the alleged harassment as one of her reasons.
Motimele and other council members have also been accused of raking in ludicrous piles of money from their council activities Motimele about R360 000 a year and some other members R240 000. Council members at other universities offer their services free of charge.
M&G sources also say Motimele has been running Unisa as his own kingdom, involving himself in its daily running to a degree unheard of for a head of council, and building a formidable power base that seems little concerned with the welfare of the university or of distance education nationally.
This is evident in Motimele’s uncompromising rejection of the Higher Education Amendment Bill’s provisions concerning councils, sources say. When the provisions become law, they will empower the education minister to dissolve councils as a prelude to institutional mergers of the kind Unisa is facing. This would imperil Motimele’s power base and cash cow, sources explain.
Sources also finger Motimele as the smoking gun behind an “outrageous, almost libellous” 40-page response to Asmal’s request that, among other things, Unisa defer appointing a new vice-chancellor and put a moratorium on filling senior management posts. The response accuses Asmal of siding with Unisa staffers who are opposed to transformation.
The letter is the latest of Motimele’s and other council members’ playing of the race card, a tactic sources say has been remorselessly deployed: to oppose Motimele is to be racist. But council voting records do not support this charge, the M&G has been told.
The letter to Asmal so outraged some councillors that a motion was proposed in council involving an apology to Asmal. The vote tied at 9-9, and Motimele then cast his vote against an apology. But this division in the council which is repeatedly played out does not follow racial lines: those who oppose Motimele, for example, come from all racial groups.