David Macfarlane
The South African Universities Vice-Chancellors’ Association (Sauvca) announced this week that it has secured the support of all universities for a code of conduct to regulate partnerships between public and private providers of higher education.
New Sauvca chairperson Professor Njabulo Ndebele says Sauvca wants to build good relationships with the private sector.
“There has been a gap here: we haven’t given enough attention to this area. I will myself devote a great deal of time to this.”
“We do want a role with private providers,” says Sauvca CEO Piyushi Kotecha, “but as public higher education institutions we have to assume the primary responsibility for quality assurance.”
The role of private providers sprang to controversial prominence last year when the Ministry of Education imposed a moratorium on new programmes of study offered in partnership between public and private institutions. Private providers were outraged and accused the government of unfairly protecting public institutions, which had been experiencing alarming declines in student enrolment for some years.
Relations between the government and private providers were further strained when the National Plan for Higher Education, which the government unveiled in February, announced the government’s intention to strengthen registration and accreditation procedures for private providers. The Ministry of Education is expected to release a new set of regulations covering private education soon.
Sauvca’s code of conduct is especially significant for its engagement with the national plan’s charge sheet of reservations about public/private partnerships. The code says all students in programmes offered through such partnerships will enjoy full and normal rights of students in public institutions. This answers the national plan’s concern that, for example, not all students in such programmes enjoy access to university facilities.
The code also says that if a private provider can no longer perform its role, the public institution will assume full responsibility for delivery of the programme, or arrange for student fees to be reimbursed. This answers the plan’s observation that “there appears to be very little protection afforded to students in the event that the partnership agreement is terminated or revoked”.
Kotecha says the code will be sent to the Ministry of Education and the Alliance of Private Provi-ders of Education, Training and Development. She expects private providers to welcome the code.