On the eve of a Cabinet meeting at which the ”reconfiguration” of higher education is to be discussed, technikon heads on Tuesday expressed concern about rumoured plans to do away with their institutions.
”Rumoured moves within certain circles within the Department of Education seek to obliterate the technikon system by proposing that all technikons merge with universities,” the Committee of Technikon Principals said in a statement.
Education Minister Kader Asmal first presented his proposals to Cabinet two weeks ago.
In a statement after that meeting, Cabinet said it was in broad agreement with the proposals, but wanted more work done on some matters. This included addressing the matter of ”structural reconfiguration”.
Asked to elaborate, Cabinet representative Joel Netshitenzhe said this included issues of equity and the alignment of university programmes with the government’s human resource development strategy. Asmal’s proposals differed in a number of respects from the original proposals on the merging of institutions, he said.
A national working group on the restructuring of higher education published its report earlier this year. It envisaged the reduction of the sector from 36 to 21 institutions, mostly through mergers of existing ones.
In its statement on Tuesday, the Committee of Technikon Principals said: ”In one fell swoop the technikon sector would be reduced from 15 to seven ‘pure’ technikons… This is alarming because of the grave implications it has for the provision of human resources with middle to high-level technological skills and the matter of access to education”.
The committee said technikons were unique due to their career-focused, hands-on approach.
”Embedded in the nature of technikon education is compulsory experiential training which provides technikon students with relevant work experience. This enables students to ‘hit the ground’ running when they enter the work-place.”
The technikon curriculum was geared to produce job-creators, instead of just job-seekers, the statement said.
The National Plan for Higher Education released in March last year had identified technikons as crucial to its aim of increasing access to higher education.
”Technikons attract most of their students from the historically disadvantaged communities and the rural areas. To cut down the number of technikons would deal a severe blow to the thousands who are already finding it difficult to gain access to higher education…”
The national working group included no representative from technikons, the committee said.
”Even more alarming is a view floating around the Department of Education to wipe out technikons by merging all technikons with universities, and thereby creating a new higher education landscape consisting of 12 to 14 universities in total…
”As improbable as it may sound, influential members of the department have seriously touted this as the ‘final’ solution, and these are the persons surrounding and advising the minister on the future reconfiguration of the higher education sector.”
The number of technikons should be increased. In all developed and developing countries, technikon-type institutions outnumbered traditional universities, the committee said.
If Asmal’s proposals to Cabinet indeed included a reduction of the number of technikons, the committee would try to persuade the minister otherwise, the statement said. – Sapa