EDUCATION circles are simmering with speculation of high-level political buckling, following the Cabinet’s unexpected announcement this week that it will delay making a decision on controversial proposals for radically restructuring higher education.
At the same time, the government has been playing down the implications of the announcement, saying merely that the Cabinet needs ”more information” and ”more time for discussion”.
”If you believe that, you’ll believe anything,” says Professor Jonathan Jansen, dean of education at the University of Pretoria.
”The proposals have clearly been contested politically.”
”This is an astonishing moment in South African education,” says Professor George Subotsky, director of the University of the Western Cape’s Education Policy Unit. ”For reasons that are not exactly clear, what we were anticipating as a red-letter, key day on the education calendar has been postponed. It seems that tremendous political pressure has been brought to bear on the Cabinet.”
Minister of Education Kader Asmal was due to make what he called a ”ground-breaking announcement” on Thursday. This followed the release in February of his national working group’s (NWG) recommendations on restructuring higher education. The NWG proposed reducing the country’s 36 tertiary institutions to 21, mainly through mergers.
Among the more controversial recommendations were that six historically white universities remain untouched, while all historically black institutions would be merged with other institutions. Major stakeholders expressed serious objections to the NWG proposals, with powerful lobbies such as the Association of Historically Disadvantaged Institutions calling them a declaration of war against black universities and technikons.
Especially powerful political pressure has been building up around NWG proposals for the Eastern Cape, in particular that the University of Fort Hare merge with Rhodes, and the University of the Transkei close (with its medical school being absorbed into the merged Fort Hare/Rhodes). The Western Cape is another potential flashpoint, where the proposal that Peninsula Technikon merge with the University of the Western Cape has also drawn strong political objections.
While the Ministry of Education has not revealed the extent to which it presented the NWG recommendations for Cabinet approval, it has been widely speculated that Asmal endorses 90% of the proposals and confidently expected Cabinet backing for these this week. ”Asmal went on a risky venture,” says one educationist, ”scheduling a major announcement before the Cabinet had approved it – and now has egg on his face. That kind of political embarrassment doesn’t happen without strong political pressure being brought to bear.”
The Cabinet’s delay means that senior African National Congress members have bought more time for the political process, says Jansen. Yet this has all ”been going on for a long time now: the delay is certainly a bad thing for the country’s education system”.
None of this necessarily means there will be a reprieve for any of the institutions targeted for merging or closure, Jansen suggests.
”But if short-term political considerations are allowed to dilute the NWG’s proposals, the long-term developmental consequences could be devastating.”