Massive resistance against the government’s programme to restructure tertiary education is mounting at institutions as the 90-day period for comment on the plans nears closure.
Staff at Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) last week joined their senate in opposing RAU’s mooted merger with Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR).
Elsewhere, in moves that educationists interpret as clear opposition to the government’s intentions, the University of Transkei (Unitra) –down for closure — last week appointed a new vice-chancellor; and the University of Durban-Westville (UDW), which is set to merge with the University of Natal, recently advertised for a new vice-chancellor.
Educationists also question the huge powers that the legislation now places in Minister of Education Kader Asmal’s hands to drive mergers: five-member interim councils will replace existing councils of institutions that are to merge, and the minister will have sole power to appoint the chairpeople of these interim councils.
”That is a heavy power vested in the minister,” says Professor George Subotzky, director of the University of the Western Cape’s Education Policy Unit. ”It gives him the opportunity to push hard and construct councils to his liking. But we have often made the point that you can’t drive this process via formal power alone.”
The legislation governing interim councils is ”a very significant move”, says Professor Jonathan Jansen, dean of education at the University of Pretoria, ”and is part of an ever-increasing trend towards centralising control in the minister’s hands”.
Members of interim councils other than the chairpeople will be nominated by the institutions, Nasima Badsha, Deputy Director General in the Department of Education, told the Mail & Guardian. ”The fact that the minister has the prerogative in the appointment of the chairperson does not confer any additional powers to the minister to drive the merger.”
Echoing the South African Universities Vice-Chancellors Association, Subotzky says the success of mergers depends critically on the cooperation of both or all parties to be merged: if one institution resists, the merger will fail.
This could be the fate of the merger between RAU and TWR. In June RAU issued a strongly worded statement indicating implacable opposition to the merger. Since then, by contrast, TWR vice-chancellor Professor Connie Mogale has on a number of occasions expressed the technikon’s endorsement of the merger.
With the closing date for comment looming on October 4, the M&G understands that RAU management is in discussions with TWR and hopes to find common ground.
However, RAU staff have massively endorsed their senate’s rejection of the merger. Academic staff who are not members of the senate last week unanimously passed a resolution against the merger proposal.
”We are concerned that the proposed merger would wreck a very good university,” Professor Peter Alexander, elected representative of academics on the RAU council, said this week. In the past 10 years, student enrolment has almost doubled, he said.
”The university already has a strong research culture — one of the main objectives of the government’s higher education policy.”
The merger ”has not been adequately thought through”, he said. RAU and TWR are both ”large and successful institutions, but there are almost no overlaps in terms of disciplines or programmes … We are not against change. Indeed, we favour a merger with the two local Vista campuses.”
Unitra is also resisting the government’s intentions. Asked how his appointment as vice-chancellor from October 1 dovetailed with the Ministry of Education’s plans to close Unitra and merge its medical school with the University of Fort Hare, Professor Nicky Morgan said: ”If the ministry’s decision is to retain the university, I can deal with that challenge. If the ministry wants to transform Unitra into a techikon-type institution, I would not be out of place there either.” Morgan is vice-principal (academic) of Technikon SA.
”First prize would be Unitra merging with two of the technikons, as well as two agricultural colleges and education colleges in the Eastern Cape,” he said. ”This would also retain a regional graduate school. We have tried to address the government’s criteria for restructuring.”
Asked whether his contract with Unitra included a golden handshake if the government’s current plans prevailed and the university closed, Morgan said any plan the government adopted would take time to implement. ”In the meantime … it would not be right to leave the institution rudderless with hundreds of millions of rands flowing through it.”
UDW council chairperson Dr Namane Magau said the university was proceeding with the appointment of a vice-chancellor ”within the guidelines provided by the minister”. She said UDW told Asmal that UDW would like to advertise for the post.
Badsha said Asmal ”is not opposed to the appointment of senior managers in cases where vacancies exist”.