The University of Transkei has advertised about 44 academic and eight administrative posts it intends filling despite the recent announcement by Education Minister Kader Asmal that the university must merge with Border and Eastern Cape technikons.
The appointments are likely to require an annual financial layout of several million rand.
While it is likely that the merger will see serious re-organisation and perhaps even rationalisation taking place over the next few years, Unitra representative Karuna Krishanlal-Gopal said the posts were critical posts for academics and technicians central to the academic function of the institution.
”In order to fulfil our core business of providing a high calibre educational product it is essential that the University fill the advertised posts.”
The university indicated in its full-page advertisement in the Daily Dispatch yesterday that the appointments were in line with its Vision 2005 transformation strategy with which the university seeks to ”redefine itself to deliver educational service of the highest calibre”.
The advert also seems to refer indirectly to the looming merger saying it was destined to become the University of Science, Technology and Rural Development.
This is in line with Asmal’s plan in which he foresaw Unitra and the two technikons becoming a comprehensive institution, offering both technikon and university-type programmes.
The posts advertised were approved by the university council and include junior and senior lecturers, and associate and full professors in the faculties of arts, economic sciences, law, science, health sciences, and education.
Gopal said the university was hosting a conference later this month on mergers in the Eastern Cape to which all strategic players, including Border and Eastern Cape technikons had been invited.
The topic of the conference will be ”Mergers in the Eastern Cape: Strategic Issues and Institutional Perspectives”.
The inter-institutional nature of the conference was defined by the theme: ”Creating a New Future Together”, she said. – Sapa