A week of intensive spin-doctoring has failed to settle critical questions facing the biggest and most complex of the tertiary education mergers taking place in South Africa — between the University of South Africa (Unisa), Technikon South Africa (TSA) and Vista University Distance Education Centre.
This merger is intended to take effect in January, but court action, among other difficulties, has cast a shadow over it. Yet it has also created excitement about the sheer scale of the transformation soon to take place in tertiary education.
The merger of Unisa, TSA and Vudec would bring together more than 200 000 students and 4 000 staff members to create a “juggernaut” institution, said TSA deputy vice-chancellor Narend Baijnath at a press conference this week. It will be the largest in Africa and one of the biggest tertiary institutions in the world.
Minister of Education Kader Asmal announced on Tuesday that the merged institution would retain the name Unisa — the only one of nine institutions involved in mergers and incorporations that has won the right keep its name.
Asmal told the press conference that he had made this decision after intensive negotiations among all three institutions, which resulted in the conclusion that the Unisa name was widely recognised.
The Mail & Guardian sent questions last week to all three institutions, asking for details of the merger. On Wednesday, Unisa vice-chancellor Barney Pityana held a press conference at which he said he was speaking for all three institutions.
Doreen Gough, media spokesperson for Unisa, told the M&G the press conference was a sufficient response to the M&G’s questions. “We will not be sending any other further answers,” she said.
The questions concerned Unisa’s legal action (subsequently dropped) against the merger, the costs of long-standing and still-unresolved legal actions against Unisa by past and present staff members, and recent concerns about financial management at the university.
Unisa is one of the oldest — and the largest — tertiary institutions in the country, with a tradition embedded in distance learning. Originally called the University of the Cape of Good Hope, it celebrated its 130th anniversary this year. It was originally modelled on the University of London, which offered examinations but not tuition.
In 1916 it was renamed Unisa and moved from Cape Town to Pretoria. By 1945 the institution was offering open distance learning. Historically, Unisa has played a crucial role in providing access to higher education for the poor.
By contrast, Vista University is 20 years old. The apartheid government founded the university to improve the qualifications of urban black teachers by means of distance tuition. This newly established university took over the Distance Education Campus in Pretoria from the Department of Education and Training in 1982 and it was renamed Vista University Distance Education Campus (Vudec).
The university has eight campuses in three provinces, with the central campus in Pretoria. Currently 20 000 students are enrolled at the institution. Vista’s officially designated status as a site of academic inferiority has haunted it throughout its existence.
“From Vista’s point of view, as a historically disadvantaged university, these mergers are going to relieve us of the burden of disadvantage, both financial and academic,” Vista’s acting vice-chancellor Sipho Seepe told the M&G.
TSA is also a young institution, founded in 1980 as Technikon RSA. The apartheid government established it specifically to provide distance education for police learners. In 1993 it became Technikon SA. It has more than 50 000 students. Unlike Vista, it had a privileged status under apartheid, a legacy it now has to shake off.
Officials at the three institutions expressed mixed feelings this week about the upcoming merger, although at the press conference on Wednesday all were enthusiastic. Pityana said: “We have grown closer, we have grown as people and we have come to understand the inner workings of [all three] institutions.”
Yet, in a separate interview with the M&G, Seepe said there were still serious problems that needed to be ironed out to ensure the success of the merger, including Vista’s impending court action against Asmal.
“We think the minister is simply in a hurry for [the sake of] political expediency,” said Seepe, “but if you are driven by a political objective, you will deliver by any means necessary, whether what you deliver is workable or not.”
Staff at Vista and TSA are concerned that the merger will threaten their future employment. “The staff [at TSA] feel as though they are hanging in the air,” said Thelma Louw, branch chairperson of the National Union of Tertiary Employees of South Africa. “There is no finality or indication of what will be the direct outcome of the merger … Will people have to sell their houses and relocate? We have had numerous resignations — towards the end of every month there are people saying goodbye.
“The feeling is that the minister has shown that his definition of consultation is not our definition … he basically makes a decision, listens to what everyone has to say and then just goes ahead with his initial decision anyway,” said Louw.
Good Friday Mhlongu, representative of the National Institution Forum for Vista staff, told the M&G that “the merger is a complicated affair for the staff. No provision has been made for the staff on Vista’s central campus they have simply been added to Vudec without thought … We conducted a survey and most of the staff on central campus said they would prefer to be distributed among the Gauteng campuses such as the East Rand and Soweto. We hope Vista’s court action will help to set this whole mad plan aside.”
Vudec’s legal action comes in the wake of Unisa’s high court action last year against Asmal, which challenged his merger plans. The court action alleged there was inadequate consultation with Unisa’s council and unrealistic time frames. It asked the court to order the postponement of the merger until certain legal requirements had been met. At that stage the merger was set for February 2002.
The M&G reported at the time that senior academics had raised the possibility that the court action led by Pityana had the backing of President Thabo Mbeki. Pityana was severe in his criticism of the merger plan at the time and accused the minister of having a hidden agenda.
“Nowhere in the world would such a tradition-filled institution be dealt with in such a way as the minister of education has done without consultation. Asmal consulted no one but himself,” Pityana said at the time.
But Unisa dropped the action in August last year after meeting Asmal and settling key disagreements.
Pityana said on Wednesday that all three partners were now committed to making the merger work. “This is a complex undertaking and cannot be undertaken as quickly and easily as a commercial or business merger.”
Four other court cases brought against Unisa by past and present staff members more than two years ago are still unresolved. The university’s costs in defending the actions are estimated to be well over R1-million.
Asmal said at his press conference on Tuesday that “all assets and liabilities will be transferred automatically to the new legal person, which, in this case, is the University of South Africa … Nothing will be extinguished.”
The new institution, with assets exceeding R2,4-billion and an annual budget of R1,8-billion, will offer programmes that combine the strengths of the traditional academic education from Unisa and practical education available from TSA “while incorpo- rating relevant innovative courses from Vista,” said Mathews Phosa, chairperson of the interim council for the new Unisa. He estimated that more than 3 000 courses, programmes and degrees will be on offer.
Students from all three institutions expressed fears this week about rising fees. “We are of the view that the technikon sector will have different fees from the university sector,” said Chuma Mapokgole, chairperson of Unisa’s national student representative council (SRC).
“But the immediate challenge comes with integrating Vudec’s fee structure with Unisa’s to come up with a single fee structure. Caution should be taken when determining the fee structure of the new institution to ensure that students will not be excluded come January 2004.”
Moses Sithole, the president of Vista’s SRC, told the M&G that students there are generally positive about the merger, but they are also concerned about a rise in fees.
“We are worried that a rise in fees will mean that disadvantaged students will not have access to the new institution in future. Our university’s fees are considerable cheaper than Unisa’s — how will that impact on fees in future?”
Pityana said at the press conference that there would be no drastic escalation in fees next year, but he could not guarantee the same for 2005. “We will, however, keep our fees the lowest in the country,” he said.
Seepe said that most people were anticipating the coming year with interest. “We think the coming year will be a year of great storm. I think this plan was hurried and this plan will be bulldozed. But this plan will not work.”