Three previously disadvantaged tertiary institutions in the Eastern Cape this week amicably signed their ”antenuptial contract”, paving the way for a smooth transition to their merger in January.
The contract binds the University of Transkei (Unitra), Border Technikon and Eastern Cape Technikon on key issues such as staffing and salaries. Their union as the Walter Sisulu University of Technology will form a new type of higher education institute that will offer a mixture of technikon and university programmes.
The vice-chancellor of Unitra, Professor Nicky Morgan, said the partners-to-be are ”excited” and the agreement is a ”positive achievement”. He attributed the speed at which it was signed to lessons learned from other mergers around the country.
The agreement states that decisions on human resource management, retrenchments and salary increases cannot be carried out until the merger takes place on January 1 2005.
But the road to these nuptials was rocky for a while. A furore broke out in November last year when then minister Kader Asmal said the new name would be Eastern Cape University of Technology. The Mail & Guardian reported that the three institutions threatened legal action against Asmal for not taking into consideration their preferred name — Walter Sisulu — after they had secured the Sisulu family’s permission to use it.