The most important changes in South African higher education since 1994 are not to be found in the dramatic structural reorganisation of the sector or in the impressive policy/planning apparatus created for public institutions. Rather, I contend that the most far-reaching changes in higher education are to be found in the gradual, but systematic, erosion of historical standards of autonomy that were ingrained within the institutional fabric of universities.
I do not wish to underplay the significance of the merging of universities and technikons. Nor do I claim that the formidable policy and planning infrastructure set in place by the new government is irrelevant. We have profound and moving policy platforms and finely honed planning positions such as those evident in the National Plan on Higher Education. But there is considerable evidence that, apart from the blunt instrument of government financing, there is a very weak theory of action to translate the noble goals of policy or specific targets set in planning into institutional reality.
The deep and long-lasting changes in South Africa’s higher education system, therefore, have little to do with the dramatic, the visible or the symbolic. Quietly but steadily, the government has made significant incursions into the arena of institutional autonomy that fundamentally redefine the long-held understandings of institutional identity and autonomy.
The government now:
Decides what can be taught, or rather, what institutions might be willing to teach without subsidised income, through skilful manipulation of the funding formula;
Decides which institutions will offer what programmes;
Decides who can be taught, or rather, how many students are allowed to enter universities and in which specific fields. The recent cap placed on student enrolments cannot be read other than as an official retreat in the face of declining central funds from a fundamental commitment of the White Paper on Higher Education — that is, the goal of increasing access to higher education;
Decides how students will be taught by placing institutional qualifications on a national framework grid through which qualifications are organised and delivered;
Decides on which programmes will be funded at what levels — but in ways that appear increasingly arbitrary;
Decides on the credibility of qualifications, programmes and even institutions through the mechanism of higher-education quality audits. What was until now the province of self-regulation among institutions is now the prerogative of the government;
Decides which institutions will exist, and in what combinations;
Contemplates the centralising of information (or rather the de-institutionalising of information) required for student admissions in a proposed central applications office;
Can displace a vice-chancellor on the basis of review and install an administrator to run the institution.
I am not making the argument that some of these interventions were unnecessary or avoidable or intentionally pernicious; nor am I arguing that some of these interventions actually changed institutional practice.
What I am arguing is, first, that these interventions by the government, taken together, have irrevocably changed the discourses, understandings and behaviours of institutions in ways that make any government intervention more legitimate than before; and second, that such interventions have permanently altered how universities understand themselves, their missions and their degrees [sic] of freedom.
What are the consequences? There is the disturbing recent story of the Irish girl who auctioned her virginity on the Internet in order to raise the funds to pay for her university tuition.
Reflecting on the history of government intervention in African universities, the political scientist Adam Habib makes the interesting point that once the government gets into the university, it has no idea how to get out. The loss of autonomy, like the loss of virginity is, as far as I know, not recoverable once given up.
But the more disturbing question now is this: What is to prevent a virile government now or an undemocratic government in the future from pressing for even greater control over the day-to-day actions, decisions and destinies of individual institutions?
To avoid this happening, and to regain ground already lost in the autonomy stakes, higher education institutions will have to face up to some unpleasant facts. The first is to concede that autonomy as a historical and political concept is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the struggle for autonomy enabled the white English universities and, in particular the University of Cape Town and the University of the Witwatersrand, to declare themselves “open” and reserve the right to admit “non-Europeans”.
On the other hand, it was also a powerful instrument in the hands of institutions to determine how many to admit, to what facilities, and into which programmes. The same argument could be made for staffing appointments.
In preparing for this lecture, I was struck by the deep racism, offensive paternalism and the sense of European mission (let alone epistemological naïvete) that accompanied moving arguments by the great English liberal men for greater autonomy with respect to decisions over admissions.
The second is to recognise that the infringement of institutional autonomy will continue unless the higher education sector as a whole begins to speak with one voice.
The third is to be conscious of the fact that the university sector will remain vulnerable to government intrusion unless it finds ways of strengthening its own systems of institutional governance.
Counter-intervention is now urgently necessary. The quest for greater and more government control is based on the flawed assumption that the government can best “steer” higher education institutions in the direction of what is too loosely called transformation. There is no evidence for this.
And what makes this particular moment in our history so dangerous is not only the silence about the moves towards greater government control, but the attempts by some to negotiate academic freedom through compromise positions such as “conditional autonomy.” This is dangerous because it assumes a benevolent government that not only exists in the present to advance the intellectual interests of higher education, but that it will remain a benevolent government well into the future.
And this is where the case for institutional autonomy is strongest. One African nation after another has found that as the post-colonial government failed to deliver in the economic domain, and as the government then moved towards greater authoritarian behaviour, the first target was the university. If and when that point arises in the future, on what grounds will the South African university be able to challenge the post-apartheid government?
But the erosion of autonomy also has dire intellectual consequences. In a climate where steering is becoming indistinguishable from interfering, there is less space for the open expression of ideas, less experimentation with alternative programmes, less diversity with respect to research and innovation.
A university ceases to exist when the intellectual project no longer defines its identity, infuses its curriculum, energises its scholars, and inspires its students. When the intellectual project defines a university’s identity, then only are the conditions set under which academic freedom can be secured and institutional autonomy jealously defended.
Professor Jonathan Jansen is dean of education at the University of Pretoria. This is an edited version of the University of Cape Town’s 41st TB Davie Memorial Lecture. The full lecture can be obtained by e-mailing [email protected]