The Durban Institute of Technology pioneered the radical transformation of higher education by venturing out as the first merger in higher education under the democratic dispensation.
It is a highly contested terrain. It is against this background that I take issue with Sam Sole’s loose assertion that, “Merged KZN technikons ‘remain deeply divided'”, (April 29).
The merger was by its nature an intensely political project. There were no comparative models in South Africa and there were limitations to the utility of the international experience.
Three years later the new university has awarded degrees and diplomas to almost 20 000 students. Its academic qualifications are highly regarded in commerce, industry, the public service and civil society, and its international profile is steadily growing.
In its first three years the university topped the table as the first-choice institution in the KwaZulu-Natal region among new undergraduates. This context is important to sketch, in that the integrity and the public standing of the university has been obliquely challenged via the peripheral political issues that lie at the heart of the story.
The merger has been a successful project that remains unfinished. The mandate to the new vice-chancellor is to press ahead with the consolidation of the new organisation.
Organisational culture and refining a common value system (the subjects at the heart of the article) to reinvigorate the university are receiving top priority.
We have every intention of taking the criticisms in our stride. It is, after all, those organisations that invite robust engagement that thrive and prosper. The media have a very important role as the watchdog of public interests. That role we will defend. But while they hold up a critical mirror to society they ought also to consider how it might enhance the national interest by sometimes harping on the often hidden positives.
Far from the salacious attractions of shadowy political intrigues, we have every confidence that we are steaming ahead with the core business of higher education.
Venessa Leo chairs the council of the Durban Institute of Technology