The boom in the global knowledge economy has placed universities at the centre of most countries’ economic development. Universities have become catalysts of the knowledge economy and breeding grounds for the skills and expertise needed not only in industries, but in the public sector too.
Hence governments and corporate sector giants have continued to invest in universities, which is mutually beneficial. Harvard and Yale, for example, received endowments of $39,9-billion and $20-billion.
In a paper on Technopoles of the World in 1994, Manuel Castells and Peter Hall underscored this view on mutual benefit when they observed that ”universities are for the information economy what coal mines were to the industrialised economies”.
It should be noted, however, that for a university to perform the role of a catalyst in the economy optimally, it has to recruit and develop a critical mass of researchers to enable them to play this role.
This should entail, among others, the production of high-quality research through the promotion of large numbers of quality masters and doctoral students, as well as postdoctoral fellowships. These, however, arguably come at a price.
The first argument is that it is pricy to recruit, retain and invest in staff, as well as provide adequate and necessary research support systems underpinned by the principles of competition against other institutions and other countries.
As the sector shrinks from 4,6% (2001/02) to 2,2% (2002/03) to 2,6% (2003/04), South African universities find themselves in competition for the same skills with science councils, private research organisations and government departments, among others.
As would be expected, the price of this scarce commodity — ”researchers” — continues to escalate. The challenge for universities is, therefore, twofold: to produce enough skills to feed the market demand; and to retain enough for their own survival.
The second argument concerns the training and development cost deferment from the end beneficiaries of these skills, which are higher education institutions and the corporate sector as well as the post-graduate students themselves.
Unfortunately, this adversely restricts access to higher education institutions despite calls in the late Eighties and early Nineties for access for all. The point is well argued by the department of science and technology’s pipeline analysis that reflects access from 33 500 matriculants to 3 200 honours to 561 doctoral graduates in the maths- and science-related disciplines.
While the cost of higher education might not be the only contributor to low progression rates, the socio-economic background, in particular of the majority of black students, dictates that once they attain their first degree, they should support their families.
Arguably these costs should be borne by, among others, the corporate sector and government to back up their rhetoric about the importance of the knowledge economy and high-level skills requirements.
In light of this abdication of responsibility, the sector and country shoots itself in the foot as our competitiveness as a knowledge economy is contingent on our ability to produce large numbers of scientists and, in turn, increase research productivity.
South Africa is reported to account for nearly 23 doctoral graduates per million population as an annual average, whereas countries such as Brazil produce 160 and Australia produces 270 doctorates per million respectively. Unfortunately, our throughput rates are among the lowest in the world.
Some of the important indicators show that the number of researchers per 1 000 employees is 1,5%, research output in the world share is 0,5%, research, development expenditure as a percentage of GDP in 2006 was at 0,92% and only four of our universities appear in the tail end of the 500 top universities worldwide.
The department of science and technology has produced a human-capital development plan that aims to to double research and development expenditure by the year 2015.
In deliberations at the Post-graduate Research Indaba, held at Unisa in February, a post-graduate tuition waiver was mooted.
Despite this, universities continue to block access by demanding huge tuition fees even when they stand to make profits out of student graduation subsidies.
The corporate sector is not doing enough despite this potential to support post-graduate training financially. Instead, they continue whining about a skills shortage.
In reality the cost of post-graduate tuition is far less than the subsidy accrued to universities upon graduation. It is estimated that universities receive a subsidy of between R100 000 and R200 000 for a master’s graduate and between R250 000 and R500 000 for a doctoral graduate.
In addition a university also receives nearly R100 000 for a single publication in education department-accredited journals, the output of which could be doubled if the number of masters and doctoral research graduates was also doubled.
Ndinannyi Malada is a higher education researcher at the Centre for Education Policy Development and Dr Fulufhelo Netswera is a research director at Unisa. They write in their personal capacities