Dr Ihron Rensburg, the University of Johannesburg’s vice- chancellor (VC), is in the news again. A new house worth R5-million is being built for him in Auckland Park because the VC doesn’t like the one his predecessors occupied.
I have sympathy for the argument that such excesses have no place in a country where thousands of students have to drop out because they don’t have the cash to continue studying. I myself was one of those whose encounter with a lecture hall was cruelly cut because funds were low.
But if we suspend our emotions for a moment and look at the office of the vice-chancellor and not at the individual concerned, I suspect we might have cause to reconsider.
I am not convinced by the argument that those who choose the academic life do so knowing the pay is low and the work hard, and that they should not complain. Neither am I moved by the notion that academics do it for the love of their calling and, if appointed to high office, they do it for the prestige.
Surely it is as prestigious to be CEO of a big corporate — and chances are that you get there because you showed requisite love for whatever it is that got you there.
Put simply, the way we treat top academics suggests we do not show enough respect for the knowledge industry. And instead of doing something about it, we make excuses.
I expect that an argument will be made about academic institutions not being profit-making organisations and therefore their heads should not be treated in the same way as those whose decisions decide whether a profit or a loss is posted. But what they make instead of monetary profit is worth much more than any money could buy. What price are we willing to put on a corps of well-educated, informed and skilled citizens?
I expect fingers will be pointed at individuals who have treated their offices as personal fiefdoms or run universities as if they are get-rich-quick schemes. Examples are plentiful.
There can be no argument for rewarding incompetence or for employing unqualified people when others have the requisite skills. This principle applies equally to academia and the corporate sector.
Unless we believe the majority of those tasked with leading institutions are megalomaniacs in it for the money, let us pay them better and fête them as they deserve.
If the majority of VCs are not in the mould of “Jesus of the Vaal” or other such narcissists, we should reward them for sticking it out as lecturers who routinely encounter former students earning double their salaries shortly after they graduate.
Much as I love sport, I do think that someone who makes us better understand our society, or trains future generations how to anticipate electrical supply shortages, ought to be paid better than a member of the Rugby World Cup team or the Premier Soccer League player of the year.
Just the other day, soapie star Menzi Ngubane took home R1-million after being voted the best-loved celebrity, or something like that.
I do not share the view held by the likes of Noam Chomsky that sport is the new opiate of the masses or that people have no right to some escapist fun, and I will never argue that those involved in such industries deserve less.
Adam Kok, the king of the Griquas, reportedly wants a helicopter, five houses, a palace and (this is my favourite) 100 chickens because of who his ancestors are, and to keep up with other men whose forbears were much more illustrious than the rest of us.
Even the Congress of South African Trade Unions deems it necessary that its president — the face and the voice of the working class and the poor — drive an Audi A6 and live in a house befitting someone of high status.
There are times when we should attach monetary value to those things we cherish most. And if education is as important as we pretend it is, why spare the change if you won’t where Bryan Habana is concerned?
It could be argued that, all over the world, academics earn peanuts, relative to others. I don’t know if societies “all over the world” need the knowledge industry as badly we do in this country.
And if the argument about skills shortages causing prices to increase is correct, then the holders of knowledge should be allowed to sign their own cheques.
Besides, prestige has a rather short shelf life. When Tito Mboweni’s interest-rate hikes and the forever-rising price of petrol start to bite, academics will, like the rest of us, be forced to seek higher salaries wherever they may find them.
Good academics are often suspected of not being good enough to leave the comfort of the lecture hall to face the “real world”. But they are often poached by the private sector, leaving hard-to-fill gaps.
We need to act now and show our appreciation for the fountains of knowledge and not wait, as we are accustomed to doing, until a skills crisis that forces us to act.