Employers have voiced ”considerable unhappiness” about the standard of degrees at Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), with some companies believing that the calibre of graduates might have fallen because of the merger which gave birth to it.
These are the findings of an audit of TUT by the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) quality committee. The university was audited in April last year and the final report was signed off a few weeks ago.
With about 60 000 students TUT is South Africa’s largest university of technology and second largest university, after Unisa.
The university said it has introduced a range of policies to redress shortcomings pinpointed by the audit and is working closely with industry.
TUT was born of the 2004 merger of the formerly black Technikon Northern Gauteng and Technikon North West with the formerly white Technikon Pretoria.
As in all mergers, it had to assimilate a mish-mash of student cultures, staff work ethics, academic standards and disparate infrastructure.
The merged institution comprises nine campuses across four provinces and is expected to be a research producer. In the United Kingdom and Australia merged tertiary institutions have taken about 10 years to achieve stability.
In its report, the CHE urges it to develop and use employer surveys ”to assess the relevance and value of its qualifications in the labour market”.
The audit panel says TUT should improve its graduates’ standards and assure external stakeholders and partners that it is taking steps to minimise the impact the merger might have had on programmes.
The report reveals that the university has suffered operational snags since the merger. Last year, when it visited the campuses, academic departments had not been consolidated and the appointment of staff, particularly department heads, was not complete.
These delays could harm programmes, the report said, and ”this constitutes a potential risk for the academic reputation of the institution”.
Also highlighted are inconsistencies in the examination of post-graduate theses, which pose an ”academic risk for the institution in terms of the quality of its graduates”.
Other problems include differences among departments in managing ”experiential learning” (work-based training of students) and lack of coherence in the placement of students in companies. In addition, many academic staffers are part-time lecturers and are inaccessible to students.
But the council commmended TUT on devising a new organisational structure and investing in staff development, enabling academics to acquire further degrees.
University spokesperson Willa de Ruyter said TUT introduced questionnaires to determine how many graduates are successfully employed and the time it takes them to find jobs.
”Also, a new policy on advisory committees from industry was introduced to ensure maximum feedback from employers and the workplace and involve more stakeholders.”
She said most department heads have now been appointed. Permanent faculty structures have been approved university-wide, allowing only 15% of staff to work part time.
Other advances were a new curriculum development policy and the approval of a new assessment policy.