Rethinking educational transformation

Next year marks the fifth anniversary of the formation of the University of Johannesburg (UJ).

Created by the merger of Rand Afrikaans University, Technikon Witwatersrand and two campuses of Vista University (Soweto and Daveyton on the East Rand), UJ was created in 2005 as a ‘comprehensive” institution offering both traditional academic and vocational training.

The university has more than 43 000 full-time students enrolled for formal programme s and 6 500 for non-subsidised or extra-curricular programmes, making a total student body of around 49 000, the largest residential university in South Africa. Of these, 85% are undergraduates, 70% are black, 47% are English-speakers and 24% Afrikaans.

According to UJ’s chair of council, Professor Roy Marcus, and Professor Ihron Rensburg, the vice-chancellor, although the challenges of this mega-merger, arguably the largest and most complex of all the mergers, have been many, the institution has made considerable progress.

Says Marcus: ‘UJ was conceived as a new-era university in line with the emerging needs of post-1994 South Africa. This translates into a strong emphasis on teaching and learning, applied research and community engagement.

‘Core to the concept of a new-era university is the notion of inclusivity. The challenge is to create a model that provides greater access than the old traditional university but which matches traditional universities for quality, both academically and in terms of the overall student experience.”

This has meant providing access to school-leavers who normally would be excluded from attending a traditional university, while offering undergraduate to doctoral degrees and vocational training though its diploma programmes, from engineering to health sciences.

For Marcus, challenges ranged from how to manage the diverse cultures of the legacy institutions while creating a new inclusive institutional culture, and getting different technology backbones to correlate.

Equally challenging was establishing a multi-campus model, in which there are four campuses — Auckland Park Kingsway, Auckland Park Bunting Road, Doornfontein and Soweto — which vary in size and have their own character and culture.

Disparity between campuses in terms of facilities presented major difficulties, as did the harmonisation of salaries and employment benefits across the three legacy institutions. And above all there was the issue of how to bridge the divide between traditional academic programmes and vocational training.

‘At the outset, the university council took a decision not to dismiss any staff. This created a positive impact on the process in the long term as the institution had to be designed to accommodate everyone,” says Marcus.

During the initial stages UJ experienced problems around language as well as the racial profile of academic staff. The biggest wall that needed to be broken down was scepticism in some quarters that the merger was ever going to work.

Says Marcus: ‘We also needed to come to grips with opposing parties, which included both academics and non-academics — Admittedly, the initial test phase was tough and at times a bit chaotic.

‘It is always hard to convince people about the long-term positive outcomes of a transitional process, so we needed to ensure that the new UJ team was concerned primarily about academic integrity and excellence — the core competencies.”

For Marcus this transformation process allowed the institution to ‘gain its own kind of soul, rather than forcing things to create an unnatural construct. It says a good deal that many of those who felt the merger was never going to work have now become the staunchest members of UJ’s team.”

Rensburg acknowledges that there is still some way to go, but he is upbeat about progress, pointing to the initial findings of a recent institutional audit conducted by the Council on Higher Education’s quality committee.

‘Overall the initial report provides a very positive commentary on developments at UJ, including the success of the merger and the institution’s fitness for purpose and institutional identity.”

In addition, UJ has attracted a number of prominent academics and public intellectuals, such as Professors Tshilidzi Marwala, Thadaeus Metz, Adam Habib and Dr Xolela Mangcu.

The university meanwhile acknowledges that work remains to be done in establishing a critical mass of staff and students who are socially cohesive and immersed in a culture of ‘living the UJ values” and that it has not yet achieved resource parity in respect of all of its campuses.

Rensburg explains that a change management programme aimed at addressing the merging of legacy institutional cultures is under way. ‘We have termed the internal initiative ‘living the UJ values’ and the interactive communication process is already well under way with workshops involving senior and middle management focused on critical self and collective examination and action.”

Five values have been identified: academic distinction; integrity and respect for diversity and human dignity; academic freedom and accountability; individuality and collective effort; and innovation.

These values have been attached to iconic figures: Albert Einstein, Ludwig von Beethoven, Charles Darwin, Martin Luther King and Isaac Newton. ‘These iconic figures embody the establishment and maintenance of a culture of integration and development in their respective fields during their time,” says Rensburg.

The Soweto campus is to undergo major developments with the academic programme focus being on the development of African leaders and the skills and competencies required for them to become discipline-based leaders.

About R400-million will be invested here. ‘We have al so suc ces s fully concluded the university-driven harmonisation of conditions of service and annual salary negotiations,” says Rensburg.

‘I am confident that we have approved measures that are both sustainable and which measure up to the expectations of staff members’ legitimate concerns regarding the competitiveness of UJ’s remuneration.”

There have been a number of milestones, which Rensburg says more than compensate for the difficulties the university has experienced. UJ was voted the second ‘coolest” university in the recent Sunday Times Generation Next youth brand preference survey.