Mail & Guardian readers share their views on the ongoing controversy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Hypocrisy alive at UKZN
I had to read the final paragraph of Renuka Vithal’s article on the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Council for Higher Education Audit (February 25) a few times to be quite sure that I understood it.
She writes that “it would be a pity if a process that has been collegial and self-regulated becomes bureaucratic and legalistic”.
It is a piece of stunning hypocrisy. Vithal, in her previous tenure as dean of education, destroyed collegiality, undermined senior academic staff and used legal and bureaucratic means to suppress debate and destroy a climate of intellectual inquiry and debate. Self-regulation at UKZN is the product of fear. Vithal’s approach to governance faithfully reflects that of vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba more broadly in the institution. How utterly hypocritical, but so predictable, that the institution should now be demanding what it has so assiduously undermined at UKZN. — Robert Morrell, Cape Town
A shameful story of suppression
In the articles “Controversial UKZN audit under wraps” and “Varsity’s voices of dissent gagged” (January 14), the Mail & Guardian has performed a public service in drawing to our attention the decision of the Council for Higher Education (CHE) to suppress the results of the external audit conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2008.
The fact that no publicity was given to the decision to suppress the audit — the record of the decision is on the CHE’s website but is not easy to find — suggests that it was hoped the matter would be allowed to drop quietly. Yet the audit was a large-scale activity in which many were involved and in which many invested their time.
Whatever the circumstances of a leaked letter it is not an acceptable outcome that the entire audit is now suppressed.
As an academic working at UKZN at the time when the audit was undertaken, I have a few questions to pose in addition to those raised by your education reporter, David Macfarlane, in his piece:
Who is going to compensate the academics and other staff members for the hours of work that went into preparing for the audit? The costs of the audit in time and (taxpayers’) money were enormous, only for its findings (on a wide range of crucially important issues) to end up in file 13 because the vice-chancellor happened to disagree with some of its conclusions and its “tone”.
What is the point of having an independent review if those in power at the institution are simply able to suppress a result that is not entirely favourable to them?
Why is it that the interests of the university are regarded as being synonymous with those of its current, thin-skinned vice-chancellor? The university is constituted by all its members, not just the management. Whose interests are being served by this suppression?
This is just the latest episode in a shameful story of the suppression of dissent and information, and of the misuse of power at UKZN since circa 2005. A university, of all places, should allow debate and discussion on contentious issues.
What I fail to understand is how a national body could condone this. The CHE should be ashamed of itself for having bowed to pressure from the university’s top management in this way. The draft report should be released for discussion within the institution immediately. — Shirley Brooks
Having taught at UKZN and worked in the office of quality assurance there, I am intrigued by the articles dealing with the CHE audit and non-publication of the subsequent audit report, following warm on the heels of the articles dealing with the authorship battles between the vice-chancellor Professor Malegapuru Makgoba and his public relations director, Professor Dasarath Chetty, over a published history of the UKZN merger.
It probably does not tell the tale as I remember it. I was involved in the merger process as a member of Professor Mapule Ramashala’s merger think-tank when she was vice-chancellor of the University of Durban-Westville in the period leading up to the merger with the University of Natal out of which “marriage” UKZN was born.
Patently, those academics who are fighting for greater academic freedom (including the usuals: transparency, accountability and democratic participation) haven’t learnt their lesson. A bit sad when we think of modern management theory extolling the virtues of what it calls “the learning organisation”.
If I were Professor Makgoba I would go a little bit further than just disciplining one or two here and there.
Since the whole caboodle would appear to be proving irksomely resistant to indoctrination, I would send as many of them as possible on a staff exchange to the University of Pyongyang, north of Seoul. They could supplement their edification by working in the fields during lunch and before and after classes.
This way, they would soon understand the way of the world. And there would be no more talk of academic freedom to challenge Makgoba’s vision for his institution.
Of course, he is perfectly at liberty to ignore my draconian suggestion.
All this re-education stuff may sound a bit reactionary and cruel, but fortune favours the brave (as the old cliché has it) and, in my sad experience, academics (myself included) tend to be anything but brave. And anything but streetsmart.
As I remember it, UKZN academics had their big chance. A staff strike in 2005/2006 paralysed the institution and brought the vice-chancellor to the negotiating table to sue for peace from a position of relative weakness.
Being such innocents in the realm of reality politics, they were only too willing to give him a reprieve (on the strength of the appearance of contrition and a long list of concessions), which allowed Makgoba to re-consolidate his power and take back everything he had conceded and more.
I am not a historian by academic training but I do seem to recall a few historical precedents for this. — Damian Garside, Mafikeng
UKZN destroyed
The finances of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) must indeed be on a sound footing to allow for a full-page advert in the Mail & Guardian (February 18).
Vice-chancellor Malegapuru Makgoba is soon in full flood, attacking the so-called enemies of transformation, detractors who were sacked or left the university to avoid disciplinary proceedings (for which read trumped-up charges), crony journalism and now academics of integrity such as Martin Hall. It’s a familiar, well-practised litany justifying Makgoba’s long and Âsuccessful autocratic reign at UKZN.
What the advertisement does not say is that the last vestige of academic rule, the faculty, is being abolished at UKZN. A few dozen managers of schools will in future report to heads of colleges (deputy vice-chancellors) and the structure of academic serfdom will be complete. This model is being imposed and there has been barely a murmur of dissent, such is the climate of fear. UKZN’s senate long since became a toy telephone.
Perhaps the only glimmer of hope for the many who have suffered from six grinding years of authoritarianism at UKZN is that the suppression of the Committee for Higher Education audit report is an issue with national ramifications. Given Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande’s disgraceful “darkie” remarks in Parliament recently, it is clear that there is a happy coincidence of sell-by dates for both him and Makgoba. — Christopher Merrett, Pietermaritzburg