What kind of higher education system do we want, and what is actually emerging? These are surely the fundamental questions beneath the noise engendered by the government’s intention to cap student enrolment numbers at all tertiary institutions, starting from next year. An equally urgent question concerns who speaks for higher education.
Despite the high priority government policy places on gender equity, tertiary education remains an overwhelmingly male-dominated terrain. Ten of the 21 universities responded to the Teacher’s request for data showing how many female academics are employed at each level. The universities of the Witwatersrand, Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Pretoria, North West, Zululand, Potchefstroom, Natal, Durban-Westville and […]
The government urgently needs to clarify how the huge costs of tertiary mergers will be met, say the heads of the country’s universities and technikons. And they remain sceptical that mergers will achieve government education policy goals. If mergers currently on the table are implemented over a five-year period, they will cost R3,6-billion – close […]
Vista University is considering legal action against the minister of education – a move that could derail the massive national tertiary merger process due to take effect in three months. The Mail & Guardian, the sister publication of the Teacher, has copies of correspondence between Minister of Education Kader Asmal, acting Vista vice-chancellor Sipho Seepe […]
The bride is thrilled; the groom is grim. But Rand Afrikaans University (RAU) will not leave Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) standing at the altar when their union is solemnised on January 1 next year. ‘It is just a question of trying to make the best of a bad situation,” says Peter Alexander, a member of RAU’s […]
A damning report from the provincial auditor general partly reinforces the allegations. The education department concedes that some of its employees have perpetrated ‘fraudulent practices”, but denies that these have any relation to the R700-million under the spotlight. This sum is at the centre of allegations levelled by the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu). […]
Tertiary institutions last month received government notice of drastic alterations to their teaching programmes that will kick in from next year. Historically disadvantaged institutions (HDIs) and technikons bear the main brunt of the changes, with consequences one prominent educationist considers potentially “more devastating than mergers”. The Ministry of Education’s Approved Academic Programmes for Universities and […]
Racial representivity among teaching staff is lacking in most Gauteng public schools. And close to half of formerly whites-only schools have less than 20% black learner enrolment, probably because of language and fees policies at these schools. At the same time, deracialisation in schools is increasing – but not in former Department of Education and […]
The struggle for free, quality, basic education continues, despite the Cabinet’s endorsement this month of a comprehensive action plan to address cost-related barriers that still hinder full access to basic education. The action plan is the product of the government’s review of school education costs, which Minister of Education Kader Asmal released in March. ‘Sixty […]
Millions of rands available for improving the plight of the country’s most disadvantaged schoolgoers remained unspent by the end of last year. At the same time, spending on adult basic education continued to shrivel – and will worsen in the next few years. Spending trends in the national Department of Education (DoE) and the provincial […]