If there is one thing Professor Melissa Leach has no time for, it is “bullshit research”. The social anthropologist jokes with her husband, fellow anthropologist James Fairhead, that she is going to set up an IBRD (Institute for Bullshit Research Development). “It’s easy,” she says, “to come up with narratives about deforestation: all the world’s trees are disappearing fast; or water scarcity will lead to water wars.
The Council on Higher Education plays an important role as an adviser to the education minister. Established in 1998, it has produced pertinent sets of research on, for example, institutional redress, throughputs and student success, cross-border education, disability in higher education, the funding of higher education and the use of ICTs in education.
Project management skills are so valuable that they can be used in everyday work-life and not just in a specific project. This is the view of Professor Pieter Steyn, principal of Cranefield College, and the first South African to be appointed to the research management board of the International Project Management Association.
Erika Jacobs knew that by attaining an MBA degree she would be better equipped to start her own business, so she registered for the Unisa MBL. She wanted to acquire strategic information on markets, labour issues, legislation and interest rates. Jacobs had to produce a research thesis, which turned out to be a roller coaster ride. As a BCom accounting graduate, she did not have much experience in writing essays of an academic nature.
The teaching of foreign languages at South African universities is looking peachy, with Mandarin being the flavour of the moment as China flexes its economic muscle in the rest of the world. British media reports indicate that in the past five years the number of non-Chinese people learning Mandarin Chinese has catapulted to 30-million.
With regard to gender transformation, universities are guided by rosy visions informed by the Constitution, the Employment Equity and Labour Relations Acts, the Higher Education Act, the White Paper on Education and other idealistic documents. Vice-chancellors have bravely taken on the challenge of transformation of institutions of higher learning, writes Margaret Orr.
There is a national skills shortage in critical areas. There are many graduates who are unemployed. About these two facts there is little dispute. Task groups and commissions have been put together to find out why this is the case and to find ways of bringing the graduates back into the formal economy in a productive manner.
When residents of Mathare slum in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi staged a recent protest over a five-day water shortage, the police moved to break the demonstration, firing tear gas and arresting some of the protestors. The July 31 police action in the Bondeni area, however, did not address the cause of the problem.
The Council on Higher Education, the independent, statutory body that advises the minister of education on matters relating to higher education policy issues, has been struggling to find a chief executive for more than a year. This body has executive responsibility for quality assurance within higher education and training through its sub-committee.
Trade and peacekeeping also are on the agenda, but Southern African leaders meeting this week are likely to be preoccupied with the economic and political crises in Zimbabwe that are sending thousands of refugees into neighbouring South Africa, Botswana and Zambia.