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Pretoriase Akademie vir Christelik-Volkseie Hoër Onderwys Vereniging Ingelyf kragtens Artikel 21 van die Maatskappywet (Registrasienommer 2001/011539/08)
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EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: THE TOTAL ONSLAUGHT
| Timing is of utmost importance when announcing a controversial matter; when the public is concentrating on other matters, it can go by unnoticed. When a group of South Africans was acquitted after being held in Zimbabwe on charges of their alleged involvement in the planned coup in Equatorial Guinea it passed without much attention. The reason being the announcement of the alleged involvement of Mark Thatcher as coup plotter, and the Olympic Games that was being held in Athens. Likewise was the announcement of the Minister of Education, Professor Asmal, on 1 April 2004 at the opening of the curriculum development committee that "The new higher education curriculum should be based on Karl Marx theory". A Revolution was announced in the South African Education, whilst the public and the media were apparently concentrating on the general election that was to take place. |
| The total of 38 MBA programmes which were delivered by 27 different institutions were diminished by the ANC/SACP regime's Council on Higher Education (CHE) to 7 accredited and 15 conditionally-accredited programmes. Internationally accredited MBAs delivered by Bond University of Australia and De Montfort University of Britain were de-accredited under the auspices of "quality assurance". |
| One of the results of this step was that these prestigious academic institutions have withdrawn from South Africa, but this is only symptomatic of the revolution that has been started in the South African education system, especially in higher education. The South African universities have been stripped from their independence and academic freedom and the standards of universities has been "localized" and conformed to African standards. |
| HISTORY OF AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES |
| The model of universities in Africa has been based on the European, especially the British, model. This was also true in South Africa. Typical of this model is the composition of the management teams (the council, the senate and the faculty councils). This contributed to the independence and authenticity of the British and South African universities from the state. This authenticity was especially expressed by ways of the planning of the curricula, which lead to excellent training and an elite group of graduandi . This situation has drastically been changed. |
| The university system in Africa has a long history in which advocates have pleaded for a typical African university which could abandon the despotic European influences (like Edward Blyen in 1872). J.E.C Hayford has called for the foundation of an university in West Africa which could educate students in African nationalism between 1911 and 1920. After the British government had changed it policy in 1945 regarding universities in Africa, universities were founded in Africa as university colleges. Ashby (1964:3) indicates that African nationalism was expressed as a controversy between loyalty towards their own tribes and culture and suspicion towards all forms of foreign influences. |
| Some of the members of the newly formed university councils in Africa had probably little background knowledge of the functioning of such an institution, but wanted to influence the system who had to develop their future leaders. That caused conflict between them and the European personnel who had to protect the system in the European context. The conflict was fortified by the selection criteria for admission to universities. Some candidates had not been admitted to African universities on academic grounds, but then got admission to American universities. Ashby (1964:10) indicates that the American child of 1945 had a chance of 1 out of 3 to be admitted to a university, whilst the British child had a chance of 1 out of 12. This lead to strong condemnation of the British university system by African academics like Nnamdi Azikwe of Nigeria (Kware, 1978:). |
| During a conference of African states in Tananarive, in the Malagasy Republic, that was held in 1962 it was decided that the relevance and substance of the university in Africa in terms of its immediate environment had to carry more weight than its relevance in terms of the international academic community (Posthumus, 1997:5). This decision would have a significant influence on the South African university system in 2004. |
| On 31 March 2004 Minister Asmal declared: "... we have developed new policies and programmes for identifying values, nurturing lifeskills, addressing racism, promoting multilingualism, removing barriers to learning, restoring history, and understanding the role of religion in our schools". His successor, Ms Pandor, has politized this policy further to contribute to the needs of Africa in terms of its education initiatives. She goes as far as to plea for the development of indigenous African languages to fully fledged academic- and scientific languages (Durban, 26 August 2004). J.E.C. Hayford also pleaded for the development of a university in West Africa which would 'maintain the sense of African nationalism within the students' and for education in indigenous west African languages. Nothing has come from the latter. This plea of Pandor would most probably also remain a dream and there can not be foreseen that this will establish her in history as a pioneer. |
| Against this background the essence of academic freedom and autonomy should first be exploited. |
| ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND AUTONOMY |
| Academic freedom is guaranteed in article 16(1)(d) of the Constitution as part of the Right of Freedom of Expression. It is thus 'freedom of movement' within the context of academic research and investigation. |
| Van Zyl Slabbert (1975:3) indicates the necessity that universities are allowed, not only academic freedom (in relation to the state), but also in terms of the economy and the community which it serves. Thus, these institutions should not be allowed to dictate or prescribe to the university. He argues that academic freedom and participative democracy are both values that are recognized by the university, but also admits that these values are sometimes in conflict (almost 30 years ago). |
| Posthumus (1997:7) points out that the earlier African student was alienated from his family and his tribe; that his studies had exposed him to Western values and thoughts, whilst he had to go back to his tribe from time to time to fulfill his role in terms of his tradition. These different ethical systems cause conflict which can defuse an outburst and can lead to at least partial rejection of the university system. He quotes the Zulu poet, B.W. Vilikazi, who expresses his loneliness as African academic, as an example of such ethical conflict. |
| Van Zyl Slabbert (1975:8) however distinguishes further between the autonomy of a university and institutional neutrality. Academic freedom means 'the right of a university to decide on issues such as the appointment of personnel, which students will be admitted and which subject-matter will be appropriate. Academic freedom deals with internal as well as external influences on the university and each of these matters has its own problems'. Posthumus (1997:8) warns that 'a university's academic freedom is implicated when he, due to external or internal influences, is forced to play a revolutionary role in the community. |
| If the general meaning of the word revolution is accepted as any fundamental change or reversal of conditions, what role does the university today play in South Africa? Is the university in South Africa indeed still autonomous or independent? |
| The deforming and eroding of higher education to a central controlled education system does not leave any room for academic freedom. University campuses can no longer make independent decisions on which courses will be presented, which research will be conducted, to whom qualifications will be awarded, or how evaluation will be done. The credit system (according to how many notional hours each course represents) dictates even the time which should be dedicated to each learning unit and evaluation is degraded to "assessment". There is even indications that students will in future apply to a central admissions office where they will be selected in terms of what he/she should study and at which campus. This destructive process of the essence of academic freedom has however systematically developed over a few years. |
| THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE REVOLUTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION |
| Since 1995 the process to put education under total state control has developed systematically. It started of as an ideologically approach to transform the education system into an inclusive institutional system under total government control. This is outlined in the Higher Education Act, 1997: |
| "To ESTABLISH a single co-ordinated higher education system, which promotes co-operative governance and provides for programme-based higher education; RESTRUCTURE AND TRANSFORM programmes and institutions to respond better to the human resource, economic and development needs of the Republic; REDRESS past discrimination and ensure representivity and equal access;..." |
| With a single act, the Higher Education Act, 1997 (Act 101 of 1997, as amended by Act 38 of 2003) parliament has destructed the autonomy of the universities in South Africa and placed all the power over them in the hands of the minister of Education. The private acts which had formed the basis for the functioning of the different universities and the Act on Technikons which gave rise to the different technikons were repealed. A rich history of autonomous higher education in South Africa (developed on the basis of 109 acts and amendments) was destructed in a moment. |
| This act has actually ended the existence of the Universities of Durban-Westville, Fort Hare, Cape Town, Natal, the North, North West, Orange Free State, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth, Rhodes, Stellenbosch, South Africa, Transkei, Venda, Western Cape, Witwatersrand, Zululand, the Rand Afrikaans University, Medical University of South Africa, the Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education and all technikons in South Africa. The result: Actually a SINGLE university in South Africa with different campuses. As President Thabo Mbeki has put it: "single institutions within a unified institutional culture" (May 21, 2004: Opening of Parlement). |
| In October 2003 Kader Asmal announced that some universities and technikons would amalgamate and this happened on 1 January 2004. The 36 institutions for higher education in South Africa were reduced to 21. Technikons have ceased to exist, are now called "technological universities" and have been induced to other campuses. In fact all technikons, as with the universities, are mere campuses of the single state university. With this action academic freedom and institutional neutrality have been destroyed by an inclusive state controlled education system. |
| These amalgamations were the results of a report titled "Restructuring of Higher Education Institutions" which was produced under the chairmanship of mr Saki Macozoma. The Cabinet has changed it though and then the final "A New Institutional Landscape for Higher Education" was accepted in October 2003. The latter has proved that ideological principles were underlying for the final amalgamation. For example the University of Fort Hare, as symbol of the struggle against apartheid, was left as separate entity. The so-called historical Afrikaans institutions were amalgamated with historically disadvantaged institutions, whilst the Universities of Witwatersrand and Cape Town were left to continue as separate entities. |
| The biggest shock of these developments was that no single university had publicly objected against these steps. What clearly seemed to be an illegitimate action, has passed the management (who are supposed to be rational-minded academics) of the universities and technikons without objections. They accepted the death sentence without resistance. |
| THE MBA DEBACLE |
| The process of the eroding of higher education and the destruction of the autonomy of the institutions of higher education was not yet completed. Another step, one of the most significant, followed on 20 May 2004: the dictated limitation of the MBA courses offered in South Africa! This step can be seen as the core of the revolution in higher education. This was the final step to abolish international accepted and acknowledges academic standards. |
| An independent study by the Financial Mail has just been published before this irresponsible step which placed the 2 MBAs (presented by Bond University and De Montfort University) on the list of the best MBAs on offer in South Africa (www.careerdynamo.com/s_africa_mba.html). The international 12 criteria as used by the European Quality Improvement System (Equis) and the International Association of MBAs (AMBA) had been supplemented by another criterium. Equity was added to the list. Professor Eon Smit, director of Stellenbosch Business School defended it as follows: ' ... to adjust the unfairnesses of the past – as far as students and the race profile of personnel are concerned' (Smit, 2004:1). |
| The minster of Education expressed her satisfaction with the process and added that improvement of quality must form the basis of the transformation and restructuring in higher education. President Mbeki added at the opening of parliament on 21 May 2004 that the process of amalgamation of the institutions of higher education would be continued to ensure that they "become single institutions within a unified institutional culture". |
| Pandor has repeatedly stressed the low level of Mathematics and Science at school level (especially of the previously disadvantaged majority). In this context the comparison is thus drawn: Equity = Quality. Perhaps this is a true in African context, but according to international standards it is not true. Professor Doug Blackmur expresses his objection to this sort of comparison in the strongest terms. He has occupied several executive positions in New Zealand (Minister of Education's Chairs and Chief Executives' Forum, committee member of the New Zealand Quality Assurance and New Zealand Vice Chancellors' Committee), Australia (Australian Qualifications Framework Advisory Board and Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Certification Authorities Chief Executives board member), Namibia (Adviser, Namibian Government and Namibian Qualifications' Authority, Skills' Development and Education Quality Assurance) and Malaysia (International Adviser, National Accreditation Board of Malaysia), before his current position as Standard Bank Management Professor at UCT. A concise summary of his article of 12 August 2004 follows. |
| "Stanford University students. Would this prestigious American university have had its MBA approved by the CHE? The world's top-quality MBAs would probably not be accredited by the Council on Higher Education (CHE).... Stanford offers an international MBA. This would not satisfy CHE's requirements that all MBAs be "localised" and all heavily oriented towards local practices..... |
| ....the CHE would probably take exception because its evaluators couldn't "count the books in the library"...... |
| There is much loose talk to the effect that the CHE has examined "the quality of MBAs". This is untrue. All it has done is to examine MBA missions, teaching arrangements, and some governance, equity and assessment matters.... |
| The views of graduates, students and employers on the worth of particular MBA degrees are irrelevant. By definition, if they don't conform to the CHE's prescribed mission and delivery regulations, then the degrees can have no value. Outcomes, such as whether the MBAs are of value to graduates and their employers, or whether graduates can manage organisations in an extremely complex environment, are of minor importance in the CHE scheme of things. Effective delivery of the CHE-preferred mission is all that counts. |
| ..... with the government's emphasis on mission diversity in the transformation of South African higher education.... " (Blackmur, 2004:1-2). |
| Blackmur, as a specialist on international accreditation and assessment, points out that SAQA has no legal definition for a Masters degree and can therefore not state what the standards are against which a Masters degree can be evaluated. Therefore, was this action of the CHE legal? If there has ever been doubt whether academic freedom still prevails in South Africa, then this revolutionary process has finally condemned such a thought. A government who makes decisions on an academic institution's mission, curricula, pedagogics and research methods is depriving such an institution of all institutional autonomy and academic freedom. |
| OTHER CONSEQUENCES |
| In June 1997 Posthumus (1997:9) has already pointed out that large-scale pressure would be placed on the institutional neutrality of universities concerning the following aspects: |
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| All of these demands have already manifested in the South African university system. Even the campus of Stellenbosch (which has once met all the government's criteria) was recently criticised for not being representative enough of the community. The Equity Committee warned the institution that not enough coloured people had been employed and that too many white persons, especially males, had been part of the hierarchy, with too few women in senior positions. It will only be logical (if the formula equity = quality is taken as correct) to derive that this campus therefore do not deliver quality education, according to the government's criteria for quality? The report also indicates that "However there has been recent positive developments it is envisaged that the pace of transformation will be increased" (De Lange, 2004). |
| The independence of the higher education institutions deteriorated further when it was announced in August 2004 that the different campuses will be limited in terms of the number of new students intakes. It was for instance suggested that the Stellenbosch campus will be limited to a growth of 3%, while the other institutions will also be limited to between 2% and 3%. Widespread reaction came from the different campuses, but the department will eventually limit the new intakes through their financial aid table, introduced earlier in 2004. |
| A further outcome is that Pandor announced that she will implement the National Plan for Higher Education (February 2001) with rigour. This indicates that students in the different fields of study will be prescribed: 40% in social sciences, 30% in business and economical studies and 30% in science, engineering and technology. The National Research Council has also been informed to focus on mathematics and natural science and to promote studies amongst black people and women. |
This process of control over higher education has also been infiltrated in all other levels of training and education. Some of the developments on school education level are:
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| CONCLUSION |
| The ideological revolution in the South African education has been systematically planned and executed. 20 May 2004 was the highlight with the MBA fiasco, but the process has not been completed yet. It is still ongoing and is being carried out to accomplish a state-controlled unity. |
| However the ANC/SACP regime is still not satisfied with the results of the transformation. Pandor quotes Professor Pityana: "We have to be troubled by the state of higher education in our country. We have to ask ourselves whether a decade into democracy we are anywhere near a transformed university system. The answer has to be 'No'" (Pandor at the opening of the UNISA 10 Years of Democracy Celebrations on 10 August 2004). She quotes his Altron lecture further: ".... South African Universities, certainly, have traditionally regarded themselves to be within quite cultural cocoons". |
| She then answers: "Our challenge is to create an inclusive institutional culture out of these exclusive cocoons. It is pleasing to see the first steps being taken here. The guide that we must use as our litmus test will be institutions that reflect non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy and a unifying culture driven by rigorous intellectual scrutiny". |
| The revolution is long from over; whilst the fathers of the "independent academy" have apparently trustingly capitulated their academic freedom, whilst they are merely sitting and looking on, they are apparently at ease and only concerned about receiving their subsidies. It is in fact late at night: Education is a totalitarian structure, academic freedom and autonomy have been destructed and are being used by the state as an ideological politisized instrument which degrades education to African standards. |
| The question arises: Academic science in South Africa Quo Vadis? To whom or what should the South African academics turn to protect the academic, independent and pure study of science? The rich tradition and great amount of knowledge that has been gathered in the different fields of study in South African science can not be supplemented within an education system that is under state control and in which the state interferes. International universities agree with this and therefore De Montfort University was not prepared to fulfill certain criteria that were unacceptable to them just to create a 'semi-detached' South African degree (Lamdin, 2004:2). Bond University has also clearly stated that they were not prepared to change their internationally recognized degrees just to please one country (Bailey, 2004:2). |
| The definition of a university is: a place or institution where technology is gathered, assimilated, taught and developed (Van der Dussen, 2001:7). In the light of the previous discussion of autonomy of a university, institutional neutrality and academic freedom, in contrast with the current state controlled university system in South Africa, underlines the urgency why these principles should be protected within the academy. Academic freedom has always been one of the underlying principles of the identity of a university. Although it is not an absolute right, threating these principles also implicates threatening the essence of the university system. A university which is in absolute terms subordinate to the state (the government of the day) can no longer be free and the practicing of science in all its aspects will eventually deform to a down-graded, third-rated institution. |
| It can be expected that any efforts to resist the ideological, systematic destruction of the European model of universities in South Africa will rigorously be oppressed. The need has prevailed for quite some time to support the development of institutions that want to promote independent scientific development of knowledge. South Africa has a vast potential (academics, innovators, developers and entrepreneurs) to enhance the exercise of science in order to develop and conserve it for the future. Some government bodies are often intentionally involved in actions to prevent private independent institutions for higher education. Even laws make provision for convictions, offenses and heavy penalties for institutions that do not comply with state regulations and that are not accredited. |
| The need is becoming stronger; academic institutions are measured according to African standards, state interference controls study courses, methods and techniques which do not comply with international standards. In this process knowledge gets lost and it not being developed further. Most probably the only answer lies in the foundation of private institutions who comply with international standards as far as their exercise of academic matters are concerned. If this process can be done within a specific belief and value system, it can only enhance the possibility of success. It has become time in South Africa for people who mean it well with independent higher education, where academic freedom prevails, to admit that the current ideological process is systematically deforming and destructing education and training. When the community come to the conclusion that recognition from the industry (and international academic recognition) dominates recognition by the government (if such recognition is degraded to a third-world principles) then only can the revolutionary process in education be revised. |
| Heinrich Matthee has written on the Praag website (Translated): |
| "At clear pools of |
| history and chromosomes |
| we must again plant oak trees |
| and anew dream of freedom" |
| In answering this: There is still hope; may be the oak trees are already blooming. |
| 12 September 2004 |
| Henry du Plessis |
| Training Manager |
| Pretoriase Akademie vir Christelik-volkseie Hoër Onderwys. |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY |
| Ashby, E. 1964. African Universities and Western Tradition. London: Oxford. |
| Bailey, S. 2004. Interview with Robert Stable: Vice-chancellor and president, Bond University of Australia; and Frank Thompson: CEO, AdvTECH. In Moneyweb 1997 - 2004. |
| De Lange, J. 2004. US haal nie teikens met regstellende aksie. Die Burger,13/07/2004. |
| Kgware, W.M. 1978. The University in Africa the Challenge of Relevance. An Address given on the Occasion of his Installation as Second Vice-Chancellor and Third Rector of the University of the North. Pietersburg: University of the North. |
| Lamdin, S. 2004. Statement by De Montfort University and Botswana Accountancy College. In: The Botswana Guradian, 11 Junie 2004. |
| Matthee, H. 2003. Dis tyd om weer eikebome te plant. www.Praag.com Essay 030814, 14 August 2003. |
| Posthumus, L. 1997. Die Moderne Universiteit: Behoeftes vanuit die Afrikakonteks. Johannesburg: RAU Aambeeld. |
| Smit, E. 2004. Openingsrede by die opening van die Universiteit van Stellenbosch se Bestuurskool op 27 Januarie 2004. Stellenbosch: US. |
| Van der Dussen, P.E. 2001. Die Akademie vir Christelik-volkseie Hoër Onderwys: Vastigheid in Krisistyd. Pretoria: Protea. |
| Van Zyl Slabbert, F. 1975. Use the freedom you have to work for the freedom you want. The Eight E.G. Malherbe Academic Freedom Lecture. Durban: University of Natal. |