Transforming tertiary education
28 February 2003
After years of planning and consultation, the higher education sector is being restructured to solve problems of duplication, fragmentation and lack of access in parts of the country and to improve the quality of education on offer.
The system of apartheid left a skewed system that not only disadvantaged black students, but failed to meet the social and economic requirements of the country. Now the size and shape of the higher education sector is being transformed into a more equitable one that better meets South Africa's human resource requirements.
Education Minister Kader Asmal disclosed details of the plan last year after Cabinet approved the final draft of the National Plan for Higher Education, the culmination of an intensive process of restructuring the higher education system that began over a decade ago.
Now the legal processes have begun to facilitate the mergers. The first mergers are set to take place this year, while the
second group of institutions are set to merge in 2005.
The government has also set up two National Institutions for Higher Education in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, two provinces which previously had no higher education institutions.
Key goals of the restructuring process include increasing the number of students in the system over the next 10 to 15 years, increasing the number of black and female students in under-represented areas, establishing centres of excellence, and reducing the number of institutions from 36 to 22 through institutional mergers.
This last has met with some resistance from some affected institutions reluctant to relinquish their individual identities.
Asmal said the new system, after two years of restructuring, would comprise 11 universities, six technikons and six comprehensive institutions (offering both university and technikon
programmes). Most of the country's leading universities, including the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Cape Town, Stellenbosch and Natal, will not be affected by the planned mergers.
'Comprehensive institutions'
Some changes have been made to the initial plan. For example, the University of Venda will not merge with the University of the North and the Medical University of South Africa (Medunsa), as proposed initially, but will instead be transformed into a "comprehensive institution" offering technikon-type programmes as well as a range of relevant university-oriented programmes.
Also, Border Technikon, Eastern Cape Technikon and the University of Transkei (Unitra) will be merged to establish a new comprehensive institution, offering university and technikon programmes. Initially only a technikon was envisaged.
"This new organisational form will result in the integration of academic and vocational programmes offered across the
full qualification spectrum, allowing increased student access and mobility," Asmal said.
The following mergers will take place:
- Universities of Natal and Durban-Westville in KwaZulu-Natal.
- Universities of Potchefstroom and North West in North West Province.
- Technikons Pretoria, Northern Gauteng and North West in Gauteng and North West Province.
- University of Fort Hare and the East London Campus of Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape.
- The incorporation of the seven Vista campuses around the country into the those universities and technikons closest to them.
- University of Port Elizabeth and Port Elizabeth Technikon in the Eastern Cape.
- University of Transkei/Border and Eastern Cape technikons in the Eastern Cape.
- Rand Afrikaans University and Wits Technikon in Gauteng.
- Cape Technikon and Peninsula Technikon in the Western Cape.
The merger of ML Sultan Technikon and Natal Technikon into the Durban Institute of
Technology in KwaZulu-Natal took place in April, while the incorporation of the Qwa Qwa branch of the University of the North into the University of the Free State will take place in January 2004.
Processes have also begun to merge the University of South Africa (Unisa), Technikon SA and the distance education arm of Vista University in Gauteng.
Some mergers early next year
The national education department will enter into discussions with the affected institutions early in 2003 to determine the timing of each merger. Some mergers are expected to take place as early as January 2003, while the rest will occur in 2005.
Although there is much speculation that the mergers will result in job losses, Asmal envisages retraining rather than job losses. For example, some lecturers will have to switch from teaching academic subjects to more technically oriented ones, he said.
The restructuring process is expected to cost government at
least R3.1-billion, of which R1.3-billion will be ploughed into historically disadvantaged institutions.
Resources have also been set aside for the establishment of a National Higher Education Information and Application Service, to serve as an information hub for school leavers on study opportunities, career guidance and mentoring.
Asmal said that, taken as a whole, the transformation and reconstruction proposals would foster growth and rejuvenation of higher education, especially in parts of the country which have been poorly served in the past.
A race-based system
Racial segregation of universities in South Africa was legislated with the passing of the Extension of University Education Act in 1959. This ushered in the establishment of ethnically based institutions, many which were set up in the "self-governing" states or homelands during the apartheid era, which saw "separate development" for blacks – Africans, coloureds and
Indians - and whites.
In the 1970s and 1980s, universities began to open their doors to students of all races. Now, South African universities are lively, multicultural places of learning, where diversity is celebrated. Many of the historically white universities now have a majority of black students.
Whereas in the past most higher education students in the country were white, now nearly 60 percent are black. Statistics from 2000 show that of the total amount of 345 403 students in universities and technikons, 178 654 were African, 122 461 were white, 15 853 were coloured and 28 054 were Indian.
Asmal said the restructuring would "ensure the removal of the Verwoerdian legacy that created separate and unequal institutions". (Hendrik Verwoerd, who was known as the architect of apartheid, was prime minister of South Africa from 1958 to 1966, when he was assassinated).
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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