Cape Town - Desperate university vice-chancellors are to meet President Jacob Zuma in Pretoria on Tuesday to try to find a solution to the funding crunch that has seen violent student protests erupt on many South African campuses.
The University Council Chairpersons Forum of South Africa, and Universities South Africa (the body that represents the interests of the country’s higher education institutions) asked for the meeting, which is expected to be attended by Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande.
Professor Adam Habib, the chairman of Universities South Africa, and vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, told The Mercury on Sunday that the meeting was prompted by university leaders’ concerns over campus “tensions”, and violence.
Habib said university leaders needed to have a “frank discussion” with Zuma and the relevant ministers on the challenges of funding and transformation which the sector faced, and which gave rise to student protests.
Habib said he did not believe that individual universities, or the higher education sector, could deal with these challenges without the government’s help.
He said the meeting had been requested because the solutions to the turmoil on university campuses went beyond the Higher Education Department.
For example, the funding crunch required the input of the National Treasury, and the Science and Technology Department.
Habib said that Nzimande was “supportive” of universities, and he had made Nzimande’s department aware that Universities South Africa had written to Zuma.
When he had corresponded with the Presidency, Habib said, he had stressed the importance of Nzimande’s participation.
Presidential spokesman Bongani Majola said on Sunday that Nzimande and the “relevant ministers” were expected to attend.
Lesiba Seshoka, a spokesman for the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said he could not confirm vice-chancellor Albert van Jaarsveld’s attendance.
Funding-related student protests are a regular occurrence at UKZN, but they turned particularly violent last month, when the administration building on the Westville campus was torched, along with two vehicles. The student wellness office on the Westville campus was also set alight last week. Students from the Westville and Pietermaritzburg campuses have been arrested over the course of the past three weeks, and at least 10 students have been served with suspensions.
A 2013 review of the funding of universities, commissioned by Nzimande and led by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, conceded that by international comparison, the level at which higher education in South Africa was funded was low. The same report named the current “inadequate” rate of state spending on higher education as a factor hindering the development of the next generation of academics.
Sinking government subsidies have put pressure on the other two sources of university income: tuition, and third-stream income (which typically includes research grants and donations). The National Development Plan acknowledges the “considerable strain” that universities are under. Funding has not kept up with the increase in enrolments, and the consequences have been a slow growth in the number of lecturers, and “creaking” infrastructure.
The number of students enrolled at South Africa’s universities is expected to reach 1.1 million by 2019.
Speaking at a higher education conference in Durban recently, Habib argued that the money which the government spent on student fees should be put up as collateral to enable banks to grant loans which would cover the fees of all students.
While condemning the violent protests at UKZN, Habib said the upsurge was not surprising. He said academia and the government were collectively responsible for the failure to achieve transformation.
Higher Education Department spokesman Khaye Nkwanyana said Nzimande’s attendance at Tuesday’s meeting was not definite, and added that the department had been bypassed by the university leaders in seeking a meeting with Zuma.
Nkwanyana said he believed that the pressure brought to bear on the former Afrikaans universities to transform had been part of the motivation for requesting the meeting. Nkwanyana said Nzimande would take up the apparent bypassing of protocols with Habib.
Habib said no disrespect had been intended, and he was not a representative of the former Afrikaans universities.
The Mercury