Why do we have Universities?

Universities are there to provide citizens with knowledge and skills, which can be utilised within the local and international socio-economic environment. 

But Universities are there for much more than that. These institutions make up the breeding ground for creativity, pioneering scholarship, and the cultivation of independent ideas.

Universities cannot exist in these capacities, unless an environment of tertiary education is created where there is freedom to pursue thought without hindrance. The drafters of the Constitution knew this. They knew that unless we kept our Universities independent, they would no longer be able to produce great judges, physicists, mathematicians, astrophysicists, palaeontologists, novelists, historians, linguists, educationalists, biologists, environmentalists or economists.

Universities are much more than glorified high schools or high level technical colleges. Universities have helped refine the ideas and ideals of those who have led and shaped our country and our world.

In order to cultivate an environment of creativity and original thought, Universities need freedom and independence.

The 1997 Higher Education Act, drafted in a period when the memory of the apartheid regime’s control over Universities was still fresh, reflected the Constitutional imperative for academic freedom and University independence.  

Sadly, successive Ministers have found it difficult to sustain this vision.

• In 1999 the Minister was given the power to appoint Administrators under his direct authority to replace University Councils and Vice-Chancellors for two years.
• In 2000 he was given the power to veto agreements entered into by Universities.
• In 2002, he was given the power to amend the institutional statute of a University.
• And in 2012 he was given the power to appoint an Assessor, instead of or as well as an Administrator, with extensive powers over Universities.

The latest set of amendments continues along this path, a path of creeping state control and expanded Ministerial prerogative. 

Why has this happened? One reason: the ongoing failure of the formerly “homeland” Universities. Fort Hare, Limpopo, Zululand, Walter Sisulu and others, have all suffered crises of bankruptcy, cadre-deployment, corruption, student poverty and militancy.

Successive Ministers have believed they could solve this through expanding their powers to manage them. But this has not worked. Some Universities have been placed “under administration” several times. Often the period of administration has been followed by one of further corruption and bankruptcy.   And the financial standing of these Universities is eternally precarious.

The Act already enables the Minister to issue legally binding “directives” to Universities and appoint Administrators to take them over. But to do this he is required to provide proof, through audit reports for example, that the University has problems severe enough to warrant suspending its independence.

Today, with the failure of existing methods of fixing the dysfunctional Universities, the Minister seeks to expand his powers.

The new Bill has a clause which means that he will now only need to have “reason to believe”, rather than concrete proof, that intervention is necessary.

It will become easier to suspend University independence, and more difficult to challenge such a decision in court.

The phrase “reason to believe” was in fact used under colonialism and apartheid to make it difficult to review the decisions made by Government.

We oppose this clause.

The Bill also proposes to give the Minister new powers to issue directives to the Council for up to five years after the Administrator leaves. This extends the period of suspension of University autonomy from two years to seven.

We oppose this clause.

The Bill also proposes that two new institutional forms be created – a Higher Education College and a University College. It is unclear what they are, and why they are being put forward. The vagueness of these provisions means that:

We oppose this clause.

The Bill also will allow the Minister to identify institutions which, and I quote, “shall be obliged to offer” courses at the level currently preserved for TVET Colleges. He could, theoretically compel, say, UCT to include a college level course in its curriculum. This is an attack on the autonomy of a University to decide which courses should be taught. 

We oppose this clause.

The long-term damage this Bill will do will be difficult to measure on its own. But add it to the 17 years of creeping control by the state, and the possibility exists that we will soon no longer have an independent University sector at all. Instead Universities will also become “captured” institutions.

We oppose this Bill