TUT Transformation Summit paves way for institutional change
‘We need to transform to be locally relevant and globally connected’
In the midst of the many challenges facing higher education in South Africa, the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) recently held a two-day Transformation Summit in order to facilitate broad-based stakeholder conversations related to the institution’s agenda. A number of presentations and round table discussions took place at the university’s Pretoria campus on September 12 and 13. Leading researchers and academics from across the country came together with TUT staff members and student representatives to reflect on transformation.
Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Lourens van Staden, decided last year that such a summit would be held in 2017 to secure broad agreement across the university on transformation. “In many ways, this two-day gathering is critical as we reflect on the important topic of transforming TUT,” said Nick Motsatse, deputy chairperson of the University Council. “Council is resolved that the university must take seriously the task of transformation.”
The summit was structured to encourage dialogue and easy conversation between presenters or “conversation leaders” and members of the audience. According to the university, the summit organising committee opted to use the term conversation leaders in order to “foster during the summit a respect for and sense of a university in conversation.” Conversation leaders included Professor Crain Soudien, chief executive of the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), actor Sello Maake kaNcube, Universities South Africa chief executive Professor Ahmed Bawa, and TUT’s latest addition to its staff contingent – Dr Thandi Mgwebi, designate deputy vicechancellor: Postgraduate Studies, Research and Innovation.
The largest contact and residential university of technology in the country, TUT came into existence in 2004 when Technikon Northern Gauteng, Technikon North-West and Technikon Pretoria merged. TUT has over 60 000 registered students across seven campuses.
The university continues to look at new ways to move forward. “The context in which TUT operates in the latter part of the second decade of the 21st Century is impacted by the global effect of the massification and democratisation of higher education, the national imperative of transformation of the post-school education system, the politicisation of higher education, the call to become a ‘South African’ people’s university, and, in the last few years, the #MustFall protests,” said Motsatse. “This has provided an opportunity to rethink the national university system and chart a new course for the university.”
Understanding transformation is integral to being able to implement changes at TUT. In his opening address, Van Staden noted that systems of structural injustice continue to be prevalent in the university space, such as racism, patriarchy and tribalism. But these are not the only arenas in which there need to be transformation, he said, also making reference to teaching methods, research output, academic performance, and service delivery to students.
Since the undertaking in August 2016 to hold the summit, TUT has been holding broad-based stakeholder conversations related to transformation. Van Staden said that over 500 people from sectors across the university were interviewed in the process of putting a draft transformation framework together, which was distributed to university stakeholders in August 2017 for further input. The document considers not only definitions of transformation, but what it would ideally look like in its implementation at the institution. The summit, in tandem with the framework — which is to be approved by the University Council in November — will be used to inform and develop what Van Staden calls “future strategic plans and operation plans”.
Despite these attempts at inclusion, however, a key element that emerged throughout the summit was the way that student frustration remains at an all-time high — and in the context of the #MustFall protests, this cannot be taken lightly.
“We have various ways of communicating with students through structures, but what I have heard some of the students saying in the sessions is that we need to have more broader, cross-boundary conversations like the summit, where we invite a broad spectrum of stakeholders to speak,” Van Staden told the Mail & Guardian. “What I’ve realised from some of the student comments at the summit is that the way in which we communicate with students is too formalised. We need to open up more and broadening up is something that I want to take forward. The way we are communicating is outdated. I see the need for something different. We need to transform the way we communicate with our students.”
The university’s outgoing SRC president, Hendrick Kosamo Masunda, emphasised that in his view, there needs to be newer methods of engagement, particularly when it comes to the #MustFall protests. “It is part of transformation to say, it is not only the burning tyres that can resolve our issues. It is not only the closing of the gates that can resolve student issues, but sitting down at a round table and being honest with one another,” he told the audience. “Education is one of the keys we can use to transform our lives. Our concern is to say, change starts with us.”
Masunda told the M&G that stakeholders in the community need to all be able to communicate with one another and be able to work towards the same common goals. “Communication is a make-or-break thing. The problem with a lot of universities when it comes to transformation, is that you find people, because of their differences with each other within councils and structures, are unwilling to implement transformation.”
He said that when students are unhappy, those in management should come down and speak to them to educate them on the way that things are taking place. He said that doing so would create less disruption at the institution. “The majority of the time you find that students running behind the protest are not even informed about what is happening. You find that the protest is only controlled by two or three people, influencing other students.”
Van Staden said that ideally an event like this would take place annually. “This summit would become a resource because there is not an end to this; we will annually build on it. This is just the beginning, it is a process. We are on a journey to having conversations.”
As the summit came to a close, he reiterated the importance of being aware of the broader social context in which the university is situated. “As a university, we should also bring the [United Nations] Sustainable Development Goals into our university and domesticate the 17 SDGs at TUT.” He said the institution was aware that the majority of its students were from poor and rural backgrounds, and that it ultimately existed for the good of society. “We should strive to be the custodian of the society in which TUT exists.”