Varsity year in peril
IF TERTIARY institutions do not get their academic projects back on track this week to save the year, the result will be dire.
This was according to the CEO of Universities South Africa, Ahmed Bawa, in light of violent protests at universities this week including the University of Kwa-Zulu-Natal and the University of Witwatersrand.
Bawa was speaking to POST yesterday (Tuesday) after some tertiary institutions chose to keep their campuses open, while others suspended lectures.
Yesterday morning UKZN’s classes resumed, but fears were mounting that the KZN #FeesMustFall March by students from across the province, which included civil society and faith based organisations, from Curries Fountain to the Durban Harbour, would result in protesters returning to campus.
Wits classes had resumed, while the University of Cape Town (UCT) chose to suspend lectures until yesterday.
According UCT spokeswoman Gerda Kruger, the planning around options and scenarios that will enable students to conclude the 2016 academic year successfully was ongoing.
She said staff and their direct line managers were to agree on final working arrangements and that the private security company, Vetus Schola, would be withdrawn from the campus until further notice.
This was in the hope that it would enable the university to have more positive engagements.
Bawa said each university had its own dynamics when it came to keeping their campuses open or suspending classes.
“Some universities did not shut down this week, including the University of Johannesburg, the Durban University of Technology and Mangosuthu University of Technology.
“There are many contributing factors, which include the way they manage their security and the nature of their students and whether they have addressed key issues beforehand,” said Bawa.
“This is an interesting phenomenon.
But we must be careful not to look at the entire system as one. There are 26 universities in South Africa and each one is desperately trying to complete the academic year.
“If not, the implications would be devastating, especially if the academic programme went into the first three months of next year.
“What would it do to the intake of matriculants next year? You cannot double up.
“As a country, we produce around 1 400 to 1 500 medical graduates a year and they go into internships at hospitals.
While they are trainees, they are also doctors, so hospitals will be short of a significant number of doctors.
“There will also be enormous implications on funding… If you pay tertiary fees this year, you cannot pay for next year as well.
“The university’s fee income will be delayed by three months.”
Bawa added that until recently, a lot of the demonstrations were peaceful and did not impact on the academic year, but that had since changed.
“We are deeply concerned.
We have seen violence spill on to the streets, but we have to be mindful because we do not know if the perpetrators were students or not.”
He said the damage resulting from the violence at universities around the country was nearing R1 billion.
“The system is already cashstrapped. Universities will have to try to get this money out of the operating budget.”
When asked if a free education was possible, he said: “If you had to ask me if we have enough money to have free education, I don’t know.
“We understand that having free education is a good idea and it will lead to an equal society… but we need to have discussions around this.”
Bawa questioned whether government should take money out of basic education and Early Childhood Development programmes to fund free tertiary education at this point, but said the money could be better spent on developing the educational needs of children from primary school level.
“It comes down to the national choices we make,” he said.