Clear strategy for better student access wanting

PROTESTS by university students around the country which led to government cancelling fee increases in 2016 has been a major news story this year.

In the Eastern Cape, protests erupted at Fort Hare, Walter Sisulu, Rhodes and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.

Last week premier Phumulo Masualle had discussions with the vicechancellors of the institutions to discuss preparations for next year, perhaps cognisant of the possibility that the academic year could be disrupted afresh.

But the post-discussion briefing offered little in the way of real proposals on how calm may be maintained in the sector and how local challenges could be addressed.

Like much of the process of policy formulation since democracy, the formulation of government policy on higher education has provided very little opportunity for public engagement on the issues, resulting in a mishmash of some positive and many flawed initiatives.

There are divergent views on what our university system must offer the country. Some argue that graduates must have skills that allow them to participate meaningfully in economic development, others say the value of a university education for the individual must be evident in broader social benefits and responsive to the wider challenges society faces.

Many families would agree that sending their children to university opens up opportunities for higherearning jobs in the professions and upward social mobility, especially into the middle class.

These philosophical rationales for obtaining a university education are not mutually exclusive, but they do feed directly into the kind of funding model which underpins the provision of a university education.

There are 25 public universities in the country (including the recently inaugurated facilities in Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape) with about 983 698 students enrolled according to the most recently published figures. This represents nearly a doubling of student enrolment since 1994, with marked transformation of the racial and gender composition of the student body.

Government has been pushing higher enrolment of students generally, and poor black students in particular, in order to redress apartheid inequalities.

The student participation rate for 18- to 24-year-olds in higher education has varied between 17% and 19% in recent years, although government set a goal of 20% by next year.

According to the Centre for Higher Education Transformation’s open data performance indicators black students comprised 81% of all students in 2012, but only 16% of African and 14% of coloured people of university-going age enrolled in higher education, as opposed to 55% of white and 47% of Indian young people.

The global average tertiary enrolment stood at 32% in 2012, although in some countries, notably Korea, Japan, Canada, Norway, New Zealand and the United States, up to 50% and more of school-leavers attend universities.

In South Africa about 50% of students who enrol at universities drop out before graduation. Only about 6% of students are enrolled for master’s and doctoral programmes.

These issues are all highly relevant to all four universities in the Eastern Cape. About 70 000 students are registered in total at the four universities – WSU 24 122; NMMU 26 361; UFH 12 315; Rhodes 7 485.

The #FeesMustFall movement has highlighted the need for access for historically disadvantaged students, and that topic featured prominently in the discussions in Bhisho, with Masualle saying there was a need to continuously improve access to university education to “better serve the province... at the moment we are experiencing quite a number of challenges in that respect”.

But, as UK academic Simon Marginson has asked, “access to what?”

The four universities are markedly different in major respects. Pass rates in 2012 ranged from 76% for Fort Hare, to 78% for NMMU and WSU, to 85% for Rhodes. The norm set by the department is 80%.

Rhodes had the highest percentage of graduates based on total student numbers – 31% in 2012, followed by NMMU 22%, UFH 21% and WSU 20%, although all were above the threshold set by government.

More than half the academic staff at Rhodes (51%) had doctoral degrees (meeting the target set by government), compared to 41% for NMMU, 37% for UFH and a miserly 20% for WSU.

The national department has set the benchmark ratio for research outputs by academics (based on numbers of staff) at 1.

In 2012, only Rhodes exceeded this target, achieving a ratio of 1.22. UFH scored 0.65, NMMU achieved just more than half the target (0.52), while WSU’s research output was 0.08.

There are also big differences in the income accruing to the institutions and the way it is spent.

Government’s funding model is largely driven by student registrations although it has ringfenced special funds for infrastructure and facilities especially at historically disadvantaged institutions.

UFH received R768-million and spent R710-million; Rhodes had an income of R911-million and disbursed R817-million; WSU received R1.25-billion and overspent R1.26-billion, while NMMU received R1.6-billion and spent R1.4-billion.

Whereas Rhodes (39%) and UFH (37%) received the bulk of their income from student fees in 2012, the biggest source of funds for WSU was government, making up 63% of income, while government also contributed the biggest amount – 42% – to NMMU.

Unsurprisingly, WSU had the lowest level of private income – 12% – compared to Rhodes’ 24%, UFH’s 26% and NMMU’s 29%.

Government has said that good and clean governance by university managements is critical for a healthy higher education sector, but evidence of financial instability at UFH and WSU has been highlighted in recent years.

But despite these obvious differences the four vicechancellors and Masualle were confident that collaboration and co-operation are possible among the institutions, with the premier calling for “better synergies” between the academies and UFH’s Dr Mvuyo Tom saying each university had “unique qualities”.

NMMU’s Derrick Swartz said universities were not only competitors but also collaborators.

“Our principle purpose can only be successfully fulfilled if we place collaboration as our primary principle of social organisation. If we collaborate we can achieve more.

“The epic challenges facing our nation and province are of such an order of magnitude that they require us to throw our resources together. It would be difficult if not impossible for us to overcome these epic challenges individually because we don’t have the scale, the resources – our remits are too small.”

Among the epic challenges he highlighted were climate change, water security and food scarcity.

“The issue of water security for our province is a big political question in the early to mid-21st century. If the premier would like to get a grand plan for water security for his province, the universities should come together as a club to throw their best science and technology capabilities at the issue.”

But that response belies the challenges of sustained integration of objectives and resources among unequal universities, let alone taking account of the shortcomings within the provincial government’s administration.

To be sure the challenges for all the universities are massive – more especially for historically disadvantaged institutions serving mainly poor students from rural areas.

The biggest issue is the quality of matriculants exiting our schools although, as Swartz notes, “all of us produce thousands of skilled and knowledged graduates every single year, decade after decade.

“If you have a university education in the Eastern Cape then you have a better chance of getting a job or setting up a business.”

He is right. A 2013 study by the Centre for Development and Enterprise found that unemployment among degree holders was less than 5%, “as close to full employment in this sector as an economy can get”, although black graduates are more likely to be unemployed (6%) than white graduates (2%).

“For people with non-degree tertiary education, unemployment is about 16%, for matriculants it is 29% and for those with fewer than 12 years of schooling, 42%.”

But, the CDE comments that “it is likely that unemployment rates differ for graduates of different universities, due to real and perceived differences in the quality of their degrees”, although there is no data on which to base a finding.

If government and Eastern Cape universities are serious about forging a common mission and about addressing the problems of student finance and access, it requires that a discussion takes account of these stark challenges and puts forward concrete and realisable proposals.

Last week’s meeting was a start, but it did not answer Marginson’s question “access to what”. It also raised a new one, “collaboration about what”. – rayh@dispatch.co.za

Our principle purpose can only

be successfully fulfilled if we place collaboration as

our primary principle of social

organisation