UKZN stands by audit report on grad school

Denies claims of recommendations ignored

AN AUDIT report compiled three years ago on the state of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Graduate School of Business and Leadership (GSB&L) has come under the spotlight after it was distributed recently by employees.

The employees claimed recommendations made in the audit report had not been undertaken.

The audit had found that inexperienced lecturers and other constraints were damaging the school’s image.

However, UKZN said the recommendations from the report, which it commissioned, were taken into account in the strategic plan for the GSB&L.

“The university is committed to ensuring the implementation of the plan,” said Normah Zondo, UKZN’s acting executive director for Corporate Relations.

In the audit report compiled by Deloitte in 2016, it was found there was fierce competition from rival institutions in and outside the province and the institution battled infighting.

The purpose of the report was to determine the financial and strategic potential that could face the institution as it prepared for a relocation to uMhlanga.

The report highlighted the need for more experienced lecturers and supervisors. It found there was a desperate need to relocate the business school for more intimate engagement with businesses and corporates and to allow for more space for lectures and interaction. The report also said violent student protests impacted negatively on the business school and graduates often opted for other institutions to avoid being affected by the protests.

“As a school that focuses primarily on mature professionals from the business world, these individuals have very different expectations to the typical university student.

“They are high achievers, seeking to accomplish higher education goals and develop their careers. These individuals are full-time professionals and expect a high standard in the service they receive and the facilities they pay for and utilise,” the report read.

The school is composed only of post-graduate students, most at master’s or doctorate level, and this results in a high supervision load for the limited number of academic and support staff employed by the school.

Zondo said the GSB&L was ranked third in South Africa, according to the Professional Market Research (PMR) annual survey, and all its programmes were accredited by the Council on Higher Education.

She said as part of building partnerships with industry and business, and to gain deeper insights to the needs of industry, the business school was offering industry secondment opportunities to all academic staff for six months to inform cutting-edge research and teaching.

“At the GSB&L, as with any competitive business school, ongoing industry engagement is critical to strengthening knowledge, agility and applicability in the classroom setting as well as in the industry environment, to ensure harmony between contexts.

“Staff choosing to take up secondments will continue with their academic duties such as supervision of dissertations, research and community engagement, and teaching responsibilities will be arranged around secondments.

“The UKZN secondment policy enables this form of industry placement, and seconded academics will continue to be paid by UKZN.”

Zondo added that the longer-term strategy of the GSB&L was to expand its course options from degree courses to short and bespoke courses to meet the varied needs of industry and individuals.

“This will also entail an expansion of course delivery options, to include flexible teaching venues, joint ventures with foreign academic institutions and online, delivery,” she said.

UKZN is committed to ensuring implementation

of the plan

Normah Zondo

ACTING DIRECTOR, CORPORATE RELATIONS