Marks only part of the picture
Fikile-Ntsikilelo Moya is the editor of the Mercury. Follow
him on @fikelelom
AN INTERESTING case is unfolding in the Durban High Court. A young woman, Chavara Naidoo, has taken the University of KwaZulu-Natal to court for refusing to admit her to their medical school.
Naidoo passed matric in 2014 with seven distinctions. She then went to the University of Cape Town to study to be a doctor. Unfortunately, things did not work out for her. She became lonely and miserable and eventually quit her studies.
The plan was that she would return to Durban and study at a university closer to home and thus avert the factors that had caused her to underperform in Cape Town. The story speaks to a few issues. The first is that previous academic results are not the only way of predicting future performance.
I intentionally use “only” because I do not want to be misunderstood as saying that previous academic performance is irrelevant. It is.
Young Chavara’s story probably sheds light on why the trend in South Africa over the years has been that about half of those who register for tertiary education never complete it and the majority drop out in the first year.
Chavara probably blows the case for those who have always argued that the failure to stay the course at varsity was solely because of poor basic education, especially in townships and rural schools.
In Chavara we have a young woman who has proven academic abilities and, if the court process is anything to go by, the financial wherewithal to stake a claim to a better future for herself, but still struggled because of the unfamiliar terrain she found herself in.
Imagine then what happens to the thousands of children, most of them black working class or peasants from the backwaters of the country, who must now contend with the bright lights of the city and the cultural shock that comes with living in a new city and with new people.
When they get to a lecture hall, they meet other youngsters who take on the authority figure that is the lecturer with a confidence they were raised to think it is “disrespectful to speak like that to an older person”; they hear phrases like “respect is earned”, when all their lives they believed age and authority were enough to respect a person before they had uttered a word.
Under these circumstances, it is not difficult to see why so many become disillusioned by university life and easily become
Academic results are not the only way of predicting future
success, as one student’s case in the Durban High Court
is illustrating
available for any movement that represents an attack on the establishment.
University campuses have and will always be fertile ground for activism against ills that exist in society.
But making students feel they are all at home should not be one of them.
The answers to how to resolve these issues are complex and expensive. They need boldness and out-of-the-box thinking from those who make future decisions.
For example, under the present conditions, a case might be made for colleges with an intentional bias in favour of those who, though a numerical majority, constitute a cultural minority at universities.
This would be something along the lines of Howard, Spelman and Hampton universities in the US, which are historically black universities aimed at addressing the needs of black students.
Though majority black, these universi- ties are by no means second rate and enjoy the prestige enjoyed by the Ivy League varsities.
The fact of the matter is that difficult as the transition to university life is, it is made harder by having to also navigate “life issues” that have nothing to do with how smart or hard working a student you might be.
In South Africa, it is and must be worse for black and poor students.
I’m certain that some of the antisocial behaviour we see during student protests is an expression of this feeling of alienation. That is not to justify the behaviour.
I am painfully aware that there is a fine line between arguing for this and being seen to be perpetuating the idea behind the founding of universities such as Stellenbosch, Rand Afrikaans and others aimed at whites only.
The whites-only varsities of the past were founded to advance race exclusivity and exceptionalism, while the likes of Howard and Spelman were founded with the aim of allowing students to see themselves in the narrative and also relate to the person standing in front of them.
This is not the same as having “bush colleges”, as tertiary institutions meant for blacks were called during apartheid.
Whereas bush colleges were underfunded and could only attract second-rate academics, the US black colleges model shows that black need not mean mediocre.
This could be one of many solutions to be investigated and even completely thrown out if it proves to be unworkable and out of line with the values of an inclusive society.
Meanwhile, we must thank Chavara Naidoo for reminding us that good marks are just one piece of a jigsaw puzzle to complete a picture of what a student needs to be a success.