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Mokubung Nkomo and Derrick Swartz2 The repositioning of two South African universities 15 Botshabelo Maja, Andile Gwabeni and Phuti A Mokwele 3 Constructing a conceptual framework for HB

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Mokubung Nkomo and Derrick Swartz

2 The repositioning of two South African universities 15

Botshabelo Maja, Andile Gwabeni and Phuti A Mokwele

3 Constructing a conceptual framework for HBUs in a

developmental paradigm 47

Catherine A Odora Hoppers

4 Turfloop: where an idea was expressed, hijacked and redeemed 65

Abram L Mawasha

5 Fort Hare in its local context: a historical view 85

Seán Morrow

6 Intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial developments at the

University of the North 104

Table 6.1 Fee waivers for students, 2001–2003 118

Table 6.2 Undergraduate and postgraduate enrolment, 1998–2003 118Table 6.3 Characteristics of mode 1 and mode 2 knowledge

production 121Table 6.4 UNIN’s new academic architecture 123

Figures

Figure 2.1 Sectors of the Limpopo economy and their contributions

to GGP 18Figure 2.2 major occupation groups in the UNIN catchment area 19Figure 2.3 Sectors of the Eastern Cape economy and their contributions

to GGP 22Figure 2.4 Breakdown of employment by sector 23

Figure 2.5 Student participation rate at UNIN, 1994–2002 27

Both protagonists and antagonists in the debate took strong fundamentalist positions Protagonists held these institutions inviolate, as custodians of the struggle for democracy and nurseries of some of the leading personalities in black society Their view is represented by the following:

The [historically black universities or HBUs] located as they are

in the very midst of the underdevelopment and poverty of the

African Rural Community have their development mandate very clear before us … to play a direct role in helping to eliminate

underdevelopment and poverty of this largest proportion of the African population in the country.1

On the other hand, antagonists charged financial ineptitude and, in extreme cases, that these institutions were devoid of intellectual currency Their exasperation led to a pronouncement by the vice-chancellor of a historically advantaged institution that ‘the crisis in the higher education system can be overcome by closing all historically black universities’.2

The protagonists represent a deep yearning for rediscovery and transformation,

a deep desire to give expression to the post-colonial/post-apartheid rise of the subaltern, while the antagonists reflect a buoyant self-satisfaction, seemingly inattentive to the development imperatives of present-day South Africa These passions yield more heat than light Nonetheless, the fact that, in the contemporary reality of an unfolding democratic culture, these institutional archetypes are not fixed but increasingly fluid, metamorphic, and even contradictory or dialectical, deserves mention And therein lies the potential

We wish to stress that, at this point, the emphasis of the study is on the spatial location of the two institutions (even though rurality has been overtaken by a creeping peri-urban and, most recently, urban reality, especially in the case of the University of Fort Hare with its inheritance of the East London campus as

a result of the merger process) rather than their racial identity, although this remains a stubborn imprint

Initial dialogue about conducting the research took place around 2000 in discussions between the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Centre for Higher Education Transformation (CHET) Shortly thereafter, active support was given by Derrick Swartz at the University of Fort Hare, who saw merit in a dispassionate probe, and the contagion quickly spread to Patrick FitzGerald, who had been appointed Administrator of the University

of the North Gerry Salole of the Ford Foundation believed in the idea and authorised the disbursement of funds to make it happen; the support is greatly appreciated and we hope this book will do justice to that act of faith and commitment

An advisory committee was established in order to give guidance to the project, especially in its early days The committee consisted of Derrick Swartz, Patrick FitzGerald, Joe Teffo, Catherine Odora Hoppers, Wim Hoppers, Peter maleta, Tembile Kulati, Bulumbo Nelani, Botshabelo maja and mokubung Nkomo We are greatly indebted to the collective guidance and wisdom of these individuals

A joint research team was also established; led by Botshabelo maja, it consisted of Andile Gwabeni and Siyabonga Gwabeni of the University of Fort Hare, Asaph Ndlovu, Sekgothe makgoatsana and Phuti mokwele of the University of the North, and Catherine Odora Hoppers and Jane Kabaki, who were commissioned to address identified areas in the research more Chakane and Brutus malada were drawn in at critical points to assist in information retrieval and consolidation exercises

While eternally grateful to the insightful and practical inputs of these individuals, they, most assuredly, do not assume responsibility for errors and omissions that may inadvertently have been committed Those, regrettably, remain the editors’ sole and lonely responsibility.

2 Quoted in University of Durban-Westville (UDW) Working Group (2000) HDIs: Development institutions of the future Paper presented at the Association of Vice- Chancellors of Historically-disadvantaged Tertiary Institutions in South Africa (ASAHDI) Conference on higher education: Imperatives of equity and redress, at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, 19–20 October.

Acronyms and abbreviations

ARDRI Agricultural and Rural Development Research InstituteBASA Black Academic Staff Association

GGP Gross Geographical Product

HBU historically black university

HDI historically disadvantaged institution

HEI higher education institution

HSRC Human Sciences Research Council

ICT information and communications technology

ISRDS Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy

medunsa medical University of Southern Africa

NPHE National Plan for Higher Education

R&D research and development

RDP Reconstruction and Development Programme

SADC Southern African Development Community

SASO South African Students Organisation

SmmEs small, medium and micro enterprises

SRC Students’ Representative Council

TELP Tertiary Education Linkages Project

UFH University of Fort Hare

UNIN University of the North

Unisa University of South Africa

mokubung Nkomo and Derrick Swartz

So we have a fractured inheritance … and the question we face

is: what do we do with it? One possible answer is that we should transform historically-black institutions from the educational

dumping grounds that Verwoerd designed them to be, and

make them bastions of the new democratic excellence This is

not a vision entirely without merit Whatever the intentions

of the apartheid rulers, the fact is that individual students and

professors – black and white – made, and continue to make,

valuable contributions from these venues that were intended

as dumping grounds Their contributions cannot simply be

discarded.1

Recently, a vice-chancellor of a rural-based, historically disadvantaged institution made the following rather remarkable observation:

One thing that has struck me is that our institution, which has

been in existence for over half a century, has produced some

of the most outstanding leaders in politics, business, culture

and so on many of the leaders were South Africans and some

came from as far as Kenya yet, when you look at the immediate

environment of the university you would hardly notice its impact, except in a limited sense While we can and should take pride in its remarkable achievements, despite all odds placed before it by apartheid, it seems shameful, indeed unacceptable, that we have

made limited impact on our immediate surrounds Something

must be done about this.2

The question of ‘engagement’, of how universities (and, broadly, higher education) relate their core mission (teaching, research and ‘public service’) to society (civil, economic, cultural, political and so on), has become quite topical

on this, specifically in respect to post-apartheid university ‘engagement’ challenges This question of how the university defines and relates itself to its environment has become a particularly vital consideration for historically disadvantaged universities in the post-1990 period as they grapple with new conditions within a rapidly changing higher education sector

This book examines the way two such institutions, the University of Fort Hare (UFH) and the University of the North (UNIN), have defined and expressed the new politics of ‘engagement’, their attempts to ‘reinvent’ themselves in order to achieve new meaning in a post-apartheid democracy, their new vision and mission orientations and ‘development’ strategies, as well as the forms

of engagement they have sought, and their underlying assumptions In the case of both UFH and UNIN, institutional change was the result of internal and external pressures: on the one hand, a rising tide of political pressure from students, academics and alumni pressing for these two institutions to find a new meaning and role in a post-apartheid South Africa; on the other hand, a contradictory combination of changes in higher education policy, and structural changes in the higher education market that began to exert themselves on the political economy of institutions It is hoped that one contribution this project can offer is a conceptual outline of some key tenets that could assist other similar institutions to identify new points of departure for developing strategies for social responsiveness, survival and innovation in the current national context

Around the mid-1990s, South Africa’s first democratic government adopted a series of higher education policy reforms that significantly altered the terrain

of higher education provision, bringing with it a new and less favourable funding regime, increased competition over students, and growing demands for greater institutional ‘responsiveness’ Firstly, although the absolute level of investment in public higher education increased during the first ten years of democracy, in real terms subsidy levels have declined and, increasingly, have been pegged to performance on student numbers, throughput, programme mix and research output Secondly, abolition of racial restrictions on access after 1994 meant, in effect, an ‘opening up’ of the market for students – a move that led to larger numbers of black, particularly black middle-class,

‘responsiveness’ in expanding their traditional mandate beyond production

of graduates and formal research to also becoming more and more ‘engaged’

a broadening of the role of higher education beyond graduate teaching and research to include ‘social engagement’ in civil and industrial society

The aim of the research presented here was to raise some conceptual and strategic issues that have underpinned the historical experiences of the two institutions in their quest to propagate a ‘development’ agenda in response

to the challenge of ‘engagement’ – that is to say, pressing policy and popular expectations, combined with institutional definitions of ‘relevance’, for linking universities into more meaningful relationships with their wider environs The challenge of engagement, as it turns out, is not a simple one-sided, subject–object relationship, in terms of which universities are called upon,

or decide, to ‘serve’ the needs of society in one or other way The forms of engagement and types of relationship built are often initiated from outside universities; and they are multi-sided, involving business, civil society groups, individuals, development agencies and all manner of actors independent from higher education As such, ‘engagement with society’ cannot be taken at face value as these relationships are imbued with a range of different, often contradictory expectations, values, interests and outcomes

moreover, ‘society’ is neither internally homogenous nor necessarily unified Different types of engagement often reveal quite contrasting, even opposing interests, and these, as will be argued in this book, may have significant consequences for how university missions are acted out It might be more

on values such as social capital, democracy, civic society and public good, turning to knowledge institutions for intellectual support; whereas corporate alliances, on the other hand, often tend to emphasise projects for their value

in relation to revenue generation, entrepreneurship and individual good, a different set of organising principles

Although some of these elements are not mutually exclusive, with several interesting combinations recorded in the experiences of both UFH and UNIN, they do point to quite different paradigms at work Often, as is the case with both UFH and UNIN, institutional responses have tended to be varying combinations of ‘social’ and ‘corporate’ orientations in their ‘development agenda’ setting Their apparently contradictory development strategies may

be a reflection of their attempts to embrace and express two diverging mandate imperatives On the one hand, mandate requirements for greater

‘third-stream’ income to supplement declining subsidies and research funds are creating conditions where institutions look to entrepreneurial strategies

to source revenue, trading their knowledge, skills and capital assets as

‘commodities’ On the other hand, mandate requirements for ‘relevance’ and

‘responsiveness’, as well as putative commitments to ‘public good’, have seen institutions forging a multiplicity of ‘civic relations’ based on public service, duty, solidarity and non-profit norms

Institutional responses, such as those of UFH and UNIN, suggest that such dual imperatives have been embraced and expressed within overall development strategies and plans, perhaps suggesting that these are not seen

by institutional actors as necessarily in conflict The specific accounts of the experiences of UFH and UNIN (see Chapter 2) indicate different modes of accommodation of each of these imperatives, which are seen as extensions of the core missions of the universities Nonetheless, these accounts also show forms of engagement embedded with different interests and social forces, often entailing institutional linkages with diverging strategic objectives

1994 period, triggering specific efforts to redefine and reposition themselves

in the context of the end of apartheid Fourthly, in both cases, there was some institutional record of their transformation ‘experiments’, combined with leaderships interested in giving wider analytical expression to their respective historical experiences

Although it was not anticipated at the time, it turned out that both UFH and UNIN would be spared losing their institutional identities (although this too, it could be argued, may presumably be renegotiated) in the context of the merger (and incorporation) policy of the government in the late 1990s

As such, at the time of conducting the study, each institution was legally autonomous and governed by its own council (though in UNIN’s case, this was

to give way to an interim council in 2005) As a consequence of government policy, UNIN was to ‘merge’ with the medical University of Southern Africa, creating a new institution known as the University of Limpopo, and UFH was

to incorporate Rhodes University’s East London campus while retaining its name and independent status

The core focus of this book is on the particular historical experiences of UFH and UNIN, and it is not assumed that generalisations can be made, at least not without careful evidence and argument, on conditions and lessons at other historically disadvantaged universities Nonetheless, it is hoped that one can draw insights that may be applicable to similar debates and experiences obtaining at institutions with approximate conditions of existence

The book brings together a wide range of contributors, some having had direct involvement, in a variety of capacities, with UFH and UNIN, and others, scholars of higher education in general, and of the challenges facing historically disadvantaged universities in particular Amongst the contributors are a former administrator of UNIN and serving vice-chancellor of UFH,

a number of prominent project leaders who have been intimately involved

in recent changes at the two universities, and leading scholars interested

in the transformation of higher education and the particular challenges of historically disadvantaged universities What makes this mix interesting is that it brings together a range of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’ perspectives on the imperatives of engagement at UFH and UNIN

It is also worth noting that the notion of ‘rurality’ is of course a generalised descriptor, denoting a set of spatial and geo-strategic conditions, and the terms ‘rural-based’ or ‘rural’ must be used with qualification Thus, the political economies of both UFH and UNIN are probably more aptly peri-urban, as the local economies are tied in a range of ways to major cities (King William’s Town–East London in the case of UFH and Polokwane in the case

of UNIN) and their trading links moreover, a significant proportion of the population in these environs not only draws income from urban centres (and are, thus, urban working or middle class), but also maintains complex linkages with urban centres As such, the notion of an isolated, hermetically sealed ‘rural’ area, conceived in early nineteenth-century terms, is neither historically correct nor empirically sustainable In this context, the use of the term ‘rural university’ must take into account the dynamic and constantly interchangeable linkages between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, blurring many traditional social and spatial associations Indeed, the argument is made by some of the authors (see, for example, Chapter 7) that the universities are actively seeking opportunities for new trading linkages (around skills, technology, goods and services) between ‘rural’ and ‘urban’, stimulated as it were by UFH and UNIN operating across the traditional divide and, by extension, redefining the existential relationship of ‘rural’ to ‘urban’

Notwithstanding these nuances, it must be pointed out that ‘rural-based’ universities since their inception have been on the periphery of the mainstream

of knowledge production and meaningful application in a development context This can be traced back to the political economy of racial capitalism during its colonial and apartheid phases of historical development (malherbe 1965).3 The marginalisation of rural-based universities was also premised on a development paradigm steeped in the social imagination of ‘grand apartheid’, which effectively sought to balkanise the geography within which historically disadvantaged institutions were allowed to develop By contrast, the notion of integrated development evolved in public policy circles around the mid-1990s

is breathing new educational, cultural and economic life into the region’ (Fehnel 2001: 2).4 In India, the Ghandigram Rural University has become the anchor for a vibrant interchange between the university and the surrounding community.5 In the United States of America (USA), the Rural Community College Initiative funded by the Ford Foundation is another example of innovative sustainability These institutions, it has been argued, have ‘redefine[d] their missions to focus on developing the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills needed by the community to support economic growth’ (Fehnel 2001: 2) The so-called ‘land-grant’ universities in the USA have also played a vital role in the development of agricultural research and development capacity, turning the rural hinterland into the food basket of the rest of the country It offers one model that could be considered in similar situations

in South Africa (though presumably taking into account this country’s own historical specificities)

New modes of thinking and the application of modern technology have been proven to be quite able to mitigate the effects of rural–urban spatial dislocation, which was for a long time a defining feature of the political economy of South African universities It also bears noting that there is, finally, a revival of once-moribund African universities The Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, a consortium comprising the Carnegie Corporation of New york, the Ford Foundation, the John D and Catherine T mcArthur Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, ‘came together out of a common belief in the future of African universities’ by providing the necessary support ‘to transform themselves and promote national development’ (musisi & muwanga 2003: xv).6

Furthermore, it is clear that if South Africa’s racially bifurcated economy, based on a highly developed, largely urban industrial economy and a largely rural, underdeveloped subsistence sector, is to be overcome, major work has to be done to transform the structural dynamics of the economy as a

Rural-based universities can also derive their legitimacy, if they need any, from the notion of ‘differentiation’, which is a concept advanced in the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) To be sure, the ‘differentiation’ suggested in the policy document (mission and programme differentiation) is restrictive in meaning; nevertheless, it can and should be interpreted flexibly

to extend its application to include having universities that are dedicated to servicing the rural and peri-urban sectors, thereby ensuring the realisation of the sustainable rural development strategic policy framework The inclusive nature of the integrated development approach recognises the need, beyond a mere notion of balancing or equity between rural and urban, to construct new relationships between rural and urban in a manner that also recognises the internally differentiated nature of these categories Thus, UFH’s attempts to link Buffalo City with Alice, by way of a complex chain of exchange relations involving communities and business groups in agricultural production, marketing, small-scale manufacturing, technology transfer, arts and crafts,

as well as opening up new markets for investment in the rural hinterland, is

a good innovation The innovative interventions at UNIN are also relevant here, and include the establishment of Edupark – an educational centre in Polokwane that houses several tertiary institutions and attracts people-in-service from all over the northern region, mainly to the University Graduate School of Leadership

The project of bringing about democracy in South Africa should be understood

as comprehensive in scope, in that it is not an exclusively political project

in the narrow sense of ‘politics’ Disenfranchisement of the vast majority

of the population in the colonial and apartheid eras was entrenched in all conceivable spheres of society It embraced not only the political, but also the economic, social, cultural and intellectual spheres In this sense, it was holistic

and assumed an expansive political economy connotation Education became

an instrument for ideological domination (complementing the more brutal and coercive instruments of domination – defence and the police services – which were the standard issue of oppression) The over-resourcing of white institutions ensured a form of white intellectual hegemony (albeit partial and largely operating within the then dominant political discourse), which is still

The rural-based universities are strategically positioned (above and beyond rectifying the urban-biased development strategy) to support the project of the democratisation of knowledge production (one that is fundamentally different from the parochial apartheid epistemology) As demonstrated especially in their earlier periods, albeit in a restricted way, they can also produce black leaders (both intellectual and otherwise).7 Given proper support, these institutions can develop (within distinctive niches) genuine research and intellectual cultures that meet world standards while contributing significantly to the general welfare of their surrounding communities.

Addressing the critical need for the production of intellectuals who can make

a contribution to the transformation project in South Africa, Education minister Naledi Pandor has stressed the need for the ‘development of scholars interested in actively pursuing and developing new knowledge about the continent, scholars who realise that Africa desperately needs intellectuals who focus on Africa We have been subjects of scrutiny by others for too long’.8 Needless to say, focusing on Africa would not be at the expense of scholarship that is globally conscious and upholds high norms and standards

of performance There is a symbiotic relationship between the local–global (or particularism–universalism) nexus, as there is between the rural–urban nexus

There is a strategic space that rural-based universities should occupy in the development of scholars and researchers capable of empathically addressing the daunting challenges of the African Renaissance There can be no genuine African Renaissance without unleashing the vast latent energy that lies untapped in the rural sector This is a task that is not singularly reserved for rural-based universities manganyi (in White 1997: 30) puts it more expansively: ‘When I talk about African universities … I am not referring

to an ethnocentric particularism … but rather this: that all South African universities will hopefully begin to see themselves as being in Africa and of Africa.’

to uplift the community that surrounds it and in contributing to the greater society, in a regional and global sense It can operate in such a way as to give meaning to the now commonplace expression, ‘thinking globally and acting locally’ Neither rurality nor identity as a historically black university (HBU) should be regarded as being in contradiction with urbanity or the rainbow character of South Africa Particularism can enhance understanding

of identity and facilitate adaptation to universalist nation-building and the creation of global consciousness projects

It should be noted that this book consists of a loose collection of essays, not an integrated and thematically synchronous set of contributions As such, each contribution is distinctive in style and theoretical orientation, and no attempt

at a ‘grand narrative’ has been made Some chapters, notably Chapter 2, are decidedly empirical, providing readers with a relatively detailed descriptive narrative of the history and character of institutional ‘renewal’ at UFH and UNIN, zooming in on an explication of their respective ‘institutional development’ plans Others, such as Chapters 4 and 5, are historiographical in nature, while Chapters 3, 6 and 7 are more philosophical and conceptual.From a methodological point of view, the authors have drawn on a range

of research strategies, including interviews with key players, documentary analyses, group discussions and textual analyses

In Chapter 2, maja, Gwabeni and mokwele provide a descriptive and evaluative study of recent efforts by UFH and UNIN to restructure their institutional profiles in response to perceived imperatives of ‘engagement’ The authors attempt to relate recent efforts at ‘institutional repositioning’

at UFH and UNIN to, firstly, the policy requirements set out in the NPHE

as ‘customers’ or ‘users’, Odora Hoppers prefers the notion of ‘academic citizens’ and reverses the Rostowian hierarchy of knowledge that tends to marginalise and relegate ‘local’ and ‘indigenous’ knowledge forms to the realm of the ‘informal’, and forcefully argues for universities such as UFH and UNIN to radically reconstruct their meaning and relevance against these new metaphors Odora Hoppers urges African scholars not to give up on the task of developing the protocols for an indigenous view of learning and consolidating spaces for self-determination and empowerment She sees this task not as an attempt to return to an ill-defined global age but as a transformation to new futures that value a variety of forms of learning and the sharing of knowledge

on a trans-societal level

In Chapter 4, Abram mawasha provides a spirited narrative of the historical origins and development of UNIN from its founding days as the University College of the North to the present, where the university has finally come

to resemble the idea it was founded on almost 50 years ago mawasha traces the important role played by local communities, particularly traditional African leadership, in the establishment of UNIN in the late 1950s However,

he contends that the original idea of an ‘African university’, occasioned by popular pressure from staff and students, was hijacked by the architects

of apartheid who managed to articulate this call within apartheid’s racist and ethnocentric ideology, which sought to legitimate the grand design of

‘separate development’ mawasha’s central argument is that a university’s definitions of itself mutate during different periods of historical formation and reformation, and the way in which this is manifested depends, in a large measure, on political power within and over the institution Although

In Chapter 5, Seán morrow gives a lucid historiographical account of the origins and development of UFH from the citadels of early colonialism, through the dark apartheid years, the brief homelands period and the awakenings of democracy The chapter vividly traces the university’s relationship with its local context from the very early days when it was seen as a nursery for the cultivation of a native black Christian elite cooperating with paternalistic white power, to ascending to positions of influence within a decidedly colonial system morrow traces the problematic relationship of UFH to the wider social structures of colonialism and apartheid, pointing out the impact of accumulated disadvantages as a function of location and history Although more recent policy changes have seen UFH extend its operating environment beyond Alice into East London, morrow raises the structural and human challenges faced by a project aimed at long-term institutional sustainability.

In Chapter 6, Patrick FitzGerald, a former administrator of UNIN, traces the emergence of recent shifts in strategic orientation, which are suggestive, in his view, of an emergent, though still precarious and provisional, entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial character to the university Drawing on the work of Burton R Clark (1998), FitzGerald refers to five generic characteristics typical

of such ‘entrepreneurial’ universities: the existence of a strong steering core; an enlarged development periphery; a wide funding base; a stimulated academic corps; and an overall and integrated entrepreneurial culture FitzGerald cautions that we should not see the transformation of UNIN as having happened easily or imagine that the way ahead is free of challenges In fact, we are told about the danger that the entrepreneurial approach could be likened

to the ‘selling out’ of previous values, unless this approach is combined with

a developmental vision based on functional and integrated knowledge How these two aspects are combined in practice remains the subject of debate

In Chapter 7, concluding this book, Derrick Swartz writes a pithy account

of the issue of sustainability for universities in the developing world, in general, and for UFH, in particular He describes the strategic dilemmas facing institutions of higher learning that are trying to maintain themselves

Although, as mentioned, this collection of essays does not constitute an integrated and unitary narrative, with a number of authors assuming different theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches, they all deal with

a central theme of how HBUs situated in rural or peri-urban settings are seeking to redefine and reposition themselves in the face of new historical realities Through ingenuity, liabilities inherited from the past can be converted into assets and currency for renewal Commitment to intellectual revival and development is needed to transcend the formerly crippling spatial isolation Application of appropriate management and technological expertise, harnessing of indigenous knowledge and political will are the critical ingredients to the revitalisation of the institutions

Notes

Conference convened by the Council on Higher Education in 2001.

2 From a conversation with Derrick Swartz, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Fort Hare, 2002.

3 malherbe refers to the heavy investment of resources in white, especially Afrikaans, universities in the early days of apartheid, with per capita ratios exceeding world standards because of the widely held belief that this would help in developing the human resources needed by the country, although this consideration excluded black institutions.

4 See also the Association for the Development of Education in Africa at <www.adeanet org/newsletter/vol11no1/en_9.html>.

5 Ghandigram Rural Institute (Deemed University) <www.ruraluniv.ac.nl>

6 See also mkude, Cooksey & Levey (2003), mouzihno, Fry & Chilundo (2003) and Cloete, Pillay, Badat & moja (2004)

7 For example, Habib (2000: 22) quotes Professor PN Luswazi as saying: ‘Fort Hare is the cradle … of African intellectualism.’

8 Address by minister Pandor at the South African Association of Senior Student Affairs Professionals Gala Dinner, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, 4 November 2004.

by the Centre for Higher Education Transformation.

malherbe E (1965) manpower training: Educational requirements for economic expansion,

South African Journal of Economics 33: 29–51

mkude D, Cooksey B & Levey L (2003) Higher education in Tanzania: A case study Oxford:

James Currey.

mouzihno m, Fry P & Chilundo A (2003) Higher education in Mozambique: A case study

Oxford: James Currey.

musisi N & muwanga N (2003) Makerere University in Transition 1993–2000: Opportunities and challenges Oxford: James Currey.

White C (1997) From despair to hope: The Turfloop experience Sovenga: University of the

South African universities

Botshabelo maja, Andile Gwabeni and Phuti A mokwele

Introduction

The end of the apartheid-produced dual spatial economy of bantustans and

‘white’ South Africa has led to progressive reintegration, most obviously seen in significant population migration during the 1990s from the ex-homelands to towns and cities At the same time, the historic distinction between a wealthy urban ‘core’ and a poor rural ‘periphery’ has blurred as inequality has increased in both urban and rural areas and as short-term, work-seeking migration from rural to urban areas has risen modernisation policies and exposure to global markets have brought about economic growth, but simultaneously have failed to create adequate numbers of jobs and have resulted in higher levels of income disparity, and a reinforcement of economic duality, in spite of a wide variety of transformative interventions The national challenge is to build an integrated rural and urban economy through coherent economic and industrial strategies and an increased role for the developmental state

The University of the North (UNIN) and the University of Fort Hare (UFH) are today faced with different sets of challenges from those they encountered before the advent of democracy in 1994 At the core of today’s challenges for these universities is the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) and the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Strategy (ISRDS), both developed

by the democratic state since 1994 The objectives of the NPHE that affect these universities include: increasing participation rates and graduate output; expanding the social base; recruitment from Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries; focusing on priority fields of study; increasing cognitive skills; equity in access and success; staff equity; mission and programme alignment; research concentration and funding; outputs at

of the ISRDS include encouraging rural development that is sustainable and integrated, and that promotes growth and safety and security.

The researchers studied the two universities during 2003, examining the socio-economic environment in which they are located, their histories and the institutional changes that they have been engaged with since the

1994 elections and during the period of mergers Just as the economy has been affected (positively and negatively) by the forces of globalisation, so too have the universities Increasing competition and commodification of education and knowledge, various policies in relation to funding of students, skills development and local economic development, and related structural changes, have placed enormous additional challenges on institutions that do not have a history of high-level leadership and management capacity It is hoped that this chapter will throw some light on how these two universities have addressed their new realities, as well as drawing some lessons that may

be of use to them in the period ahead

The socio-economic contexts of UNIN and UFH

University of the North

Limpopo province incorporates three apartheid-era homelands and is predominantly rural The province shares international borders with three countries, Botswana, Zimbabwe and mozambique On its southern flank, the province shares a border with Gauteng, with its Johannesburg–Pretoria axis, the most industrious metropole on the continent Thus, the province is placed at the centre of the vortex of developing regional, national and international markets The province is one of the poorest yet most populous of all the provinces

in South Africa.2 Approximately 12 per cent of South Africa’s population live there, of which 97.2 per cent are black About 89 per cent of the total

The overall age distribution of the population is pyramidal in shape: 14.2 per cent are under 5 years old; 42 per cent are under 15 years old; and 5.6 per cent are over 65 years old There has been a sharp decline in the proportion of black and white people aged between 19 and 29 years, which indicates that this is the sector

of the population that is relatively mobile, leaving the province to attend tertiary institutions or to take up employment elsewhere The dominant age group is the 5–9 year olds, who make up 14 per cent of the total population The 20–24 year olds, who are seen as the potential tertiary education age group, constitute 9.4 per cent of the total population The potential workforce (the 15–64 age group) constitutes 55 per cent of the total population This figure provides an indication

of expected employment levels

About 33.4 per cent of the population have no formal education; 19.6 per cent have an education level of between Grade 1 and Grade 7; 26.1 per cent have an education level from Grade 8 to Grade 11; 14 per cent have Grade 12; and 6.8 per cent have a post-Grade 12 tertiary qualification The proportion of black adults in Limpopo without any formal education is greater than that of black adults nationwide Of great concern is also the lower proportion of black adults in relation to the national proportion with educational qualifications ranging between Grades 1 and 12 It is clear that the educational attainment

of the population in Limpopo is below the national average

In comparison with the other provinces, Limpopo has the lowest mean years of schooling at 4.6, which is an increase from 2.8 in 1980 Associated with the low level of education is the low mean human development index

of 0.470 Previous studies also indicate that functional literacy (people with Standard 4 or Grade 6 as their highest education level) is very low in the former bantustans of the Gazankulu and Lebowa areas (StatsSA 1996) The functional literacy of these areas ranges between 23 per cent and 29 per cent The adult literacy rate in Limpopo has been calculated as 73.6 per cent, which

is the third-lowest literacy level in South Africa and lower than the national figure of 82 per cent

However, the total Gross Geographical Product (GGP) of Limpopo has been growing steadily The province’s GGP is indicative of the economic

Figure 2.1 Sectors of the Limpopo economy and their contributions to GGP

Source: StatsSA (1996)

Between 1996 and 2001, growth levels declined in agriculture, electricity, construction and transport, while growth levels rose in the mining, trade and finance sectors Production remained steady in the manufacturing sector

5.5

12.3 3.5

5.4 3.2

21.9 4.9

to support in addition to him/herself, are high

As Figure 2.2 shows, the major occupation groups in the catchment area are sales and services employees (18 per cent of the employed); extraction and building trade workers (9 per cent); teaching professionals (9 per cent); market-oriented skilled agricultural workers (7 per cent); and agricultural, fishery and related labourers (7 per cent) Government employment, which includes such occupation groups as health workers and teachers, is very dominant at 49 per cent

Figure 2.2 Major occupation groups in the UNIN catchment area

Source: StatsSA (1996)

There are 265 private employment contractors in the catchment area These contractors consist mainly of general agencies, of which there are 51 The total number of employed in the province in 2003 was 789 942, which is growing

at the rate of 9.2 per cent per annum However, the growth in employment

7 9

18 9

The informal sector and job-creation exercises are part of the activities the local population is engaged in to try to make a living Occupations in the informal sector tend to cluster around primary activities such as agriculture, forestry and fishing, construction, transport and storage, manufacturing, trade and catering, and personal services

UNIN has both organic and spatial relationships with the city of Polokwane, which is not only the provincial capital of Limpopo but also the hub of the commercial, social and residential functions utilised by the university community

While overall the province is characterised by high levels of unemployment and poverty, it is a province of great natural beauty, huge natural resources including land, a variety of cultural traditions and under-tapped indigenous knowledge and, of course, the Kruger National Park and other places of interest

to tourists Limpopo’s geographical location means that there are opportunities

to break down the historical isolation of many of its communities, and for the province to benefit from access to the global economy

University of Fort Hare

The Eastern Cape is very large geographically, covering about 169 600 km2 of land stretching from Storms River in the west to the border of Lesotho and up

to the north of the former Transkei bordering on KwaZulu-Natal However, the existence of the Universities of Port Elizabeth and Rhodes might suggest a longer-term catchment area that mainly focuses on the north and east of the province In particular, the areas of the former Ciskei and Transkei bantustans, the poorer parts of the province, provide many of the students, but because

of the history of black and white universities, UFH does attract students from the rest of the province

The population of the Eastern Cape was approximately 6.4 million in

2001, which represents 14.2 per cent of the total South African population

so on) The Eastern Cape official unemployment rate is 31.8 per cent, and the majority of the unemployed are young (under 35 years of age), without a matriculation certificate and with no previous work experience.3

A significant proportion of the population of the province (22.8 per cent) has

no formal schooling at all, with those having Grade 7 schooling constituting about 7.4 per cent of the population The proportion of the population with Grade 8 to Grade 11 schooling constitutes 27.2 per cent, those with Grade 12 constitute 14.1 per cent and those with Grade 12 plus a diploma constitute 6.3 per cent About 23 per cent of those aged 20 years or older have never received any schooling, while only 6.3 per cent have completed some form of higher education

During the period 1996–2000, formal sector employment fell by 2 per cent to

594 000, while informal sector employment more than doubled to 170 000 much informal employment is, however, of poor quality and provides low wages; 45 per cent of informal workers earn less than R500 per month and 13 per cent declare a zero monthly income At the same time, there has been a marked turnaround in economic performance in the Eastern Cape since the beginning of the twenty-firstcentury In 2000 and 2001, the Eastern Cape was the fastest growing province in South Africa with a real GGP growth rate of 6.2 per cent and 5.3 per cent for the respective years, compared to the South African real GDP growth rate of 3.5 per cent and 2.8 per cent

There is a sizable manufacturing sector, of which the motor industry is an important role-player, but there are no other dominant sectors So, as with Limpopo, the government sector plays a significant role in the economy of the province (See Figure 2.3)

Twenty per cent of the employed people in the catchment area are employed

as sales and services elementary workers (See Figure 2.4) The other major occupation groups in this catchment area are: teaching professionals (8 per cent), extraction and building trade workers (6 per cent), personal services workers (5 per cent) and mining, construction, manufacturing and transport labourers (5 per cent) According to GGP statistics, the local economy is based on the input from manufacturing, the financial sector, trade and the government manufacturing is particularly high in the districts of East London, King William’s Town, Zwelitsha and mdantsane ‘Government’ includes such groups as teachers and public servants

The Eastern Cape has experienced significant growth and has been the focus

of many of the government’s development programmes, as well as those

However, there have been enormous problems in recent years in the functioning of the very large state sector, prompting various interventions by the national government To date, it is unclear whether these measures have brought about the changes needed In the context of the role envisaged for the developmental state in driving industrial development, the signs are not good that the province will benefit unless the deep structural and systemic problems are addressed effectively.

5 6

Both are provinces where there is a heavy reliance on the government sector for economic activity and employment generation, and both have huge informal sectors and vast numbers of people living on less than R500 per month Both provinces face serious challenges in terms of education and skills levels, and so the promotion of economic and industrial development

is a major challenge Limpopo has the potential to benefit from its proximity

to Gauteng and its linkages with southern Africa, as well as exploiting its many advantages such as mountain areas, forests and the Kruger Park The Eastern Cape also has potential but is struggling to turn economic growth and government-led initiatives into long-term sustainable jobs

Both provinces are rich culturally and have untapped indigenous knowledge, and both have proud histories in relation to the development of South Africa through colonial times, the struggle against apartheid and engagement in a range of post-1994 initiatives to bring about transformation However, the socio-economic bases from which the two universities are launching their recovery strategies are weak, the main target audience poor, and the potential for tapping into the wealth of the formal economy not as great as, for example, some of the former white universities located in cities such as Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria While a more business-oriented approach is seemingly unavoidable, there are clearly severe limitations for universities operating in predominantly poor and largely rural economic locations

Historical overview and assessment

University of the North

The University College of the North was established under the provisions of the Extension of University Education Act 45 of 1959, which excluded black students from ‘white’ universities and proposed special ethnic and racial colleges From 1960 to 1969, UNIN was a university college under the aegis

of the time

In 1970, UNIN started operating as the University of the North It had five faculties: Economics and Administration, Arts, Education, mathematics and Natural Sciences, and Theology The minister of Bantu Education had the final say in all important matters affecting the running of the university Another Broederbonder, Professor JL Boshoff, became the first rector of UNIN as

a university The academic and administrative structures of governance remained virtually the same The perception of the students and black staff,

as well as that of the informed black general public, regarding the university was that it was ‘a white university admitting only black students and tolerating black personnel’ (Kgware 1975: 88) Black students enrolled at the university, but they did not accept the racial segregation and maintained various forms

of protest during this period Black Consciousness was a powerful force on the campuses, as was the ANC Acclaimed leaders like Frank Chikane, Abraham Tiro, Cyril Ramaphosa, Justice mokagdi mailula, mathews Phosa and others made their mark in student politics and in various areas of study Today UNIN alumni count among the best-known leaders in southern Africa

The period between 1980 and 1989 saw the university expand to eight faculties, adding Health Sciences, Agriculture and Law to its academic offerings During

1985 and 1986, the police and army often occupied the campus The Students’ Representative Council (SRC) and some black staff members including Frank Chikane (now Director-General in the President’s Office) and S’busiso Ndebele (provincial leader of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal) were detained Women such as mamphela Ramphele and mojanku Gumbi were also active

in this period

After 1989, the university resolved to transform and tried to make changes The university had opened branches in Venda in 1980 (now the University of Venda), Qwaqwa in 1981 (now part of the University of the Free State) and Giyani in 1983 (now defunct) Concrete transformation of the governing structures of the institution took place and, indeed, of the governance itself A Broad Transformation Committee (BTC) was established Amongst its aims and objectives, the BTC pledged to democratise the structures of university governance, create a climate conducive to effective teaching and learning, and

as part of strategic planning

The post-apartheid dispensation after 1994 launched an era of changes and challenges at the higher education level In 1996, Professor Ndebele issued

a report on substantive developments in top management and governance, strategic planning, the Tertiary Education Linkages Project (TELP) and outreach developments

The University Council accepted a statement on the vision, mission and values of UNIN This included academic strategic priority areas in terms

of the new order and requirements for the allocation of resources Certain amendments to the old statute were made to remove discriminatory clauses against women, to include students in faculty boards and committees, senate, executive of senate and senate committees and to fill the posts of deans through advertisements and interviews

During this time, Edupark was established as an educational centre outside Polokwane It houses several institutions and attracts people-in-service from all over the northern region, mainly to the UNIN Graduate School of Leadership Other outreach projects include a water and sanitation project and in-service educators’ programmes for honours and masters degrees offered on Saturdays This is in addition to the legal-aid clinic, which serves the community, and the University Foundation in the Sciences and mathematics, which began in 1992 to assist school-leavers to prepare for tertiary programmes in the sciences and mathematics

Between 1999 and 2001 there was a period of crisis as changing management, conflicts on campus and funding problems took their toll Since then there has been a more stable and conducive environment The ISRDS was enacted

in November 2000, and the NPHE in February 2001 major plans have been drawn up that seem to have broad agreement However, capacity issues have hampered implementation, and the institution has not achieved what it set out to do For example, the university has been without a permanent vice-

of the Witwatersrand produced 1 004 Research and publication have increased since the introduction of the system of subsidy by returns From 1990 to 1999, for instance, the articles published in SAPSE-accredited journals have been in the region of 600 However, the racial breakdown of output is unsatisfactory, with the majority of articles being written by white academics.

UNIN experienced a growth in student numbers in 2002 A total of 8 569 were registered as compared to 5 873 in 2001 and 7 277 in 2000 (see Figure 2.5)

Figure 2.5 Student participation rate at UNIN, 1994–2002

Source: UNIN (2003)

UNIN has been successful in increasing its student participation rate and meeting NPHE requirements The challenge is to sustain this growth in the coming decade However, although accurate records were difficult to find,

it was evident that graduation levels are not as high as they should be, with large numbers dropping out or failing The university is having to cope with underlying factors such as poor schooling background, medium of instruction

UNIN’s top management is reflective of the population demographics of South Africa in terms of the proportion of black representatives at this level, but not in terms of women In terms of occupation, the majority of staff employed at UNIN are at the level of lecturers (28.3 per cent), followed by senior lecturers (23.7 per cent) and professors (19.7 per cent) The smallest categories are laboratory assistants (0.7 per cent), technicians (1.3 per cent) and residence and senior laboratory assistants (2.6 per cent each)

The vision and mission of UNIN is to strive ‘to be a quality institution of higher learning and critical reflection, which is innovative [and] responsive

to change, is rooted in the issues of the society it serves, and is recognized world-wide as the centre for relevant theory and practice of people-centred development’ and ‘to achieve distinction in scholarship, professionalism and community renewal amongst staff and students in order to improve the

… a development orientation that is rooted in the community in which we operate’.4

Following the release of the NPHE, UNIN has repositioned itself From

1 July 2001, the university moved from eight faculties to three – Humanities; management Sciences and Law; and Sciences, Health and Agriculture – and replaced its 58 departments with 11 schools Under the Faculty of Sciences, Health and Agriculture, for example, are the School of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, the School of Computational and mathematical Sciences, the School of Health Sciences, the School of Physical and mineral Sciences and the School of molecular and Life Sciences

UNIN has been attempting to align staffing to student numbers in the various subjects The faculties of Arts, Theology and Health Sciences were overstaffed The faculties of Law, Agriculture and management were significantly understaffed The faculties of mathematics, Sciences and Education had appropriate staff levels Through the schools, students are now using the module system to select possible career paths The new system provides a good opportunity for students to make flexible choices in areas that interest them The new approach to teaching is interdisciplinary, with students given more room to select combinations that will enhance their employment opportunities

While the university leadership has set a path for the future, there is much

to be done in terms of systems and processes, organisational culture and so

on before the vision can be truly said to be providing direction to the entire organisation and its staff

The UNIN budget has been reducing over a period of years, partly because of lower student numbers For UNIN to maintain its high levels of funding from the government, it has to increase the student participation rate and produce

a large number of published academic research articles Also, it has to tighten

up its student fee collection system It is a major challenge for UNIN to reduce student debt on a year-by-year basis

There has been a slight increase in the number of masters and doctoral graduates since 2000 These have been mainly from the humanities faculty

However, the number is still a long way short of the numbers that are required

to enable UNIN to contribute meaningfully to the development of South Africa as a knowledge economy

In the area of health, building on its successful programmes, UNIN has entered into a partnership with medunsa and the University of Venda for Science and Technology Through this partnership, it will offer pre-clinical training in the Schools of Health and molecular and Life Sciences Once students complete a three-year pre-clinical course, they may opt to enrol for a further two or three years’ clinical training at the Polokwane campus of medunsa

UNIN is also collaborating with the South African National Defence Force The project aims to afford people from previously disadvantaged groupings

an opportunity to experience the military Successful students will be placed with the navy, military health service, air force and the army.5

At UNIN, imaginative and innovative interventions have been developed

or are planned – especially in management, Information Technology, and Natural and Health Sciences UNIN’s programmatic coverage ranges from academic programmes such as Aquaculture to Development Leadership and management, Pharmacy, Adult Education, micro-finance Training, and Water and Sanitation management The School of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences boasts programmes such as Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Integrated Plant Production Systems, Pasture and Environmental management and Remote Sensing and GIS Applications UNIN also plays a significant role in teacher training and in the upgrading of teachers So there

is considerable engagement with, and response to, the needs and aspirations

of local communities, employers and government departments

Although UNIN plays a role in certain poverty alleviation programmes, such involvement is not part of its institutional strategy Neither has the university clarified its position on key drivers of the ISRDS like ‘sustainability’,

‘integration’ and ‘rural development’

University of Fort Hare

The South African Native College (as UFH was originally named) was founded in 1916 and was envisaged, above all else, as a central training school for African teachers The primary task of the new institution was the rather restricted one of producing ‘African men of character’ trained to do useful work for their own people and themselves (UFH 2001) The college sought

to create an indigenous, relatively well-educated and compliant ‘native elite’ for occupations largely within the schools system and religious institutions However, it was driven and moulded by far more contradictory and contesting social forces and processes

In 1946, the government began to exercise more direct control over tertiary education in black communities The college was placed under the stewardship

of neighbouring Rhodes University, and renamed the University College of Fort Hare in 1948, the year the National Party (NP) came to power

After the 1948 election of the NP, the new, largely Afrikaner-led regime was increasingly uneasy about the link between Fort Hare and the ‘liberal’, English-language Rhodes In 1959, the government passed legislation that effectively separated ‘black’ and ‘white’ educational institutions – in the process, forcing UFH’s separation from Rhodes From this point onwards, admission was ethnically determined and restricted to Xhosa-speaking and, for some time, Sotho-speaking communities

This balkanisation of higher education was resisted and challenged In the early 1960s there were student strikes led by the ANC and the Pan-Africanist Congress just before their banning In the late 1960s and early 1970s, more student protests, this time led mainly by the militant Black Consciousness movement, rocked the university

In the 1980s, a new generation of student politics, supported by much more persistent and wide-ranging community movements, put the NP regime and its client ‘state’, the Ciskei, under severe political pressure In 1990, when elements within the Ciskei political structure engineered a regime change that saw the toppling of Lennox Sebe (its titular leader), democratic forces at UFH took strategic advantage of the situation to stage a massive push for the resignation of institutional leaders The way was paved for the appointment

of a new progressive regime under the leadership of Professor Sibusiso Bengu, who later became minister of Education

SP2000 sets out in broad strategic terms a new vision and mission, corporate goals and institutional activities aimed at laying the basis for a comprehensive reconstruction and development of the university into the twenty-first century There has been significant progress in taking forward this plan in very difficult circumstances.

The new statute of the university, dated 2 July 1999, was drawn up in line with the South African Constitution and laid the basis for a new system of governance that provided for a university with a diverse character and which did not discriminate according to race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, religion and sexual orientation

The new institution has set out to achieve the following: an expanded leadership core; a committed student leadership; a directive leadership that is balanced

by consultation; participation through a variety of structures; a distinction

of roles between the council and the institution’s management structure; a good working relationship between the council and the institution’s executive management; and leadership that has broad legitimacy and commands authority.6

Student governance comprises the Student General Council (SGC), the SRC and student organisations, clubs and societies The SGC is composed of members of the SRC, societies, organisations, clubs and certain committees and is tasked with playing an oversight role over the SRC The SRC has been grappling with the power-sharing ethos of the university at a time when there are still many issues that bring students into conflict with management This has been difficult for a student leadership elected annually and having to deal with a fast-changing environment where many past disadvantages are reappearing in a different form Relations have not always been easy