UNIVERSITY vice-chancellors and the Department of Higher Education and Training have agreed to speed up institutional soul-searching over transformation issues.
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande met the vice-chancellors of South African universities in Sandton on Thursday as part of a regular interactions scheduled between the two parties.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Nzimande said an agreement had been reached that would lead to a "two-pronged process" to discuss issues of institutional and curriculum transformation, as well as funding. Attempts would be made to take conversations to "a macro level", he said.
Universities have been tasked with developing plans to implement resolutions taken at last year’s Higher Education Summit, which led to broad agreement on the need to, among other things, examine the capacity of governance and management structures to address transformation.
The meeting comes against a backdrop of continued student and staff unrest on campuses. University management, leaders of student groups, and staff are trying to find consensus on how to address grievances including language policy, curricula, outsourced staff and the demography of university departments.
The University of the North West is still closed, while the Tshwane University of Technology’s Soshanguve campus was intermittently closed this week.
Mr Nzimande said that no timeframe had been given on development of institutional plans to meet summit resolutions. "But the deadlines are soon, a matter of a month or two."
Taking the conversation to the macro level could be done, for example, through strengthening institutional forums, something already proposed within the Higher Education Amendment Bill that was before parliament.
The bill has elicited warnings from critics that provisions intended to improve public accountability could spill over to affect institutional autonomy, but Mr Nzimande said universities had institutional forums for transformation. In many cases, however, they were weak or dysfunctional. Currently university councils could ignore recommendations, while if passed, the bill would ensure non-implementation would require cogent reasoning, he said
"This could be one key platform that will be used to take forward conversations to deal with mainly institutional issues but also macro issues which manifest themselves in an institutional environment," he said.
Universities SA chairman Prof Adam Habib said public assessment of tertiary education should "shift to a deeper level" in current and future debates. Traditional criteria for evaluating universities should remain, such as research output, demography, competitiveness and responsiveness to national goals and challenges, as well as financial sustainability, he said.
Mr Nzimande said another meeting with leaders of student representative councils was in the offing. The intention had been to meet this week, however the department had asked for written submissions first "so that we prepare better, so that we have maximum possible engagement with the students", he said.
Blade Nzimande. Picture: GCIS
UNIVERSITY vice-chancellors and the Department of Higher Education and Training have agreed to speed up institutional soul-searching over transformation issues.
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande met the vice-chancellors of South African universities in Sandton on Thursday as part of a regular interactions scheduled between the two parties.
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Nzimande said an agreement had been reached that would lead to a "two-pronged process" to discuss issues of institutional and curriculum transformation, as well as funding. Attempts would be made to take conversations to "a macro level", he said.
Universities have been tasked with developing plans to implement resolutions taken at last year’s Higher Education Summit, which led to broad agreement on the need to, among other things, examine the capacity of governance and management structures to address transformation.
The meeting comes against a backdrop of continued student and staff unrest on campuses. University management, leaders of student groups, and staff are trying to find consensus on how to address grievances including language policy, curricula, outsourced staff and the demography of university departments.
The University of the North West is still closed, while the Tshwane University of Technology’s Soshanguve campus was intermittently closed this week.
Mr Nzimande said that no timeframe had been given on development of institutional plans to meet summit resolutions. "But the deadlines are soon, a matter of a month or two."
Taking the conversation to the macro level could be done, for example, through strengthening institutional forums, something already proposed within the Higher Education Amendment Bill that was before parliament.
The bill has elicited warnings from critics that provisions intended to improve public accountability could spill over to affect institutional autonomy, but Mr Nzimande said universities had institutional forums for transformation. In many cases, however, they were weak or dysfunctional. Currently university councils could ignore recommendations, while if passed, the bill would ensure non-implementation would require cogent reasoning, he said
"This could be one key platform that will be used to take forward conversations to deal with mainly institutional issues but also macro issues which manifest themselves in an institutional environment," he said.
Universities SA chairman Prof Adam Habib said public assessment of tertiary education should "shift to a deeper level" in current and future debates. Traditional criteria for evaluating universities should remain, such as research output, demography, competitiveness and responsiveness to national goals and challenges, as well as financial sustainability, he said.
Mr Nzimande said another meeting with leaders of student representative councils was in the offing. The intention had been to meet this week, however the department had asked for written submissions first "so that we prepare better, so that we have maximum possible engagement with the students", he said.
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