Insights
OPINION: THE GNU OFFERS AN OPPORTUNITY TO REIMAGINE A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT FOR SOUTH AFRICA’S UNIVERSITIES
This is similarly true in South African public universities where we are witnessing gradual encroachment and the undermining of the public good, with the introduction of crippling (and colonising) forms of performance management, managerialism, ratings, rankings, benchmarking, and a publish-or-perish approach, among others. With more and more students becoming fee-paying clients who are entitled to the curriculum goods of the university, and academics becoming the factory producers of research outputs, the neoliberal agenda in the country seems to be in full swing. As the authors of the book Black academic voices: The South African experience remind us, this is further exacerbated by the growing mental health issues, anxiety and depression among both staff and students who point to the university’s institutional culture(s) as primarily responsible for their marginality and structural oppression. As the country deliberates on the GNU, our first pressing task must be to focus on rethinking and reimaging the very purposes of higher education in the country, who the university is for, its role and function(s) in society, and most importantly, how the university can exist outside of the pressures and demands of the marketplace. Other urgent tasks facing South African universities The second urgent task that continues to confront public universities in the country is the question around the access and success of black students. Great strides have been made in improving formal/physical access to the university, with approximately 186 565 first-time entering black students in public universities. This adds to the more than a million enrolment in South African public universities that we have at the moment. What remains a challenge is the other type of access – that is, the intellectual and epistemic access to the curriculum and knowledge of the university. Simply put, a large number of our curriculum offerings in South African public universities remain Eurocentric, white, alienating and disregard African and Global South knowledge(s). The curriculum is not designed with the African student in mind. Ours is largely a badly packaged and wrongly sequenced curriculum that privileges the Global North and reminds those of us who are black that we are non-beings who have no role to play in global knowledge production. Thus, we need to be intentional and deliberate in ensuring that African and Global South knowledge take centre stage in all our curriculum and teaching and learning spaces.
Mlamuli Nkosingphile Hlatshwayo is Associate Professor in Higher Education Studies at the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of Johannesburg. WE NEED TO RECONSIDER THE VERY PURPOSES OF HIGHER EDUCATION, WHO THE UNIVERSITY IS FOR, ITS ROLE AND FUNCTION(S) IN SOCIETY, AND, MOST IMPORTANTLY, HOW THE UNIVERSITY CAN EXIST OUTSIDE OF THE PRESSURES AND DEMANDS OF THE MARKETPLACE. MUCH HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT THE RECENT GENERAL ELECTIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA, WHICH RESULTED IN THE ANC LOSING ITS GOVERNING MAJORITY IN PARLIAMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE THE 1994 DEMOCRATIC BREAKTHROUGH. There are uncertainties and fears over the future of the Government of National Unity (GNU) that the main parties announced immediately after the polls in May. A flurry of opinion pieces has since been written on the GNU and what it means for new political realities and realignment in the country. Some have reflected on the fragility of perceptions of the investor community and the GNU itself, and how it may help prevent corruption and the plundering of state resources. However, not much has been said so far about the potential implications the GNU may have on our public universities, and how they continue to struggle to respond to the post 2015/2016 #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall protests. The country’s shift from single party national governance to the GNU offers us an opportunity to rethink and reimagine a new social contract in South African public universities, one rooted in social justice, democratic thought and inclusivity. On a new social contract In his influential book, Scholars in the marketplace: The dilemmas of neo-liberal reform at Makerere University 1989- 2005, post-colonial thinker Mahmood Mamdani cautions us against the dangers of the commercialisation of public universities, where the university increasingly becomes subservient to and docile to the needs of the private market and its corporate interests.
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