INLSA
Minister of Higher Education, Blade Nzimande
Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande announced plans last night to establish an oversight committee on transformation in universities and other tertiary institutions.
He was speaking at the launch of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s transformation charter at its Westville campus.
In the post-liberation Struggle era the country needed transformed universities that contributed to the creation of a “truly united and prosperous nation”, the minister said.
Deviating from his speech, Nzimande appeared to take a swipe at the rector of the University of the Free State, Professor Jonathan Jansen, when he said professors who wrote about the problems in the schooling system “every week” were not being “constructive” as they did not offer solutions – such as producing more maths and science teachers.
“That is not the type of vice-chancellor we need in South Africa today.”
Nzimande commended the university for the fact that, of its total student enrolment for this year, 64 percent were African and that 62 percent of last year’s graduates had been female.
Also, in terms of its academic leadership last year, 33 percent were women – compared to zero percent in 2004.
The objectives of the new oversight committee, Nzimande said, would include:
* Conducting annual audits on transformation activities in universities.
* Monitoring efficiency and effectiveness as well as facilitating capacity-building for governance structures to optimise their performance.
* Ensuring that all university councils developed transformation frameworks.
* Monitoring and reporting any suppression of change agencies by dominant interest groups.
“We are not prone to a policing exercise of institutions. We aim to work closely with institutions to achieve the transformation goals of the White Paper. The reality is that incidents such as reported initiation practices at some of the Wits residences are part of the indication that we must escalate our effort to transform the university system,” he said.
Nzimande said he would announce the committee chairman or chairwoman, and its members, “shortly”.
Referring to UKZN’s new charter, Phumla Mnganga, chairwoman of the university’s council, said it was not a piece of paper, but “an aspiration” which would “define us as an institution” and “anchor our hopes” in being demographically representative.
The university’s senate commissioned it in 2010.
