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Transcending the Past and Reimagining the Future of the South African University

Inaugural Lecture of Professor Adam Habib


Thursday, 27 November 2014
Programme Director and Chairperson, Professor Andrew Crouch
Our Chancellor, Honourable Justice Dikgang Moseneke
Members of Council and members of Senate
My executive team, academic colleagues, professional and admin staff
SRC President and executive
Students and alumni of Wits
My wife, Fatima and members of my family
Distinguished guests
Comrades
Thank you for joining me at this event. I thought it quite odd when Nita, our Deputy Registrar,
requested that I deliver an inaugural lecture. I told her that I had already done this in August of
2013. She reminded me that that was my installation address as Vice-Chancellor, the chief
bureaucrat at Wits. Now that you have been invited to the Wits professoriate, she went on, you
are required to do an inaugural lecture. Duly chastised, I began to think through what my
address should focus on.
Initially I thought about reflecting on the literature on democratic transitions and the lessons to
be learnt from South Africas democratic experiences. After all, I have recently published a book
on this subject. But then on further reflection I decided to wade into the debate about our higher
education system and on managing the university 20 years into our democracy. This has
become a controversial debate in our public discourse. An inaugural address enables me to
reflect and engage in this debate unencumbered by the diplomatic protocols associated with
being Vice-Chancellor.
So here goes.
As we continue our soul searching 20 years into our democratic era, should we not take stock of
our successes and failures in transforming higher education and the university sector? Is there
no merit in asking hard questions about whether the countrys institutions are the embodiment
of the values of their much acclaimed Constitution?

Should we not applaud the fact that our university system has more than doubled its student
enrolment and significantly transformed its racial, cultural and class diversity? Should we not
bemoan the fact and try to understand why almost 55% of students who enter the university
will not complete at all, and fewer than 25% will complete their degrees within the minimum
allocated time? Should we not ask why our universities receive only R22 billion in subsidies
when the Department of Higher Education and Trainings (DOHET) own task team argues that
we should be funded at R37 billion, if we are to be at the world average? Should we not ask why
is it that so many institutions remain racial enclaves 20 years after their democratic transition
and whether this is an appropriate social setting for the training of professionals and citizens in
the 21st century?
These are difficult questions for South Africas leaders and intellectuals to grapple with.
Answering them requires one to interrogate the academic legitimacy of the democratic
governments vision for the post-apartheid higher education system and whether it has had the
courage to make the hard strategic political and fiscal choices required for the realisation of this
vision. It also requires hard questions about the commitment of some university executives and
other stakeholders to the constitutional vision agreed to by South Africas Constitutional
Assembly in 1996. The resultant debates, when they have spiralled into the public discourse,
have thus provoked strong emotions on all sides of the ideological and political divide. But
despite this, these are debates that are long overdue for there is an urgent need to reflect on the
role played by universities in the acceleration of social and economic inequality in the country,
and the engendering of the political polarisation that has come to compromise the democratic
project itself.
In addressing these questions, I will begin with an interrogation of the contesting philosophical
conceptions that have come to define the post-apartheid education project at South Africas
universities. I will then reflect on the challenges of, and the resultant debate on, the
transformation of South Africas universities. How to realise a differentiated higher education
system is my third area of focus. Finally, I will interrogate the simplistic assumptions that have
come to define the debate on the corporatisation of South Africas universities and lay bare what
I believe are the most urgent strategic choices we confront.
Reimagining or Transforming South Africas Universities
Two compatible sets of principles should govern the executive and strategic operations of South
African universities. The first, found in the preamble of the South African Constitution, demands
2

that its public institutions simultaneously address the historical disparities bequeathed by
Apartheid and build a collective national identity. The second, written in the manifesto and
architecture of any great university, is the imperative to be both nationally responsive and
cosmopolitan at the same time. The responsibility of the executive in the university is not to
undertake one or the other. Their real challenge is to advance all of these priorities
simultaneously. Managing the balance between these competing imperatives is then the real
challenge confronting executives in South Africas universities.
The practice of managing these competing imperatives has also spawned two distinct
approaches to student enrolment and staff recruitment at universities: multiculturalism and
non-racialism. The former is the practice of some institutions which see racial and cultural
groups as homogenous, and directed by the imperatives of the South African transition, they
plan the enrolment of these groups as distinct entities. At the most basic level this entails
enforced implicit or explicit quotas, often with the intention that a university retains a historical
racial or cultural character. At its most notorious level, this approach is reflected in the
university adopting a principle of racial federalism in which distinct campuses come to
represent distinct racial and cultural interests.
The racial integration approach, by contrast, rejects cultural homogeneity and believes in
constructing an organisational space in which new national identities are built. Students and
staff from a variety of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds are enrolled as individuals, and
the university is organised to enable constant intermingling and reciprocal engagement of these
individual students and staff.1 This approach holds that through these processes, students and
staff come to interact with each other as individuals and not as representatives of racial or
cultural entities. In the process their identities is intended to evolve into a non-racial one where
one can simultaneously be Afrikaner and South African, African and human. This approach then
speaks directly to the substantive intent of the South African Constitution.2
The former approach is perhaps best reflected at the Universities of Stellenbosch (US) and
North West. This approach has spawned universities in South Africa where today 20 years
after the first democratic and non-racial election the University of Stellenbosch still has 68
percent of its student enrolment White.3 The North West University (NWU), by contrast, has a
1
2
3

M. Jones, UCTs new admission policy gets go ahead, Cape Times, (16 June 2014)
A. Habib, Advancing an Admissions Policy that Rebuilds a Nation, Sunday Times, (2 February 2014)
Annual Report of the University of Stellenbosch, 2013, available at:
http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Documents/About/YearReport/2013/SU%20Anuual%20Report%202
013.pdf

much better demographic profile at the macro level, but it has essentially established a federal
university comprising what effectively are distinct campuses of racialised ethnic
groups.4Racialised campuses are not simply the burden of the US and NWU. Most of the
Historically Black Universities (HBUs) have continued to remain completely Black.5 But in most
cases the racialised enrolments in the HBUs exist by default, rather than by design. Where these
racial enrolments are a consequence of design, they should be criticised. Where they are a
consequence of systemic default, we need to think through mechanisms that would enable us to
de-racialise these institutions.
The real concern about the segregated White campuses of NWU and US is that they have such
student enrolments because of an explicit political agenda to keep them largely White or
Afrikaner.6 It is important to underscore the fact that the problem is not that the language of
instruction is Afrikaans in both of these institutions as some of the public debate has tended to
suggest. There may indeed be merit for Afrikaans to be one of the languages of instruction in
some of the institutions. However, the real problem is when Afrikaans is used as a mechanism to
promote an ethnic project and undermine the emergence of non-racial and cosmopolitan
institutions.7
This is defended by some on the grounds that the South African Constitution allows for
multilingualism and a diversity of cultural expression.8 Perhaps the most explicit argument for
this has been made by Theuns Eloff, the previous Vice-Chancellor of NWU. Saying that the
Constitution allows South Africans to receive educational instruction in the language of their
choice, and noting that almost 11 million South Africans, including many Black and Coloured
citizens, speak the language, he essentially argues for Afrikaans universities that house and
represent minorities.9 In an open letter to Blade Nzimande, Theuns Eloff argues that, It is
4

6
7
8

In 2012, Potchefstrooms contact student population was 75% White and 25% Black (where Black
includes African + Coloured + Indian students) and Mafikengs contact student population was 1%
White and 99% Black see F. Van Vught et al, Moving Forward: A Review of North-West Universitys
First Ten Years, March 2014
There have been legitimate concerns among historically Black institutions that a policy of
differentiation and diversity could continue the old historical patterns of disadvantage and advantage,
especially in the absence of development strategies and institutional redress to enable them to build
their capabilities and capacities to address social and educational needs. See J. Mouton, South African
Higher Education in the 20th Year of Democracy: Context, Achievements and Key Challenges, HESA
presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training, 22 August 2014
A. Habib, Advancing an Admissions Policy that Rebuilds a Nation, Sunday Times, (2 February 2014)
See H. Giliomee, A deadly war of languages, Mail and Guardian, 5 October 2009, available at
http://mg.co.za/article/2009-10-05-a-deadly-war-of-languages
Solidarity, Ten reasons we are fighting for the Puk (and the things we are not fighting for), (30 June
2104) available at https://solidariteit.co.za/en/ten-reasons-we-are-fighting-for-the-puk-and-thethings-we-are-not-fighting-for/
T. Eloff, Dit is onbilik, In Rapport Weekliks, (29 June 2014), p.27

section 29(2) of our Constitution that we laboriously negotiated and which we should be a
champion of that ensures a place for Afrikaans on the Potchefstroom campus.10 Eloff, however,
is oblivious that in his argument he has effectively morphed a legitimate debate for the
protection of a language into the promotion of an ethnic project. This is because recruitment,
both at staff and student level, was implicitly directed around racial communities, with Whites
being directed to the Potchefstroom campus and Blacks to the Mafikeng and Vaal campuses. The
net effect is that under Eloffs tenure in NWU, its Potchefstroom campus was not only for
Afrikaans-speaking students from a variety of racial backgrounds, but largely for White
Afrikaners.11
It is precisely this equation in practice of a linguistic with a racial identity that violates the South
African Constitution. The South African Constitution requires its state and public institutions to
address both the historical disparities of its past and to build a new national identity among all
of its citizens. In its essence, the Constitution is a clarion call to build an integrative and
cosmopolitan identity, where citizens are not only White or Black, English, Afrikaner, Zulu,
Sotho or Xhosa, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jew, but they are all these things and
simultaneously so much more, South African, African and human.12 Those who defend the
racialised or ethnic campuses and universities are essentially paying lip service to South Africas
Constitution, while subverting its very essence.
But they do so much more. They tend to undermine the educational process and training of
their own students. The pace of globalization has accelerated in the last few decades of the 20th
century and in the first decades of the 21st century, transforming societies and forcing an
interaction and integration of cultures and identities.13 The workplace of the 21st century,
whether in South Africa or elsewhere in the world, is a highly cosmopolitan environment where
people are expected to work across racial, cultural, religious and linguistic boundaries.
Increasingly, research on graduate employment suggests that it is imperative that educational

10

11
12

13

T. Eloff, Open Letter to Minister Blade Nzimande on His Attack on the North-West University, (2
October 2014), available at:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=738548&sn=Marke
tingweb+detail
A strong point was expressed by Dr Theuns Eloff, Rector of NWU: In Rapport, (31 January 2010), p.4,
South African Language Rights Monitor, 2010
A. Habib and K. Bentley, An Alternative Framework for Redress and Citizenship, in A. Habib and K
Bentley (eds), Racial Redress and Citizenship in South Africa, Pretoria, Human Sciences Research
Council, 2008, pp.337-354
S. McGrath, Globalisation, Education and Training: Insights from the South African Automotive Sector,
nd. Available at: http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinionfiles/5759.pdf

institutions provide their students with soft skills to operate in diverse cultural settings.14
Achieving an appropriate balance between diversity and cosmopolitanism is thus essential not
only for realising the non-racial vision encapsulated at the heart of the South African institution,
but also for creating the necessary social environment that prepares South African students to
thrive in the non-racial work environment of the 21st century both in the country and across the
globe.
But what of the South African universities committed to a more non-racial integrative vision?
There are of course two sets of institutions to be considered here. The first is the HBUs, almost
all of whom are in theory committed to the non-racial agenda. But of all these universities are
almost completely Black especially in student enrolment. There is no cosmopolitan environment
within these institutions, even though many of their leaders would desire it. Moreover, many of
these universities are continuously in crisis both at the managerial and financial level. They are
prone to continuous student and staff strikes and financial crises.15 They have also been most
prone to political interference, further exacerbating their institutional challenges.
Elsewhere I have argued that the HBUs are caught in a structural underdevelopment trap,
where they have essentially become the educational reservoirs for the children of the most
marginalised communities in South Africa.16 Obviously adept management at some of these
universities like the Universities of Fort Hare and more recently Venda have enabled them to
be stabilised, but at an equilibrium far below than that which is desired or acceptable for a
succeeding university.17 Essentially these rural HBUs are unlikely to overcome their
institutional predicament, unless their development comprises part of a broader socioeconomic development of the region within which they are located. Until now government has
lacked the political will or imagination to do this, despite all of its developmental rhetoric.
Yet until it does so, many of these HBUs will continue to be mired in a sub-optimal educational
trajectory.

14

15

16
17

Y. Sharma, A focus on skills increasingly links higher education with employment,World Universities
News, 6 January 2013, Issue No: 253, available at
http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20130103154436919
See, K. Nandipha, Government to confront crisis at Walter Sisulu University, Mail and Guardian, (28
August 2013), available at http://mg.co.za/article/2013-08-28-government-to-confront-crisis-atwalter-sisulu-university
A. Habib, Institutional Crisis of the University of Transkei, Politikon: South African Journal of Political
Studies, Volume 28, Issue 2001, pp.157-179
The University of Fort Hare was in institutional crisis a number of years ago, and both its previous and
current Vice-Chancellors, Derrick Swartz and Mvuyo Tom, have played a major role in stabilizing the
institution.

The final group of universities both the historically Afrikaans and English are the urban ones
committed to a non-racial agenda. Many of these have, to different degrees, begun to deracialise and have established more diverse and cosmopolitan environments. Many of them
have also enhanced their academic performance especially in research, but also in teaching
even though this may have not yet reached an acceptable level appropriate to South Africas
needs and requirements.18
Yet these universities have also not risen to the transformation challenge. While many of these
universities have achieved significant demographic diversity at the student enrolment level,
their academic staffing complement is still largely White, especially at the most senior academic
levels. Table 1 demonstrates for instance, that in many of the nations leading universities, Black
African professors constitute less than 10% of the professoriate. The lower levels of the
academic hierarchy have better representation of Black African South Africans 19% of all
senior lecturers and 35% of all junior lecturersyet the situation is far from what can be
described as even adequate.19
Black

Coloured

Indian

White

8.9%

4.3%

4.9%

67%

Table 1: Percentage of full professors at South African Universities


The essential question is what to do about transforming the demographics of South Africas
academy? A number of scholars have recently blamed this situation on university executives
and the opposition from the senior professoriate.20 While there may be an element of truth in
this, it seems that these scholars themselves are not sufficiently appreciative of the challenges in
this regard. For instance, Xolela Mangcu recently authored a commentary in the City Press,
arguing what he would do in transforming the academy. Much of what he suggested increasing
18

19
20

In 2010, the graduation rate of African students was 16%, and that of White students was 22%, with
an average of 17%. In so far as throughput and drop-out rates for a three-year degree at contact
institutions are concerned, 16% of African students that began study in 2005 graduated in the
minimum three years, 41% graduated after six years, and 59% had dropped out. In the case of White
students the comparative figures were 44% of students graduated in the minimum three years, 65%
graduated after six years, and 35% had dropped out. See J. Mouton, South African Higher Education in
the 20th Year of Democracy: Context, Achievements and Key Challenges, HESA presentation to the
Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training, 22 August 2014
J. Van der Merwe, Where are all our Black academics, City Press, (3 August 2014) The statistics for
full professors excludes all full-time foreign academics working in South African universities
See X. Mangcu, 10 steps to develop Black professors, City Press, (20 July 2014) and M. Price, Race
debate not so fast, City Press, (7 August 2014);
Also see Yahanda Jadoo, Employment equity a fundamental challenge for Wits, The Citizen, (31 July
2014), available at: http://citizen.co.za/222549/employment-equity-fundamental-challenge-wits/

full-time doctoral students, expanding the number of postdoctoral students, establishing


endowed chairs are initiatives already under way in many of the universities in the country.
Some universities like Wits have gone even further than he has suggested by reserving at least
50% of vacancies for equity appointments.21
Yet some of his other proposals must be treated with caution. Mangcu has often argued that
universities must be pragmatic in their promotion of Black staff to the professoriate. He often
uses the example of Harvard University having promoted Lawrence Summers or Alan
Dershowitz at the beginning of their academic careers because they were outstanding
individuals with significant potential.22 Yet there is a serious logical flaw in this argument. Using
the anecdotal cases of Summers and Dershowitz in Harvard cannot become the evidential base
on which to construct a promotion policy in South Africa. All it can suggest is that South Africans
need to be pragmatic in their promotion criteria when exceptional candidates present
themselves. Anything else would constitute a serious weakening of the professoriate and the
academy itself.23
But if South Africas scholars have not risen to the challenge of fashioning solutions for
transforming South Africas academy, its government has not been much better. Government
officials and those close to them have also too quickly laid the transformation failure at the door
of university executives.24 But some self-reflection may be warranted in their case. Has
government created an enabling environment for the transformation of South Africas academy?
Has it made the difficult fiscal and political decisions required for the creation of a new
generation of scholars? Has it made the required infrastructural and human resource
investments in a university sector that has essentially more than doubled from 421,000
students in 1994 to 1.1 million students in 2012?25
The essential conundrum in the equity challenge of South Africas universities is how to avoid
two extreme positions that have emerged in the public debate. The first of these, on the right of
the political spectrum, suggests that post-apartheid South Africa is either now an equal playing
21
22
23
24

25

See P. Govender, Millions to be spent on drive to transform varsities, Sunday Times, (14 September
2014), p.12
See X. Mangcu,10 steps to develop Black professors, City Press, (20 July 2014)
J. Jansen, Higher learning faces struggle to change cultures in a new century, City Press, (10 November
2002), p.26
P. Ngobeni, Save Universities from themselves, The Sunday Independent, (16 June 2013), available at:
http://www.iol.co.za/sundayindependent/save-universities-from-themselves1.1533023#.VDnqXmeSy5I
Report of the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities, Department of
Higher Education and Training, Pretoria, South Africa, February 2014

field or cannot afford an affirmative action programme.26 It therefore argues against a


programme for historical redress. Yet the consequences of apartheid self-evidently continue to
live in the contemporary era. The counter view is that the Employment Equity Act, passed by
the South African government to enable the transformation of the countrys human resources,
can simply be implemented in universities without any deliberation and understanding of the
institutions contextual specificities.27 Too often politicians and others imagine the university as
no different from any other institution in the public and private sectors. But a university is
fundamentally different. It is a place where knowledge workers are produced. To train a
professor at a university requires on average at least 10 years of continuous study followed by
another 10 years of teaching and research productivity.28 There are exceptions to this process,
as Xolela Mangcu so often reminds us.29 But those exceptions can never become the norm.
Where this to be the case, it would undermine the academic quality of South Africas
universities, and reproduce the academic failures of its secondary education system at its
tertiary level.
What does this mean for the challenge of equity in our universities? There are two issues to be
considered. The first is the goal of equity in our institutions. No great university in the 21st
century, whether in the developed or developing world, can manage to be truly representative
of the demographic specificities of its society.30 Universities in the 21st century have to strike a
balance between national responsiveness and global competitiveness, between demographic
representivity and cosmopolitanism. No university can be a truly global institution if it does not
have a significant proportion of international staff and students. In addition there are numerous
practical problems, some discussed below, that make it impossible to match the demographic
distribution of the society exactly. Yet this is completely ignored in the public discourse, by
26

27
28
29
30

See G. Stokes, The problem with affirmative action, FA News, (20 March 2010), available at:
http://www.fanews.co.za/article/talked-about-features/25/the-stage/1145/the-problem-withaffirmative-action/7618; Interview with Rhoda Kadalie, human rights activist, Helen Suzman
Foundation, 30 March 2001, available at: http://hsf.org.za/resource-centre/focus/issues-2130/issue-24-fourth-quarter-2001/interview-with-rhoda-kadalie-human-rights-activist
An argument refuting this line of thinking can be found in: A. Habib, Making the case for employment
equity in universities, University of the Witwatersrand, (12 August 2014), available at:
http://blogs.wits.ac.za/vc/2014/08/12/making-the-case-for-employment-equity-in-universities/.
The Department of Labours Equity Plan makes no distinction between companies and universities.
M. Price, Race debate not so fast, City Press, (7 August 2014).
See X. Mangcu,10 steps to develop Black professors, City Press, (20 July 2014).
In 2010/11, 10% of all staff in higher education in universities in the UK were from a Black and
minority ethnic (BME) background, 7% of UK national and 30% of non-UK national staff were from a
BME background, 7% of UK academic and research staff (combined) were from a BME background,
compared with 28% from a non-UK background. 7% of UK national professional and support staff
were BME, compared with 36% from a non-UK background (University of Oxford: Equality Report
2012/13 Staff and student equality data), available at:
http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/media/global/wwwadminoxacuk/localsites/equalityanddiversity/docu
ments/Equality_report_2012-13_Sections_B_and_C_[FINAL].pdf

government officials and even some within the higher education system who think that
transformation targets can be reduced to mathematical formulae.31 This problem is made even
more complex when one considers that universities struggle to attract sufficient numbers of
South African Black students into postgraduate degrees because many are under immediate
pressure to start earning a salary and supporting their families.
The second issue that needs to be addressed is why South Africans universities have struggled
to transform their academy, even in cases where their leadership has been committed to this
goal? Two reasons come to the fore; one representing the failure of government, and the other
that of the university executive. First, South Africa cannot talk about transforming the
demographics of its professoriate unless it enhances the quality and size of its academic
pipeline. Too often politicians complain that South African universities do not have Black
professors when they have refused to make the systemic interventions and investments
required for this to happen. In the last 20 years South Africa has not provided adequate support
for Masters and PhD students, and without Black postgraduate students, one cannot get Black
lecturers and senior lecturers, and therefore one cannot get Black professors.32 Berating vicechancellors and universities does not change this fact.33 Only a national systemic investment in
providing a significant academic pipeline will create the enabling environment for transforming
South Africas academy.
Second, South Africa needs to do more in creating enabling institutional environments where
Black professors and women professors feel comfortable. This means addressing issues of
institutional culture. Moreover, it requires university managers to be cognisant of the challenges
confronting newly appointed Black academics who are expected to produce equally good
scholarship and teaching, yet deal with excessive administration, bureaucracy and onerous
student numbers which reduces the possibility of their achieving the former, thereby inhibiting
their promotion in the academic hierarchy.34 It also means that its senior executives in
universities have to learn to transcend the racialised networks they have inherited. They have
to learn how to identify emerging Black talent, and how to attract them to South African

31
32

33

34

See X. Mangcu,10 steps to develop Black professors, City Press, (20 July 2014); N. Jenvey, Race equity
index for universities stirs controversy, University World News, (1 November 2013).
South African universities produced about 1420 doctorates per annum (2010 data) compared to the
6000 that is required in the National Development Plan - Higher Education South Africas Office
Response to the National Development Plan Vision for 2030, May 2012.
See B. Dumisa, We need more Jimmy Manyis to transform South African Universities, available at:
http://www.politicsweb.co.za/politicsweb/view/politicsweb/en/page71619?oid=672101&sn=Detail
See X. Mangcu,10 steps to develop Black professors, City Press, (20 July 2014); P. Govender, Millions
to be spent on drive to transform varsities, Sunday Times, (14 September 2014), p.12

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universities. South African universities are grappling with these issues. Many South African
universities have reserved special funds for the recruitment of Black scholars and some reserve
a significant proportion of vacancies for equity appointments.
Yet, clearly these measures alone have not been adequate in enabling the transformation of
South Africas academy. In part this has to do with the fact that South African stakeholders have
looked for easy solutions and tried to find scapegoats on whom to pin the blame. Moreover the
transformation debate has been constructed in the most generic of terms, and as a result, has
not grappled with the true complexities of transforming universities. But there does seem to be
light on the horizon in this regard. DOHET has recently engaged Higher Education South Africa
(HESA) on whose board sit all the vice-chancellors of the countrys public universities on the
establishment of a new generation of academics. Essentially, DOHET has agreed to mobilise
significant public funds the first wave of which is approximately R500 million to be invested
in the training of a new generation of scholars, all of whom would be expected to serve in the
academy. Universities are meant to partner DOHET in this regard and take on the employment
obligations of these new academics, once they have qualified.35 There is also the possibility of
engagements between universities and DOHET so that institutional transformations plans and
investment are dovetailed with those managed by the department.
This partnership represents the best hope for transforming South Africas academy. Moreover,
it probably has to be premised on a broader educational and institutional pact between DOHET
and the universities, in which the former is respectful of the universities, their mandate,
institutional autonomy and academic freedom, in exchange for universities collectively
committing to the transformation agenda. This pact need not be a violation of academic freedom
and institutional autonomy, as is sometimes assumed. Academic freedom and institutional
autonomy are rights that must be accompanied by the principle of public accountability if they
are to have any popular resonance and legitimacy.36 This is especially so in a context like South
Africa, so as to ensure that institutional autonomy and academic freedom do not become levers
that enable privileged elites and apartheids beneficiaries to defend their privileges against a

35

36

This proposal has been formally discussed in an engagement between the Department of Higher
Education and Training and Higher Education South Africa in 2014, and it is anticipated that it will be
activated in 2015.
See Council on Higher Education, Overview of Recent and Current Debates in South African Higher
Education: Academic Freedom, Institutional Autonomy and Public Accountability, Commissioned
Report to HEIAAF Task Team, October 2005; A. Habib, S. Morrow and K. Bentley, Academic freedom,
institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary South Africa, Social
Dynamics: A journal of African studies, 34:2, (2008) pp.140-155, DOI: 10.1080/02533950802280022

11

broader transformation and inclusive development agenda; which, after all, is the real
substantive intent of the Constitution itself.
Developing a Differentiated Higher Education System37
National responsiveness and global competitiveness are not likely to be realised by South
Africas Higher Education system simply by its individual universities establishing an
appropriate mix between diversity and cosmopolitanism in their recruitment of student and
staff. It is as necessary to develop a differentiated higher education system that produces the
diverse professional and human resource skills based required. The best exemplar of this is
Finland.38 The country does not have a single university in the top 50 of any of the global
ranking systems. Yet it consistently tops the competiveness ranking and the human
development indicator charts. This is because its educational institutions are differentiated,
each with different mandates and responsibilities, independent and yet connected to one
another, thereby creating a seamless system that is both nationally responsive and globally
competitive.
A differentiated higher education system enables responsiveness to the diverse and multiple
needs of an economy and a society. In South Africa, it would allow some universities to play a
bigger role in the teaching of undergraduate students and the production of professionals,
which is necessary if the economy is to become more productive and competitive. But it would
also allow other universities to focus on postgraduate students and undertake high level
research, which are equally essential if the country is to develop a knowledge based economy of
the 21st century. And then yet again, this higher education system should have a Further
Education Training (FET) sector comprising colleges focussed on producing graduates with
vocational and applied skills. These different responsibilities require very different skills sets,
institutional environments and investment patterns. This is why they cannot simply be done by
a single type of institution or university.39

37

38

39

See article by A Habib, P Mbati and M Mokgalong, An integrated varsity system is the way forward,
Sunday Times, (21 September 2014), p.18, available at:
http://blogs.wits.ac.za/vc/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2014/09/Integrated-varsity-system21.09.14.pdf
I. Fagerlind and G. Stromqvist (eds.), Reforming Higher Education in the Nordic Countries Studies of
Change in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, International Institute for Educational
Planning, UNESCO, 2004.
N. Badsha and N. Cloete. 2011. Higher Education: Contribution to the NPCs National Development
Plan, November 2011. Pretoria, National Planning Commission, available at:
http://www.chet.org.za/files/HE%20Contribution%20to%20NPCs%20National%20Development%2
0Plan%20Final.pdf

12

This is well recognised in South Africa by all of the stakeholders in both the university system
and the broader society. Yet why then has South Africa not been able to progress towards an
explicitly differentiated higher education system?40 The answer, of course, lies in the countrys
history which has saddled the evolution of its higher education system and its current choices
with the burden of a racialised legacy. The universities with the greatest potential to produce
more post-graduate students and increase high level research are the historically White
universities. Yet there is reluctance by many in government and in the university system to
accept this. In fact many higher education executives at the HBUs want to transform their
institutions into what their institutions were prevented from becoming, in the apartheid era.
Not only has this proved to be impossible given the scarcity of resources available, and the long
time frames required to mould universities and higher education institutions, but it has also
paralysed the system from evolving into one that is capable of addressing the diverse and
multiple needs of contemporary South Africa.
To escape from this impasse, South Africas political and its higher education executives need to
rethink the debate and fashion the establishment of a differentiated system on four distinct
principles. First, it needs to be underscored that the research enterprise must be common to all
of the universities.41 Even the universities primarily focused on the teaching of undergraduate
students must be engaged in research. Otherwise how else can they guarantee that their
academics are at the forefront of, and teaching the latest developments in, their disciplinary
fields? The only difference between these institutions and the more research intensive ones
should be on the quantity and extent of the research obligations, and maybe even the type of
research activities.
Second, South African university executives and policy makers need to rid themselves of a
status conception of the university system where research intensive universities are seen as
more illustrious than their undergraduate teaching counterparts. The global ranking systems
have also fostered this illusion further burdening the imagination and ambition of university

40

41

N. Cloete, Higher Education Differentiation, the good, the bad and incomprehensible, Centre for
Higher Education Transformation. Presentation in Franschoek, February 2012, available at:
http://www.chet.org.za/files/Cloete%20Differentiation%20Workshop%20Franschhoek%20Feb2012
.pdf
J. Salmi (ed), The Challenge of Establishing World Class Universities. (2009) Washington, DC: World
Bank.

13

executives, with the result that too many have chased the elusive goal of evolving into a
research-intensive university.42
Third, and related to the above, South Africas public financing of universities must not
implicitly assume this status hierarchy. Too often in the public discourse on universities,
executives at the research intensive universities have simply assumed that they should be the
recipients of a larger largesse of funds. In fact, executives at research intensive universities are
often heard to make the argument that one cannot turn the clock back on the history of privilege
which enabled only some of our institutions to evolve into research universities, and that as a
result South Africa should position these universities through the generous provision of
resources to compete with their counterparts elsewhere in the world.43 The assumption is that
larger resources would be directed to these institutions. This argument was of course contested
by HBUs who use their history of disadvantage as a leverage to also make a claim for a bigger
share of resources. The effect was an implicit and explicit fight for who is entitled to a bigger
share of what was, effectively an inadequate state budget for higher education.
Finally, South Africas higher education system must be flexible enough to allow institutions to
progress from one institutional variety to another, should they so decide. Societies and their
needs change over periods of time, and institutions must be given the right to evolve in order to
become responsive to these needs. Moreover, allowing for institutional evolution enables
university executives to be more pragmatic in their current decision-making since their
institutions are not forever closed off from being one or other institutional type.
However well these principles are implemented, though, South Africans are unlikely to make
progress in this regard so long as its universities and high education institutions do not learn to
work with each other.44 These partnerships must be explicitly directed to overcoming the racial
and linguistic boundaries that traditionally defined the evolution of the higher education
system. But they also must go further than simply the formal interactions at the national level
through organisations like Higher Education South Africa (HESA).
42

43

44

S. Badat, Global Rankings of Universities: A Perverse and Present Burden, in Unterhalter, E. and
Carpentier, V. Whose Interests are we Serving? Global Inequalities and Higher Education. (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
See B. Bozzoli, Its time we embraced and consciously competed in World University Rankings,
however flawed they might be. (nd). Belinda Bozzoli is the Democratic Alliance Shadow Minister on
Higher Education and Training and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research at the University of the
Witwatersrand.
J. Leatt and T. Pretorius, Regional Collaboration and the Transformation of Higher Education in South
Africa, paper prepared for the European Higher Education Society (EAIR) Conference on Knowledge
Society Crossroads, Barcelona, 5-8 September 2004

14

The partnership must encompass the very core activities of the universities and be directed
towards joint degrees, combined teaching programs, joint research initiatives, support for the
building of institutional capacity, and enabling the mobility of staff and students.

45

There is

evidence that some of this is happening. The Universities of Limpopo, Venda and the
Witwatersrand, for instance, have announced that they are experimenting with how this can be
done and the universities institutional executives have already met to identify potential areas of
collaboration. Among many ideas being considered is the possibility of innovatively rethinking
degrees beyond institutional boundaries, so that the universities can jointly produce graduates
with skill sets needed by the economy. For example, Wits Engineering Faculty is considering
working with Limpopos and Vendas Science Faculty. Graduates from either a particular stream
in the faculties of the two HBUs, or those who graduate with a particular pass rate may get
direct entry into the 3rd year of Wits Engineering programme. This would allow these graduates
to then earn both a science degree from Universities of Limpopo and/or Venda and an
engineering degree from Wits.46 Should these universities succeed in doing this, not only would
we have enabled a seamless movement between their institutions, but they would have also
jointly produced graduates with skills sets urgently required by the economy and society.
Other similar ideas are being thought through in the higher education system. The driving force
in these engagements is a philosophical and strategic realisation among some in government
and in the universities that South Africa will never truly transform its universities as long as
they do not have the courage to proactively breach their institutional boundaries and partner
with each other. There is therefore an increasing call for an agenda to transform higher
education from its binary racial divides into one that is differentiated, nationally responsive,
globally competitive, and one that assists South Africa in realising its constitutional objectives
and vision.47

45

46

47

N. Badsha and N. Cloete. (2011). Higher Education: Contribution to the NPCs National Development
Plan, November 2011. Pretoria, National Planning Commission.
http://www.chet.org.za/files/HE%20Contribution%20to%20NPCs%20National%20Development%2
0Plan%20Final.pdf
This programme is in the process of being implemented between the University of the Witwatersrand
and the University of Free State and will be expanded to include the University of Venda and the
University of Limpopo
National Planning Commission. (2011). National Development Plan: Vision 2030. Presidency, Pretoria,
pp.267-294

15

Managing South Africas Universities for the Contemporary Era48


But differentiation would also have to be accompanied by vice-chancellors and their deputies
exhibiting a managerial maturity and effectiveness if South African universities are
simultaneously responsive to the countrys needs and competitive vis--vis their global peers.
Such maturity requires a realistic appreciation of the socio-economic systems within which they
operate and the development of solutions for the multitude of challenges that these structural
conditions generate. But these solutions must not compromise the fundamental mission and the
educational and social goals of the university.
This requires academics and higher education executives to recognise that significant systemic
impulses, both within South Africa and internationally, have prompted universities to become
increasingly corporatized. Managerial practices and accountability mechanisms from the
corporate sector have unthinkingly been imported into public institutions and universities. 49
Universities and their divisions are increasingly treated as business entities, and power has
shifted decisively from structures like Senate (where academics predominate) to Finance and
Council (where administrators and external stakeholders are in the majority). The net impact
on South Africas universities has been dramatic. Profitability rather than sustainability seems
to be the driving ethos of universities. Academic departments have had their budgets slashed
dramatically in real terms.50 The administrative workload on academics has significantly
increased. There is greater push for third stream income and quantitative indicators of
performance have begun to proliferate in these institutions. The net effect of some of these
developments is that the academy is no longer an attractive career prospect. The brightest
students stay away from the universities. South Africa has an aging cohort of academics and
researchers with the result that alarm bells have begun to ring loudly in important quarters of
the Higher Education system.

48

49

50

See A. Habib, Managing Higher Education Institutions in Contemporary South Africa: Advancing
Progressive Agendas in a Neo-Liberal and Technicist World, In CODESRIA Bulletin, (2011), Nos 3 & 4,
201, pp.5-9
R. Deem. New managerialism and the management of UK universities, End of Award Report on the
findings of an ESRC funded project, October 1998 - November 2000; B. Johnson, and M. Cross,
Academic leadership under siege: possibilities and limits of executive Deanship, In South African
Journal of Higher Education, (2006) vol.187, No.2.
E. Webster and S. Motsoetsa, At the Chalkface: Managerialism and the Changing Academic Workplace:
1995-2001, Transformation in Higher Education Global Pressures and Local Realities in South Africa,
March 2001 available at:
http://www.chet.org.za/files/WEBSTER%20AND%20MOSOETSA%202001%20Managerialism.pdf

16

What is to be done? The standard progressive response has been largely one of wringing ones
hands and bemoaning the current state of affairs.51 Sometimes there is a romanticising of the
past Higher Education System as one having universities defined by a sense of collegiality. The
problem with this response is that it is simply confined to critique. It does not involve any active
attempt to do something about the current state of affairs. The past is also misrepresented in a
serious way. The apartheid higher education system was not a friendly, collegiate place, either
in the HBUs, or in their historically White counterparts, especially for young Black academics
who were never part of the power brokers (both ruling and oppositional) within the
universities.
A more active and nuanced version of this response bemoans the current state of affairs, but
tries to fight back by trying to keep at bay the worse consequences of corporatization dynamics.
It is a response manifested in most universities in the country but is perhaps most successfully
practiced in small towns where corporatization dynamics are least intense.52 However, it is a
response that is failing and is unlikely to be successful in the long term. This is especially so
since universities are funded through the state, in accordance with a funding formulae that is,
itself, market oriented.
The alternative response, which I am partial to, is a proactive engagement with the context one
finds oneself in with a view to subverting it in the long term. It is akin to a strategy suggested by
John Saul in the early 1990s entitled structural reform.53 This is a response which involves an
engagement with a view to initiating reforms that have the snowballing effect of facilitating
further reforms. The net outcome of which in the long term is a new structured balance of
power that enables the transformation of the very system itself. This is a response that tries to
advance a progressive agenda within the context one finds oneself in. It is a response that
recognizes that there are negative consequences to the engagement, but nevertheless argues
that it is better to advance a progressive agenda with some negative consequences than do
nothing at all.

51
52

53

M. Mamdani, The Importance of Research in a University, CODESRIA Bulletin, (2011), Nos 3 & 4, 201,
pp.10-13
See S. Badat, Critical Reflections on Rhodes, 2006-2011, Rhodes University Imbizo, 19 June 2011
available at:
http://www.ru.ac.za/media/rhodesuniversity/content/institutionalplanning/documents/Reflections
%20-%20Saleem%20Badat%2019June2011.pdf
J. Saul, South Africa: Between Barbarism and Structural Reform, (1991) New Left Review 188
(7/8): pp. 344.

17

It is a response that recognises that there is a difference between a corporate culture and a
managerial agenda. The former is problematic whereas the latter is necessary for the
stewardship of any large institution. There is a difference between profitability and
sustainability. The former is inappropriate as a principle goal of a public university, whereas the
latter is necessary for institutional stability and the pursuance of a long term academic agenda.
There is also a difference between corporate behaviour and entrepreneurial leadership. The
former is counterproductive in a public entity, while the latter is necessary for creating an
institutional environment capable of achieving ambitious educational and social outcomes. The
alternative response must also engage in ways that pluralizes power in the higher education
system because as long as power is dispersed, checks and balances can emerge in a system that
contain authoritarian tendencies and enable progressive change. But it is also a response that
recognises that there will be costs, and while it tries to mitigate the costs, it does not use it as an
excuse for non-engagement.
The alternative response has to begin with a recognition that any serious restructuring of an
academic institution is going to require great academics who have sufficient autonomy to focus
on their work, are provided with an enabling environment to do so, and are rewarded for their
initiatives. Restructuring also requires resources and if they are not immediately available, they
must be mobilized sometimes through hard choices having to be made about what gets
sacrificed so that more crucial and core initiatives are adequately resourced. So in the
institutions that have been successful in restructuring and enhancing academic and research
efficiencies the Universities of Johannesburg (UJ) and KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), and the Human
Science Research Council (HSRC) being three such cases in the last decade there has been the
hunt for successful academic talent who are sometimes paid beyond the scales of the
mainstream academy.54 They join more established universities like the University of Cape
Town, which has long recognised the importance of recruiting and retaining highly productive
academics.55

54

55

See I. Rensburg, Message from the Vice-Chancellor, Research Report 2012, University of
Johannesburg available at
http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Newsroom/Publications/Documents/UJ_ResearchReport2013.pdf;
M. Makgoba, Report of the Senate to Council, Annual Report 2012, University of Kwa-Zulu Natal,
pp.18-20 available at http://www.ukzn.ac.za/docs/annual-reports/download-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=0;
M. Orkin, Message from the CEO Dr Mark Orkin, Human Science Research Council, July 2005 available
at http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/review/july-2005/message-ceo;
The University of Cape Town has 34 A-rated scientists the highest number of any university in South
Africa

18

Within our own institution the University of the Witwatersrand we have been lethargic in
this regard over a number of years. Now, however, there is recognition of the importance of
recruiting and retaining good academics.
The University is creating an environment of incentives where productive researchers are
rewarded. Thirty new chairs for academically distinguished scholars have been created at the
global cutting edge of their disciplines.56 The institution has committed to being the best paying
university in the country and is currently involved in negotiations with academic unions on how
to realise this. Productivity criteria are now included as one component of the remuneration
variable. In addition, we have established academic incentives the Vice-Chancellors research
and teaching awards to reward productive academics. The institution has also established a
research incentive system where a portion of the research subsidy is invested in individual
researchers research accounts to support the continuation of their research. Finally, the
university has dramatically increased its internal investment in research activities.57
These interventions have not gone uncontested. Perhaps the critique of them is best reflected in
a report by a senate task team mandated to engage council on the introduction of bonuses or
variable pay for executives and others within the institution. The task team warned that such
productivity incentives are not necessarily tied to institutional performance, and it suggested
that this and other interventions ran the risk of increasing inequality and undermining the
collegiality within the academy. My response as Vice-Chancellor acknowledged the risk of an
increasing inequality within the academy, but nevertheless insisted on the need to drive
research and teaching productivity at Wits.
But there are a number of upsides as well. First, the systemic message for younger academics is
one that suggests that one does not have to leave the academy and become a bureaucrat if one
wants to earn higher salaries. This is after all the message that became prevalent in the higher
education system in the post-apartheid era where managers were increasingly better rewarded
than the academics who undertook the core business of the universities. Now younger staff can
identify role models within the academy distinguished professors for instance who could
also earn generous packages.

56
57

See A. Habib, Vice-Chancellors Report to Council, 21 June 2013 and A. Habib, Vice-Chancellors Report
to Senate, 22 August 2013
See A. Habib, Strategic Priorities and Action Plan, Presentation to the Council of the University of the
Witwatersrand, 29 November 2013

19

Second, and perhaps even more importantly, the effect of this incentivised academic
environment is the pluralisation of power within the academy because of the creation of a new
group of privileged and empowered stakeholders like top researchers. Suddenly, the ViceChancellor and the senior executives within the institution are not the only power brokers
within the university. Distinguished and rated researchers have also become institutional power
brokers in their own right.
But what makes these reforms transformative or structural? What suggests that they are not
simply accommodative within the

parameters of

the existing political economy?

The examples of the reforms and practices detailed above, despite some negative consequences
like the increasing inequality in the remuneration of the academy, has nevertheless had some
positive outcomes for both the higher education system and for UJ. The hunt for academic talent
by UJ has broken the ethnic logic of academic recruitment in the Gauteng region.58 Until
recently, English speaking academics and a few Afrikaner academic dissidents gravitated
towards the University of the Witwatersrand. Afrikaner academics, with a smattering of
English-speaking dissidents who fell out with the academic mainstream at Wits,59 tended to
locate themselves at the Universities of Johannesburg and Pretoria. UJs active recruitment
across the ethnic divide broke this logic, and created an open academic market which has
enhanced the leverage of academics vis--vis their respective executive managements.
The infusion of new academics and the activation and empowerment of existing staff at UJ has
significantly enhanced the research productivity of the institution.60 In 2009 its output was 40%
higher than what it was three years earlier. Yet all of this is occurring in an institution that is
increasingly racially and ethnically integrating and that continues to service primarily a working
and middle class student base.61
Similarly the University of the Witwatersrand has begun to enhance its own research
productivity so that it, together with the University of Cape Town, is now in the top 300 of the

58

59
60

61

A Habib, Reflections of a University Bureaucrat interested in Advancing a Progressive Social Agenda,


pp.63-74, Kagisano No. 9; The Aims of Higher Education, March 2013 available at
http://www.che.ac.za/sites/default/files/publications/kagisano9.pdf
Over the years a number of established Wits academics relocated to the University of Johannesburg
and Pretoria as a result of one or other altercation with the University management
See I, Rensburg, Message from the Vice-Chancellor, Research Report 2012, University of
Johannesburg available at
http://www.uj.ac.za/EN/Newsroom/Publications/Documents/UJ_ResearchReport2013.pdf
I use to serve as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research at the University of Johannesburg during this
period

20

Shanghai QS research rankings.62 Wits has also achieved a balance between its competing
priorities of diversity and cosmopolitanism in its student enrolment, with about 73% of
students Black and 28% White. Similar developments are evident in other institutions.
But it is not these positive ends however important they may be that defines these reforms
and practices as structural or transformative. What makes them so is that they begin, however
timidly, to pluralise power and change its balance among stakeholders to enable further
reforms down the line. If the prevailing state of affairs in higher education is a product of the
existing balance of power, then any agenda of change has to speak to the immediate context and
be directed to changing this structured balance of power in the medium to long term.
The new practices of remuneration and drive to incentivise efficiency and productivity, while
undermining the relatively egalitarian character of the academy, nevertheless change the
balance of power between academics and institutional executives.63 Younger academics do not
only have to cast a gaze at senior managers as role models of better remuneration, and better
remunerated distinguished scholars constitute an alternative configuration of power within the
institutional settings. These changes in the structured balance of power within both institutions
and the higher education system create the conditions for further reforms down the line.
As of now, higher education executives in South Africa, as elsewhere, fall in two camps. There
are those on the conservative fringe who explicitly or implicitly see universities as business
entities which should be treated as such. Other higher education executives are hostile to this
idea, recognizing that universities can never be simply treated as corporate organizations with
students as clients and academics as workers. Were this to happen, they realise that the nobility
of the higher education project itself will be compromised. Until now, the mainstream of this
progressive group has fought a rear ended battle to hold at bay corporate systemic pressures
bearing down on the universities; this is unlikely to be successful.
The recommendation emanating from the preceding analysis is to engage the system with a
view to advancing reforms that focus on the methodologies of change, that transform the
balance of power among stakeholders within the universities and the higher education system

62
63

K. Foss, Wits Jumps into the Top 201 to 300 Category of the Shanghai Rankings, Media Release for PR
Newswire from client Wits University, (18 August 2014)
This methodology of building leverage to change the balance of power underpinned my
recommendations on what needs to be done to address South Africas economic and political
challenges in my recently published book, South Africas Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects.

21

as a whole. Only then, would we be able to change the tide in favour of progressive social and
educational ends.
Chancellor, dignitaries, family, friends, colleagues and comrades, thank you for honouring me
with your presence and attention today. I need to record my appreciation to many.
First and foremost I want to acknowledge my wife Fatima and our two sons, Irfan and Zidaan,
for their love, patience and support throughout the years. Chancellor Dikgang Moseneke,
Chairperson of Council, Dr Randall Carolissen and the Deputy Chairperson on Council, Dr Brian
Bruce, and other Council members, thank you for your unwavering support and for enabling me
to lead this great institution. To my executive team and members of my office, thank you for
partnering me on this journey. I truly value and appreciate your commitment and hard work.
Finally to the academics, professional and administrative staff and students of Wits, I can think
of no better place to deliver an inaugural address. There is no more vibrant or robust
intellectual environment than the one at Wits. I thank you for the honour of now being
considered one of your own.

Adam Habib is Vice-Chancellor and Principal, and Professor of Political Studies, at the University
of the Witwatersrand.

22

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