"The falling value of the academic estate": Reader
Throngs of working class students have been the most prominent casualties of the registration period. The past week alone has seen more than hundred thousand students turned away by institutions for lack of space.
This dashed the hopes of thousands of immediate and extended families of these students whose future depends on the education of their offspring for them to move out of their poverty and penury. The cause for all this is the fact that apart from building plush management offices these institutions have done nothing in extending lecture halls, which are at the core of a universities mandate: teaching and learning.
Coupled with this is observing dictatorial tendencies shown by Professor Jonathan Jansen in the University of Free State, reminding me of a paper he wrote for the Mail & Guardian (21-27 Sept 2007) titled: "Falling value of the academic estate". This was one of the most irritating and objectionable papers I have read in more than two years with the exception of the papers in ANC Today attacking the communist party (2006). This paper might not have created any hype in the newsroom but was bound to ruffle furthers in societies of those who care about our democracy and education. Jansen is no ordinary chap in the bar, but a professor, the handful of allegations and accusations that he hoisted as causes of the "Falling value of the academic estate" were far below par to merit his pen let alone paper.
Contrary to the assertions of Jansen, numerous issues cause the tragic decline of intellectual productivity in universities. Sensationalizing and dramatizing the shortcomings of "affirmative action" and the "new-breed" of university leaders is not only simplistic, but intellectually lazy. These issues – that eluded Jansen's scrutiny then and cause intellectual ossification even now – include the inability of institutions to cope with the influx of – largely black – students unto universities shores which were once havens for the white and rich. This is complemented by the structure of funding for higher education institutions which is based on research output. This is also made worse by the increased looting of university funds - wherein academic qualifications serve neither as a deterrent nor as a conscience against corruption.
These issues put together, tragically decrease university spending on the core business – teaching and learning – creating a university system where it pays better to be a procurement employee than a lecturer. The problem lies here and not with some imaginary enemy called a "manager-leader" as suggested by Jansen in 2007. Anything that suggests otherwise creates the impression that apartheid education had no problems but swam on academic excellence and Institutional prosperity. This is what Prof Jansen sought to communicate in 2007 and continues to implement in his post as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Free State. The notion that apartheid institutions were perfect and should be emulated post-1994 is not only flawed by in diametrical opposition to reality. Of course, some could argue that apartheid institutions were successful in so far as it relates to white students. If therefore that is the yardstick, we might as well forget about increasing the number of successful black students in institutions of higher learning.
Allegations that the "manager-leader" is the cause of all problems can only be sustained through erecting statues, line them up, knock them down, erect them again and knock them down again, and then claim to have won a series of boxing games. Doing exactly this Jansen said, a "manager-leader? could be a businessman, a politician, a former activist, a populist, a racial or ethnic preference, or even an equity candidate..." This is a statue and note how he demolished it with caricatures that make a "manager-leader" be an "activist", if not a "populist" but above all a mere "equity candidate", students were treated with similar derision and were sneered at as "immature immediatists".
Another example is when Jansen, fully knowing that if any "senior personalities in the ruling party are appointed" as university chancellors they are appointed with full complicity of various stakeholders such as unions, students, business and academics in the form of council, but erected, yet another statue saying; they "are appointed by eager-to-please vice-chancellors?" then equates his statue to the SABC saga, then knocks it down. To equate the appointment of senior personalities as University Chancellors to the SABC Board issue was not only dishonest but outright mischievous, and was meant to strengthen an otherwise empty argument that modern day equity leaders are nothing but an uneducated, populist and clueless lot.
This is what Jonathan Jansen has labored to prove that he is not. The first he did when he took over UOFS was to pardon the Reitz four without consulting anyone including the victims. Such are the defects of "one of our own", (as he was once fondly referred to by the ANCYL President, Julius Malema). Academics who grew and developed – rank after rank – from the apartheid education set up serving it with excellency – with the exception of a few – dread the influx of (black) students, into a formerly white environment and they disguise their disgust at the enrolment of many students (read, black) as "genuine" concerns at the creeping spectacle of "mediocrity" that slowly seeps into (read, their) universities.
Unions, students and some progressive academics, faced by this predicament have had no choice but to opt for the non-university groomed academics that show more support (albeit rhetorically at times) for transformation to steer post-1994 universities forward. This throws the job competition wide open, and university-groomed academics (black and white) have no qualms in elucidating their disgust at this job competition, both as a result of uncertainty in a job environment which they view as their own and black academics as a result of pure jealousy at those who get appointed where they would have wanted to be seen as the few blacks who made it.
Affirmative action is recipient to these punches by various sections of the South African society who accuse it of being a "racist" and counterproductive mechanism that promotes mediocrity and decreases productivity, but, none of its opponents (Jansen included) succeed to prove in the case of universities that it results in the loss "of the academic drive? the academic instincts that keep universities what they are – the intellectual centers of research in a competitive global knowledge economy". Continuously unfazed by their inability to convince society of their accusations they produce volumes of papers calling for a halt.
Interestingly, but tragically, the honorable professors' 2007 paper did not only expose his contempt for affirmative action but also romanticized anti-democratic inclinations when dismissing consultative decision making processes at play in universities. I am reminded of a time when Jansen (Acting as Administrator of the Durban University of Technology) refused to consult the SRC or anyone for that matter, except a coterie of self appointed academics on many issues affecting the University. Meeting the chap was a pure difficulty and when granted the SRC would be given less than 15 minutes to address itself, he even went to the extent of refusing to show the SRC a forensic report on the (mis)use of university finances.
Representation of various stakeholders in decision making processes seeks to avoid dictatorship is often presented as a necessity in the name of avoiding "student immediatism" and "populism" but resulting in instability such as what the DUT nearly found itself where students went on three strikes in less than 12 months of Jansen's leadership. The alienation of students let alone that of trade unions in the decision making process is not only careless but disastrous, instead, universities in the case of students need to strengthen the research capacity of SRC's so as to ensure a more informed intervention by these structures on various university decision making processes, avoiding the current all-or-nothing approach!
To borrow and radically amend Jansen's epigram, the "falling value of the academic estate" remains a matter that should concern all of South African society, and to quote and radically amend, once more, Jansen's closing epigram "This is so because the academic estate is something to be jealously guarded" from those who claim to defend it, but only seek to "preserve the status quo" or return to the past. "It should be vigorously defended against" wolves of the capitalist "market" disguised as saints, but seeking to suffocate democratic participation by students, unions and other stakeholders in decision making and replace it with the dictatorship of an apartheid schooled academia.
All those who claim to have interest in the development and sustenance of universities as centers of knowledge production need to identify real problems, and avoid the urge to throw hand-grenades at imaginary enemies, as Jansen did in 2007 and continues to do as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Free State.