The UCTs of South Africa can indeed easily become another Turfloop within another decade

I respond to RW Johnson’s “Can UCT be allowed to die” (Politicsweb on 29 April 2016) because after studying, researching and working at both the “first and third world universities” of South Africa (the UCTs and Turfloops) - mine and shared experiences with other faculty members counts for something.

Firstly, Johnson evokes an image of arrogance and protector of white privileges – the point that Dr Russel Alley’s response (5 May – “When prejudice pretends to be analysis”) seem to project. Secondly, Johnson makes matters worse by further rebutting this accusation in his second response (8 May). The tragedy with this engagement is that once Johnson is accused of prejudicial conduct and judged by these lenses whatever he says will not matter.

This is the biggest problem with discourse in this country. His analysis may be 80% accurate but unfortunately he is white and can’t share sentiments that suggests apartheid nostalgia or suggests that black students are underprepared for university education or even disaffirms the developmental role that UCT should play in the development of a new generation of black academics.

I battled my urges to mount a response. I am very sure there are many other black academics who have equally wished to respond but unlike me; they will only discuss their sentiments in small circles or in their corridors than put pen to paper to allow for public scrutiny of their views.

As Johnson indicated there are equally many academics at UKZN and UCT itself who are afraid of raising a dissenting voice or even talk on their phones. I know this first hand after having worked at Turfloop in the past three years.

Yes – this is the most important question these academics who have been beaten into submission ask themselves all the time – won’t I lose my job, won’t I lose favour, won’t I they put me under the wrong spotlight? It is therefore best to stay under the radar for as long as one’s salary is guaranteed.

This behaviour is not only mushrooming at UKZN and UCT but it has already blossomed in black universities. Academics at these black universities will never dissent from the hegemonic voice of their “institutional leadership”. They keep a private email address to discuss and exchange discerning materials which they deem critical of institutional leadership and its unprogressive culture. If I had sent this article to one or some of these faculty – they would have told me to destroy it or at best told me that I am inviting problems.

Let me clarify one thing first here; I continue to call these universities “black universities” because they have never been nonblack. So “historically black” is a misnomer. The black university today is what the rural and township schools have become. Abandoned by rural and township children whose parents have sufficient means to send their children to the suburban schools (Model C). And the Model C schools have equally become what the historically white universities are today – flooded and crowded by black kids from the rural areas and townships.

Let’s get one thing straight - these kids have a right to good education. It is their country and these are their schools. Truth be told – many of these rural and township kids carry many burdens and inhibiting cultures (the Turfloop cultures) and in turn influence the suburban school. It’s a melting pot of change – often for the worse – poor reading cultures and some entitlement to passing, as Johnson rightfully cites in his article.

The same entitlements are bound among white kids and it had not been a problem until the black kid came to town. Knowing the history of our country you can’t be naïve to believe that the tendencies to block the academic progress of black kids by white academics have all evaporated since 1994. These kids are unwanted and already deemed academically misfit by some if not most white academics.

The above raises serious questions why our government and our leading academics have not transformed the township school to the levels of the suburban school whose “quality” we are chasing? And by implication why have we failed to transform the Turfloops of South Africa into another UCT?

Well, I think we neither have the interest nor the knowhow to invest in the development and transformation of the township school. It is always easier and indeed self-serving to invest on a well oil machinery than invest in new innovations. But of course there are problems associated with wear and tear that comes with crowding and overuse. Hence an analysis of former suburban schools will show that for some standards have dropped and white kids have equally abandoned and so is the investment flight that came with the former alumni.

Around the year 2000 a former colleague of mine told me that he is moving from Vudec – the distance education campus of Vista in Pretoria to join Univen. I advised him otherwise. Because we both started our first degrees at Univen and were later together at Stellenbosch we had previously discussed the cultures of the two different worlds.

After I had berated black universities and their lack of infrastructure and advised that he should not join, he went ahead anyway but without telling me. I learned a year later of his move when he started complaining about lack of research support and poor institutional culture. He later joined Turfloop and continued his lament until he landed back at UNISA where I was.

We continue even now to reminisce about his experiences at Univen and Turfloop. Working at these black universities is indeed a life changing experience akin to moving from up market suburban to the rural village. I later came to experience this first-hand myself at Turfloop a decade later.

Back in 2005 I worked for the National Research Foundation and managed a very prominent young researcher development programme called Thuthuka. After numerous visits to white universities and with a strong black consciousness ideological influence from my then boss Prince Nevhutalu – together with my team we consciously ditched the white university and dedicated all our energies to supporting black universities. There was too much lament from the Department of Science and Technology which largely funds the NRF that our funding statistics reflected way too few black academics and even the few who were there came from white universities.

We made a small dent at Zululand, Univen and Turfloop, among others. We took a few young and aspirational black researchers like Chika Sehoole from UP and Pethiwe Matutu from Rhodes to these black campuses where they met dejected young black academics. Their talks and on-hands support did give hope to a few who had neither heard about the importance of research in a higher education institution nor understood the importance of doctoral studies.

We set up practical research proposal writing sessions with mentors at Zululand and spent some two to three weeks of hands-on support. We initiated and funded the start-up of a Women Research Support Group at Turfloop modelled on what Matutu was already running down in the Eastern Cape. Indeed the number of applications and awards in the NRF Thuthuka programme steadily grew.

I wrote to the Vice Chancellor of Turfloop then and told him that I’m shocked that participation by black academics in my Thuthuka programme was miniscule. I told him of my preparedness to send a Thuthuka team and mentors from other universities to coach each and every young academic. He responded a few months later when I had given up on his cooperation and he told me that he will raise this matter at the management forum. That was the end of the story. There are two things that nudged me to leap into this action.

Firstly, Turfloop holds a soft spot in the lives of many blacks for the historic role it played in the struggle for the education of black intelligentsia and against apartheid. I had hopes that it would become South Africa’s greatest university in the new dispensation.

Secondly, before making funding awards – Prince and I would sit with each research director to “negotiate” the co-funding arrangement. I was appalled that in particular the then director of Turfloop would talk down and badly about his young black applicants. It was highly obvious by the quality of the applications that his office gave these aspirant applicants no support.

Proposals were fielded with grammatical errors and incoherent activities against funding requests. He would criticize these applicants citing that they didn’t know what they are doing. He would suggest that we ask some of these researchers to apply next time or reduce their funding. In contrast applications from the white universities were well couched and thoroughly reviewed before fielded to the NRF and almost all were financed.

After more than five years at UNISA where I directed research management and where I dedicated my NRF experience in support of UNISA academics; I thought it would be ideal to plough these skills at Turfloop.

At UNISA I appointed old rated and retired academics to read and mentored young academics on their research grants and rating applications, among other things. The number of our funded academics and specifically black and rated researchers grew tremendously. We received a commendation letter from the NRF rating programme for our efforts citing that UNISA was exemplary.

I thought finally with a position of limited influence as a school director and with an even more venerated resolve I would finally make a significant impact at Turfloop. I reckon that is what all good academics think before moving to our Turfloops – sooner than later they come to realise that what our Turfloops require is not intellectual injection

A full month prior to joining Turfloop I spent days and nights dreaming and reading up plans on how to improve research outputs, student throughput, fund raising and promoting the image of the school, which I too did not know about until I was approached to apply. On my first day in 2013 I was greeted by a scathing letter from Prof Howard (former research director) who had just exited. His letter censured the university culture for poor institutional leadership, corruption, ethnic divisions, sexism and sexual favours, among other things. He was tired, he was venting – and he did not hold back.

A few hours after he sent his letter to all staff; the university quickly withdrew it. Only a few who opened their computers in time were fortunate to read its contents. No one discussed this letter – formally or informally. In a well-run and transparent institution, this letter would have been discussed not only with the author but in the institutional leadership in appropriate forums.

Very soon my plans got frustrated and I learned to slow down. For starters my school was annually allocated an average operational budget of R300 000 – almost the size of my personal research grant. The first time I saw this budget I thought it was a big joke or that someone at finance missed a couple of zeros.

Despite my numerous memoranda to negotiate a different funding regimen aligned to my expectations and plans – no responses were received. You soon you get to learn that memoranda don’t work at our Turfloops. You informally “lobby” institutional leadership and such rules are neither written nor communicated anywhere.

In the three years of my stay I attended only two management planning meetings. I took the planning exercise seriously and participated vigorously in the first workshop but by the second planning I had learned the institutional culture and didn’t bother wasting my energy. At least one of these planning meetings yielded a written plan that got circulated but never really implemented.

When you come from plan-driven institutions you quickly learn the importance of planning without which the institution is directionless. At UNISA Prof Pityana mounted management training and planning review sessions almost every three to six months. I am not aware of nor did I attend a single management or leadership training session at Turfloop.

So the only time management team members met was at campus management forum or at Senate. Senate at Turfloop is akin to a Sunday church sermon such that after my first senate meeting one old professor asked me if I was new. When I enquired why he asked he told me that the way and manner in which I engaged was un-Turfloop.

I did not meet a single staff member - academic or non-academic - who was happy and proud of Turfloop. Interestingly none of them will raise their concerns in a formal meeting. There are subtle messages that you should steer away from institutional leadership or dissent in management meetings; and continuously put on a facade that you are happy.

At Turfloop academics, including senior managers, call each other “homeboy” – a prefix reserved only for those from the same ethnic or favoured group. A former colleague of mine defines the Turfloop culture to be xenophobic and he attributes this to what he calls the leadership product of a square kilometre array. His analysis is that majority of those managing the institution have not studied or worked anywhere else and they would struggle fitting in cultures and environments outside Turfloop or Polokwane.

Despite an almost 220% increase in research output and over 70% approval of student research projects as well as tremendous increase in throughput over a three-year period, I came to learn that what mattered at this historically important black campus was not our academic performance. People with only honours and master degrees were made heads of academic departments, where associate professors and professors existed.

In some instances, I was told that I could not discipline an insubordinate staff member despite their transgressions. Staff members don’t get subjected to disciplinary hearings at Turfloop if they curry favours with institutional leadership. Matters get settled informally in secretive meetings like it is the case in any chiefdom.

What I thought would be a financial saviour for my school (short learning programme) became my Achilles’ heel. First, I urged my school members to develop numerous short learning courses which were later approved by the faculty board. This was the last time I heard of these courses. They never reached Senate.

Secondly, I proportionally allocated the existing short courses teaching load among faculty which in turn landed me on a collision course with faculty who originally allocated themselves a heavy teaching load, which translated into additional income. At least four anonymous letters got written about me citing my blockage of approval of submitted courses and corruption, among other things. The university leadership never investigated any of these allegations but each time requested that I send them a written response.

Like Howard whose letter greeted me upon arrival at Turfloop; my office was vandalised and my office name tag was found in the dustbin in a nearby shopping mall.

My parting reward from Turfloop, as I was bound to join UJ as a dean of postgraduate studies, was a further anonymous letter sent to the UJ leadership vilifying my character, making allegations of impropriety and corruption. Village politics and culture followed me back to the suburban school.

Unlike at UNISA where colleagues would confront you if there was a problem Turfloop works differently and everyone is friendly and smiles at you and at the same time they are deceptive and write anonymous letters. One knows where to draw the line at Turfloop. You do not discuss anything with anyone and everyone. You will be vilified for putting extra effort to assist students over weekends or assisting fellow academics attain their doctoral qualifications, research grants or publications.

I met a former dean of Turfloop a few months after my exit and he too had exited with a cloud over his head. I can’t talk for him but he told me that if you want to survive at Turfloop don’t let anyone know what you are doing or go around talking about institutional management. Simply put; your invisibility would sustain your stay. The black university is a village and is afraid of invasive cultures.

Both the UCTs of South Africa and the Turfloops should change and they are indeed changing. The important question is who drives the change and to what end? Conversations with colleagues from other Turfloops suggest that these cultures are predominant in the black university where leadership runs the institutions like chiefdoms.

The big question is will the black university ever develop to the current levels of UCT? My deduction is that the black university will continue to regress but nobody cares anyway. I asked a senior manager at Turfloop at one stage why prominent alumni such as Mr Ramaphosa were not investing or involved in institutional development. He told me point blank – they don’t have trust in this institution.

At best, the black university is staffed by African academics from outside of South Africa. This brand of academic are paranoid, nervous and more self-interested that they would not put their jobs on the line to improve institutional culture or push the transformation agenda. They are here to “make money” anyway and will not enter the fray of institutional leadership battles. I also wouldn’t bother myself that much with these factors if I was in a foreign country. It is no coincidence that the foreign academics are the band of black academics who publish the most.

The UCTs however face the biggest danger; only they have a lot to lose. Like some of our Model C schools, the UCTs can crumble. The former alumni who are currently among the major donors may abandon the institution. Unlike the Turfloops of South Africa; the UCTs continue to raise the flag of the country. There is much evidence that suggests that our UCTs can only slide back to becoming the Turfloops, rather than continue an upward international trajectory.

That institutional culture is changing not only at UKZN as Johnson suggests but at UP and Stellenbosch already. Change by itself is a positive development that shows that we are not stagnant or conservative. The big question is who drives the change and what are the intended outcomes?

The UCTs must change and they will. They should embrace change and instead of being forced to change as has been the case with the Rhodes Must Fall and Insourcing campaigns, among other things. Our UCTs should invite and negotiate positive change. In the absence of this; our UCTs will not be able to control the effects of this inevitable change.

Our UCTs may not be able to retain some of their internationally renowned and therefore highly mobile academics who may come to see these changes as disruptive and destructive. The dented image of unstable campus will equally work adversely against their historic attraction for international students and research fellows and therefore funding and collaborations. Get this wrong and they will slowly coil back into becoming village universities like our Turfloops.

Fulufhelo Netswera is a Director of the BRICS Think Tank and he writes in his personal capacity.