The Higher Education Transformation Network (HETN), acting on behalf of its alumni members, hereby notes the submission of the NWU Task Team Report by Dr Leon Wessels (chairperson), Dr Somadoda Fikeni, Adv Rehana Rawat and Dr Bismark Tyobeka into cultural, induction, orientation, initiation and demeaning practices, including acts of facsism and nazism, to the NWU Council on the 27th May 2014.
Whilst we note the subsequent discussion of the report's findings by the NWU management ExCo on the 29th May 2014 and by Council on the 4th June 2014 and the subsequent decision not to publish the report, we have previously stated our trepidations at the perceived attempts to water down the essence and body of the report's findings.
The empty legal threats of Afriforum and Solidarity have thus provided a convenient pretext by conniving members of the NWU management not to publish the report, to provide a half-baked feedback to the Minister of Higher Education and to hide the report's findings from public consumption and scrutiny.
It is on this basis that the Network has decided to publish the report (see here and here - PDF) to let the public know the same truth that the NWU Council and management has been attempting to hide for the past two weeks. Universities can no longer hide corruption, mismanagement, lies and racism under the veil of institutional autonomy.
From the attached report's findings, the following matters have been highlighted:-
The abuse of state funding in punitive legal action and settlement of payments to get rid of "problematic" staff
The existence of an adverse organisational culture of fear, racism and intimidation at NWU
The existence of a federal NWU model with each campus running their own affairs independently
The NWU's utilization of underhanded surveillance methods on staff and students
The existence of initiation and quasi-military practices at the NWU
The utilization of language has been utilized as an inhibitor to cohesion
The Task Team report has vindicated and strengthened our long-held assertions that there exists, in our opinion, a proliferation of racist practices taking place at the NWU Potchefstroom campus and in the workplace of the same institution.
During the past two weeks since the 27th May 2014, we have noted how the contents of the above-mentioned report was leaked to the Afrikaans media, Afriforum and Solidarity and how certain members of the NWU management, in particular Prof Herman van Schalkwyk, have initiated public agitations and mobilisation of Afrikaner students and communities (see here and here); through partisan media such as the Potchefstroom Herald not only against transformation in general but against the findings of the report. We strongly condemn the unfortunate public agitations by Prof Hermann van Schalkwyk.
The submission of a sanitised report by the NWU to the Minister of Higher Education indicates a fundamental breakdown of trust between the current Council and the state thereby requiring Ministerial intervention through the appointment of an Administrator.
The entire NWU management team, in particular Prof Hermann van Schalkwyk, needs to be urgently relieved of their duties.
Statement issued by Lucky Thekisho is Chairperson of the Higher Education Transformation Network, July 1 2014
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