SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH AFRICA: Universities must build winning nation
South Africa is an ambitious country. All of the world's leading nations reached their high-level standing because they were ambitious in the first instance, and acted on that ambition. History tells us that while ambition is essential, it also takes hard work, focus and dedication to succeed, whether it is economic, political or scientific achievement that is aspired to. For South Africa to succeed, the capacity, quality and productivity of the higher education and innovation systems need urgent attention.In the United States, the Apollo programme was conceived by President Dwight David Eisenhower in the 1950s. It was an ambitious project and only gained momentum when President John F Kennedy, in a speech to Congress on 25 May 1961, proposed the national goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth".
Because of competition with the then Soviet Union, Kennedy's speech galvanised American society and reverberated throughout the science and higher education communities. It unleashed the creativity, science and innovation of that nation. The goal was achieved eight years later when Apollo 11 landed on the moon on 20 July 1969.
Such is the power of ambition, a shared common vision and hard work when channeled properly. When a nation marshals its energy and resources towards a shared goal, it achieves. It is little wonder that the United States gave us the internet.
South Africa is lagging
It is estimated that in 2025 Nigeria will surpass South Africa and become the largest economy on the continent. Already, South Africa's lead in ICT connectivity is being eroded by North Africa. Part of the explanation for South Africa's diminishing position is the poor performance of its higher education and innovation systems.
South Africa is lagging behind with:
Urgent attention is required to improve the capacity, quality and productivity of our higher education and innovation systems.
The first insight towards a cure is in recognising that the quality of South African higher education is poor. We have a Kilimanjaro to climb over the next 20 years. Fortunately, we have no alternative but to improve quality and productivity in order to anchor and safeguard a better future.
Why should we be concerned about the performance of our universities?
In today's world, the knowledge-information system is key to development, innovation and competitiveness. Knowledge-information is a major differentiator of modern nations. Universities are the dominant role players within this system. They play a pivotal role in the development of countries and in shaping their futures and fortunes.
With higher education recognised as a vital tool to stimulate economic growth, 10 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries have put 'education front and centre'.
Universities educate and train people with high-level skills for the public and private sectors and the economy, and cutting-edge professionals for the development of knowledge and innovation. They critique information, produce new knowledge and find new local and global applications for existing knowledge. They set norms and standards and determine the curriculum, languages, knowledge, ethics and philosophy underpinning a nation's knowledge capital.
Universities also provide opportunities for social mobility and strengthen good citizenry, equity, social justice and democracy. The university as an institution of society has played a central role in shaping civilisations and the development of humankind throughout history. That is why their quality and productivity matters so much.
Why performance is poor
The mediocre performance in our universities is due to:
Grade five learners in historically black schools perform considerably worse on average in numeracy and literacy tests than grade three learners in historically white schools. Learners need a good foundation in early childhood education and development, and good schooling with maths and science at the core in order to qualify and participate successfully in higher education and enter the innovation system.
However, universities no longer have a monopoly on knowledge production globally. Other organisations such as science councils, non-governmental and privately funded research institutes, state-owned enterprises, the private sector and even some government departments, have become sites of new knowledge production and application.
Government, higher education, the national system of innovation and private industry need a shared vision of the future.
A greater understanding within government is also required to acknowledge the importance of science and technology and higher education in leading and shaping the future of modern nations. Government departments need to work together to develop a broad enabling framework and policy that encourages world-class research and innovation. More importantly, the framework in which the knowledge-information system operates and its relationship to innovation and industry, needs to be reconfigured.
The National Development Plan
The proposed National Development Plan: Vision for 2030 published recently by the National Planning Commission recognises early learning and schooling as the foundation of higher education and the system of innovation.
It makes a number of proposals to fix the schooling system. They include investment in early childhood development and intervening during the critical stages of a child's development; a national commitment by all stakeholders to collaborate to improve education; mobilisation of national resources in the private sector, NGOs, universities and government departments to support underperforming schools; addressing teachers' pay structure; and continuous training of teachers and principals.
In higher education, the plan proposes ambitious quality-driven targets to raise the production of doctoral graduates from the current 1,400 to more than 5,000 per year; increasing participation rates to over 30%; and increasing graduation rates from 15% to more than 25% or increasing the number of graduates per year from 167,000 (including private higher education institutions) to 425,000.
The plan identifies the most important rate-limiting step, that is, to improve the qualifications of academic staff holding PhDs from the current level of 34% to 75% over the next 20 years.
For an ambitious nation, this level of qualification should constitute an obvious crisis to be confronted. Effectively, 66% of academic staff without a PhD means universities are not 'fit for purpose'. This is the most significant rate-limiting and urgent quality and productivity factor each South African university must fix.
The university sector has for the past 17 years used 'autonomy and academic freedom' every inch of the way to protect the legacy of apartheid academic mediocrity. If only 63% of the current poorly qualified academic staff registered and undertook PhD studies from next year, South Africa would reach the 75% target within five years, by 2016.
It is estimated that on average an ASEAN scholar works 10 hours per week more than his or her counterpart in the US or UK. Multiply this figure over a 10 or 20 year period, and given the sheer numbers of scholars in ASEAN countries, and one begins to not only appreciate the effect of this strategy and the emerging picture and its impact on global knowledge competitiveness.
Of course in South Africa, being steeped in imitating our colonial masters - we copy their work ethic - we also work on average 10 hours less per scholar per week than our ASEAN counterparts.
If national sports coaches Peter de Villiers (rugby) or Pitso Mosimane (soccer) were not 'fit for purpose, the nation would be up in arms and calling for their heads. Why are we not demanding a high quality, productive world-class university system for our youth with the same passion as we demand world-class soccer and rugby? As an ambitious nation we should not accept glorified high school or college education to be dressed up as university education.
Acting on these proposals will put in place a strong foundation for a winning South Africa.
Complementary actions will need to be undertaken to improve the quality of further education and training. This is necessary to ensure that universities are not burdened with the responsibility of producing high-level skills alone. Other sites of knowledge production such as science councils, state-owned enterprises, NGOs and the private sector will also have to play their part.
Winning nations not only invest in their people to improve their capacity to produce and apply knowledge but also invest in a set of institutions and programmes in which they have comparative and competitive advantage.
* Professor Malegapuru Makgoba is vice-chancellor and principal of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, one of South Africa's largest research universities.