‘We must learn to swim together, or we will collectively sink’

Vice-chancellors and university administrators are imprisoned by the national politics and political economy in which their institutions are embedded, forcing them to manage in a manner that prioritises short-term instead of medium-term responsibility, to build institutions of learning that address current challenges.

This was the view on a subject not sufficiently discussed in academic gatherings, according to Professor Adam Habib, the former vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and now the director of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, United Kingdom, in an address last week (9 October) at Universities South Africa’s 3rd Higher Education Conference in Pretoria, South Africa. Universities South Africa (USAf) is a membership organisation representing the country’s 26 public universities.

Discussions at the conference were premised around the theme ‘The Future of the University’.

Delegates explored current and developing trends in higher education and how they impact on universities’ core functions of teaching and learning, research and engagement, leadership and management, transformation, and how institutions are positioning graduates for the future world of work and economic participation.

Habib told delegates gathered at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Conference Centre, Pretoria, that if there is a feature that defines the historical moment, it is that all challenges – pandemics, climate change, inequality, migration, and social and political polarisation – are transnational in character.

“Our ability to address these challenges depends on acting as a collective human community. It is critical to our survival as a species. We must learn to swim together, or we will collectively sink. If we are going to address these transnational challenges, we need to bring knowledge systems from all parts of the world into conversation with one another,” Habib said.

The need for a multidisciplinary lens

Raising several questions, Habib asked how inequality in Kenya is addressed, which will fundamentally differ from how it is addressed in the United Kingdom. “How we address climate change in Korea will be different to how we do it in Germany.

“We could not have stemmed the Ebola outbreak in West Africa with a purely clinical approach – we needed a multidisciplinary lens to understand Muslim burial practices and how to adapt them to prevent the spread of the virus,” he said.

While there is currently positivity over transforming South Africa’s tertiary system from apartheid to democracy, Habib said its success hides significant structural fault lines in the country’s higher education sector.

Qualifying his comment, he added that the university system had not achieved the programmatic differentiation envisaged at the turn of the century, instead degenerating into homogenisation and vertical stratification based on reputation.

As a result, he said, the incentive structure for research subsidies and the ranking systems had pushed all universities to try to be like each other, undermining the programmatic and functional differentiation that would allow higher education institutions to produce the diverse human capital base required for South Africa’s economic and social development.

Past lessons shaping the future

In addition, Habib added that serious questions about the quality of learning across the institutional higher education landscape have been raised. Others have noted these challenges, and they have long been part of the discourse in South African universities.

In his address, ‘Reflections on Post-Apartheid Higher Education: Looking Back, Going Forward’, Habib touched on higher education policy and highlighted successes and failures and the blind spots, especially as they speak to the future.

Habib’s work over three decades has focused on transformation, democracy, and inclusive development. His books, South Africa’s Suspended Revolution: Hopes and Prospects and Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall, have informed debates about the country’s transition into democracy.

The standout in Habib’s keynote address was five lessons from the past that could shape the future:

• Leadership matters. Leadership needs to speak to context. In South African universities, this means enabling access, ensuring a quality education and building a financially sound institution. Without financial sustainability, social justice cannot be realised long-term.

• Second, institutional and national citizenship cannot simply emerge from education and acculturation; consequences must be applied to malevolent behaviour. There is no better case study for this than the issue of violence. Stemming this violence requires not only acculturation – education and engagement – but also consequences for those who are violent.

• Third, capabilities matter. If there is a central lesson to be learned from COVID-19, it is that ordinary citizens are the primary victims of a lack of capabilities within the state. It did not matter how decisive or capable the president and minister (of health) were in managing the pandemic; their decisions were easily unravelled because the state’s capacity had so significantly eroded in the past decade or two.

• Fourth, how we spend is as important as how much we spend. This basic principle, common to most households in our country, is lost on most public institutions and funding regimes.

• Finally, stewardship and governance of public institutions matter. The single largest category of experience on the committee is former SRC members whose sole higher education experience lies in boycotts, class disruptions and university instability.

He said these five lessons are, of course, intertwined and that it was impossible to address collective challenges without a comprehensive response that includes, among other things, the five lessons identified.

“This is an urgent necessity. We are dying as an accountable society. Political anger stalks our land. Political leaders and public officials are deaf to our cries. Dubious politicians are stoking the popular anger for their selfish ends.”

Habib said this future will consolidate unless courage is shown and there is political will to act to stop the rot.

Universities’ special role

USAf Chairperson, Professor Francis Petersen, the new vice-chancellor of the University of Pretoria, said the conference comprised local and international university leaders, researchers, policymakers, educators, and industry experts to tap into the collective wisdom and engage in impactful conversations about sustaining the future of universities in South Africa and globally.

He said South African universities, as is the case the world over, are not only microcosms of society; they are the microcosms of what society should be like.

Petersen said they have been impacted by global crises while still confronting historical, structural inequalities.

Added to this are the ever-evolving challenges related to rapid technological advancements, divides in developing countries, inadequate governance, and deepening financial and sustainability crises.

“As knowledge-producing and critical citizenship development institutions, universities have a special and vital role. They are beacons of hope and are institutions for human progress and development,” he said.

USAf Chief Executive Dr Phethiwe Matutu said this year’s theme, ‘The Future of the University’, is relevant to the higher education sector, which is facing enormous challenges of sustainability in the face of slow economic growth and the impact of digitalisation and artificial intelligence on the world of work in general.

“A sluggish economy has resulted in high levels of unemployment and declining state subsidies. How universities respond to these and global changes (including climate variability, adaptability and environmental sustainability) will determine not only the future of the university but that of society and humanity,” she said.