Expert warns about state of higher education

Higher Education South Africa (HESA) briefed the Higher Education and Training Portfolio Committee today on the state of higher education in the country, touching on lack of student access and opportunities, postgraduate education, higher education transformation, and the challenge of funding. HESA warned that there was a lot more that had to be done to get higher education to the level it should be.

At the start of the meeting, the HESA Chairperson, Dr Saleem Badat, told MPs that there has been a “revolution” as far as enrolments in universities are concerned, with student enrolments almost doubling since 1994, and more equitable access to higher education.

In 2011, black students (African, Coloured and Indian) made up 81% of the total student body of 938 200, while women made up 58%. However, social class was still at play, saying, “white students remain concentrated at the historically white institutions. Conversely, the historically black institutions remain almost exclusively black”.

There was also grave concern about the number of dropouts that universities experienced. According to HESA, 16% of the African students that began study in 2005 graduated in the minimum three years, 41% graduated after six years, and 59% had dropped out. In the same study with white students, it was found that 44% graduated in the minimum three years, 65% graduated after six years, and 35% had dropped out.

Badat told the Committee that it was shocking that the government is “pouring billions [into higher education] and we are not graduating students”. These types of realities “have the effect of negating much of the growth in black access that has been achieved”.

HESA’s presentation showed that the Department of Higher Education and Training’s White Paper spoke of increasing university headcount enrolments from about 950 000 in 2012 to 1.6 million by 2030. But, Badat warned that this could not be done without the backing of financial resources.

Postgraduate student enrolments and outputs remained low, and that there was relatively poor graduation rates for masters and doctorates. This could be attributed to the lack of funds awarded to postgrad students.

“R45 000 is inadequate to finance a postgraduate student, we need at least R80 000 for an Honours student and R100 000 for a Masters student or PhD candidate… We are even struggling to support undergrads, as seen by all the recent protests”, said Badat.

Although government funding for universities has increased from R11 billion in 2006 to R26 billion in 2013, there have been many challenges and money given to higher education had declined as a percentage of the government’s budget. As a result, only half the students of the one million that enrolled could be supported, which begged the question: How did government propose supporting 1.6 million students in 2030? Unless National Treasury gave higher education at least 2% more funding in real terms, they would not be able to support 1.6 million students.

Badat also cautioned that government seemed so focused on race and gender in higher education that most of the fundamental matters were not being addressed such as “how far are we in decolonising our education? South African universities are historically colonial" and the Committee had to think about what this meant for the curriculum and knowledge production in general.

Referring to diversity of tertiary education, he acknowledged the impact that Apartheid had on universities, stressing that there “is a need for 23 universities that serve our society in different ways, not 23 of the same type of university. That would be disastrous”.

Chairperson of the Committee, Ishmael Malale, acknowledged that there should be more engagement on these matters raised by HESA, and that universities were not going to reach higher education needs in the country without some intervention. He appreciated the presentation as it “goes to the heart of the challenges”, and that the Fifth Parliament should convene all stakeholders under one roof so the different viewpoints could be discussed.