Academic excellence through a regional rural development focus: Some of the challenges facing higher education and the University of Zululand: Address to University of Zululand Graduation Ceremony, 24 May 2003
Mr Chancellor, Jacob Zuma, Vice-Chancellor, Prof RV Gumbi, Members of Council, members of the University Executive and academic staff members, leaders of trade unions and student organisations, parents and spouses of graduands, graduands, ladies and gentlemen and comrades. I am deeply honoured by the invitation to address your 2003 graduation ceremony for the faculties of Arts, Science, Agriculture and Theology. It is personally quite an emotional reunion with my own alma mater, as it is the first time I am addressing such an august gathering at this institution. It is a significant reunion as I myself was amongst the graduands 23 years ago in 1980, obtaining my first degree in this very hall.
Undoing the legacy of bantu education
We are gathering at this graduation ceremony, significantly exactly 50 years after the apartheid regime adopted that infamous apartheid policy of bantu education. This policy sought to systematically deprive the African people in particular of decent education and educational opportunities. It not only denied the majority of our people access to decent and quality education, but also led to the systematic indoctrination of a whole generation of white South Africans, telling them that they were a superior race with a God-given right to rule over the "natives".
Some might indeed ask why we are talking about such an infamous anniversary that marks one of the painful moments of our past, during an occasion when we have come to celebrate the achievements of our graduands. It is important to remind ourselves of this anniversary, as we are in the midst of thoroughgoing transformation of our education system, in particular higher education. Your very institution is in the midst of a major transformation effort, perhaps the single biggest transformation exercise since the establishment of the University of Zululand. One of the criteria for transforming our higher education system in general, and the University of Zululand in particular, would be the extent to which we have been able to undo and reverse this 50 year legacy, under which this very institution was established. It is also important to remind ourselves of this notorious policy as we enter the end of the first decade of our freedom. It is a time to look back and do a comprehensive evaluation of what we have achieved in education, our setbacks and weaknesses, and begin in earnest to plan for the second decade of our freedom.
Indeed, we need to do more than reverse the legacy of "1953"; hence, the focus of my speech today will be on key aspects and challenges in transforming higher education in general, and some of the challenges facing this institution in particular.
Creating a new institution
As a country, we have made some important strides towards transforming higher education. The last six years have seen the passage of the Higher Education Act in 1997, and the introduction of a national student loan scheme directed towards students who come from poor backgrounds. Most recently, government has adopted a programme to merge and reconfigure higher education institutions, and the proposed evaluation of programmes offered by these institutions. This poses a huge challenge to our higher education institutions, and provides a fertile basis for the radical transformation of the entire higher education terrain.
Mr Chancellor, let me take this opportunity to congratulate the university for having generally adopted a positive approach towards transforming this institution into a comprehensive university, combining university and technikon type programmes. Of course, there will be resistance in some quarters as is always the case with any process of change. Obviously, the changes you have to embark upon have to shake all of us out of our comfort zones; it cannot be business as usual.
Whilst the proposed transformation of the university poses huge challenges and will require systematic co-ordination and utilisation of all the resources we have - human and material - at the same time, this provides a historically unique opportunity to reposition this institution. It is an opportunity to creatively think about possible niche areas around which you should build academic excellence and restructure the institution.
As I was preparing this speech, I thought very hard about what could be some of the challenges facing an institution like this one. In a way, I found it an exciting exercise, and felt envious of what possibilities there are for this university. I wish I was directly part of this effort. At the risk of incurring the wrath of some by making some very specific propositions, let me nevertheless pose some possible challenges facing the institutions and how they could be tackled.
Regional rural development and poverty eradication
Our starting point should be to understand the geographical area in which the university is located. This institution is located in an area that has some of the worst poverty in our country, rural and grossly underdeveloped. In addition, it is the only university this side of uThukela River, which is a very, very vast area. So your work is cut out, just from these geographical and social realities. Restructuring the institution must not be an abstract task, but must proceed from this basis. The single biggest challenge facing our democracy is poverty eradication. Progress of our democracy is directly dependent on the extent to which we tackle this. Coupled with the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which tends to thrive under conditions of poverty, the challenge is indeed huge.
I would submit, for purposes of debate and discussion, that this institution should strive to specialise and excel in regional rural development studies, with a particular focus on poverty eradication and rural economic development in the northern KwaZulu-Natal region. Our higher education institutions in South Africa are generally weak in rural development studies. Instead, most of them tend to have an urban orientation to their programmes, wanting to train everybody for the cities, big business and generally the urban economy. This is a big weakness in a country with such large rural areas and populations trapped in poverty, disease and ignorance. It is around this theme of regional rural development that you should seek to transform the institution. Such a focus can be the glue that holds the institutional programmes together.
There is, for instance, a lot of potential in this region to begin to experiment with building agricultural co-operatives and training of small-scale farmers including the promotion of household-based farming aimed at subsistence. This is one area through which the institution can seek to promote sustainable livelihoods and communities in the rural areas, and develop a meaningful rural economy. I hope that the Faculty of Agriculture in particular is taking a lead in this regard. However, this is not a matter that should be restricted to this faculty; rather, all our programmes, whether in economics, public administration or science, must have this orientation.
Some might argue that no, we want to be a globally competitive institution that is not just insulated in this region, and narrowly focusing on the development needs of one particular region. What is important to know is that it is through developing one's excellence around local challenges that you become globally competitive. Your vision should be that through programmes that creatively respond to regional rural development, the whole country and the whole world can point to an institution like this one as one of world leaders in rural development studies, and in that way become globally competitive. At the same time, it means that whilst we study and exchange theories, programmes and strategies with other universities nationally and globally - which must be done - it must be on the basis of seeking to strengthen our programme and focus and share with others what we do. So there is no contradiction between global engagement and competitiveness with seeking local excellence in responding to our regional challenge. This is what may be called global competitiveness through local excellence!
Women's studies and the training of public managers for local government
In repositioning the institution around the regional development challenge, an important dimension that requires special attention is what I would call women's studies. It is a fact that in most of our poor communities and families, it is women who bear the brunt of poverty. They are the ones who daily have to wipe tears from children who are hungry. It is women who look after the sick, the elderly, those dying from AIDS and the jobless. They are the ones who have to fetch water, make fire and cook. There can therefore be no rural development studies without women's studies, in particular on how to empower these women and assist in the provision of basic services, so that they are relieved from some of the most burdensome tasks of society. Such studies should be incorporated into and cut across all our academic programmes.
A related challenge, within the context of a regional rural development focus, is that of training and producing excellent public managers for all levels of government, with a particular focus on local government. One of the biggest challenges our country faces is that of building capacity for local government institutions to deliver, and this is even more pressing in a poverty stricken region like this one. Again, in many of our institutions, there is a bigger focus on training managers for the private sector, yet the biggest need is for excellent public managers if we are to transform the state we inherited from apartheid and enable local government to respond better to the challenge of underdevelopment. We must ditch the idea that all that is good is in the private sector, and all that is bad is in the public service. I do not share the view that the private sector is better than the public sector. The public sector can be more effective and tends to respond better to developmental challenges.
With regard to the challenge of training good public sector managers, particularly at local government level, it might be worth considering introducing programmes similar to those that were offered by what was known as the "Institute". Such programmes must include specialised training for provincial and local government civil servants, including refresher and upgrade programmes. Of course, such programmes cannot be the same as those that were offered in the past, which basically were aimed at propping up the bantustan system. They must be directed towards building capacity for our provincial government, and in particular rural local government. We need a new paradigm of public administration, oriented towards poverty eradication and community development.
The challenge of restructuring
What would such a focus require in terms of internal restructuring of the institution? I would like to table a few ideas in this regard, not as a prescription but for purposes of dialogue and debate. These include the following:
Congratulations!
Let me now turn my attention to the parents of the graduands. We know most of you have taken the last cents to ensure that these graduands attend university. We must thank you most profoundly for those sacrifices. Those are not small at all, but are part of building this democratic South Africa and our nation. This is also your day today, enjoy it. We must also thank the staff of the university for nurturing and producing these graduands. Your work is appreciated; you are the builders of the nation.
Most importantly, to our graduands. There are many things I can say to you, but I will only touch on the most important. First of all, congratulations on your achievements; we are proud of you and indeed this day belongs to you! You can see that hard work pays, and that there are no short cuts in life. The biggest challenge you have is the same challenge that faces our country. Go out there and be soldiers for poverty eradication and the development of our communities. Go out and in whatever work you are doing, lend a hand in mobilising our communities to create sustainable livelihoods, for them to develop their localities. You must also make sure that you give back what you got from this institution by seeking to support it at this challenging time for transformation. Do not walk away from it.
Lastly, but not the least, let me take this opportunity to congratulate Prof RV Gumbi for her appointment as the vice-chancellor of this institution. You are making history in a double sense. You are the first (black) woman to be vice-chancellor of oNgoye. You are also the first vice-chancellor charged with the responsibility of leading the creation of a new institution, in line with the new government policy on higher education. I am confident you will make it, and urge all the constituencies at this university to support and work with you in charting this new path!
With these words, I thank you.
Blade Nzimande