In the Budget Vote Debate on Higher Education, the FF Plus pointed out the deep-rooted differences over the role of post-school education.
The state’s views often determine the views of all levels of education.
In South Africa, a kind of totalitarian view prevails, which essentially means that only individuals and the state itself are politically meaningful. In contrast to that, there is the view that society consists of a nearly infinite number of politically meaningful institutions, where communities find expression. The state is but one of these, albeit the largest.
Traditionally, universities are such institutions of political significance. An entire community of students, lecturers, bursars, donors and former students grow around each university and contribute to its diversity, which ought to characterise each and every state as well.
The current government has intentionally diluted this diversity by merging universities that are hundreds of kilometres apart. Additionally, by insisting that each campus must represent the entire country’s demographical composition an attempt is made to snuff out the unique nature of these institutions.
Traditionally, the supporting community of technical colleges is not as strong as universities’. Even ordinary schools, which offer a form of political expression to communities through school governing bodies, are stronger than the so-called TVET colleges. These institutions do not develop an institutional culture, but remain no more than a collection of classrooms and workshops.
The state is, therefore, working purposefully to create after-school educational institutions that build up learning materials as neutral tools to serve the economy and state.
The problem is that these depoliticised institutions do not work – and when they do work, it is in spite of the sterilisation process and not because of it. Established universities may be no more than a shadow of what they were before, yet they still inspire some enthusiasm and even sacrifice. All the momentum simply has not been absorbed yet.
That is why institutions, like Sol-Tech and Akademia, are able to achieve what would be impossible for the Department, given the same budget. That is the expression of communities that gather around “their own” institutions, whether they have direct ties with it or not. These become the institutions that not only offer education and training, but also guidance and meaning to an entire community.
What the government offers in its place is an unsustainable student financing scheme, universities that are frequently placed under administration, students who burn down infrastructure, TVET colleges that never really get on track; in short, a large, clumsy system where actual education, training and meaningful learning appear to be by-products instead of the main objective. But at least it serves the state.