Minister Nzimande’s hunger for personal power clear in statist new Bill
28 January 2016
The new Higher Education Amendment Bill presented yesterday in Parliament continues along the path of creeping state capture over Universities, while the sector is on the verge of economic collapse.
The Bill as it stands adds new layers of state-centred requirements to the already substantial existing range. Amidst a number of innocuous technical changes, the Minister has snuck in several clauses which will give him additional powers to dictate to universities, some of which are framed in such a way so as to reduce the susceptibility of the Minister’s decisions to oversight by the Courts:
A new assault upon the powers of Councils in at least five respects, including the elevating of the standing of University Forums, and the extension of Ministerial powers over areas currently the responsibilities of Councils.
The introduction of nebulous and vaguely described “transformation goals” and “oversight mechanisms”. At present the crucial matter of transformation is managed by stakeholders across the sector under the oversight of the Council for Higher Education.
This clause makes no meaningful contribution to the existing law on the issue nor does it provide for real transformation at universities. Instead it serves only to provide the Minister with potentially unfettered personal power. Real transformation cannot be achieved by centralising all power in one man, just as it cannot be achieved without adequate funding to the sector. Unfortunately the ANC-led government has always been concerned more with achieving the latter than the former.
The introduction of Ministerial control over transformation goals in private Universities and Colleges
The introduction of a slew of broad and poorly defined new powers for the Minister following the failure of a University and the appointment of an administrator.
Ever since Universities came under the centralised authority of the Higher Education Act of 1997, the ANC-led government has bombarded them with dozens of small and large amendments of law and regulation in an attempt to bring them under its control. These amendments have gradually undermined university autonomy and, with it, threatened academic freedom as government increasingly positions itself as the ultimate gatekeeper of academic thought.
Academic freedom and institutional autonomy are cornerstones of academic pursuit across the world. Indeed, honest intellectual pursuit, as with free media, requires minimal state intervention and self-regulation. This allows intellectuals to pursue their research without fear of losing funding, even when they reach conclusions government may disagree with. Unsurprisingly, like authoritarian governments everywhere, the ANC-led government has found the principles of independent thought and robust self-management to be anathema. Indeed both the Minister and the President have made it clear that they would prefer ‘patriotic’ universities to independent ones.
Government has promulgated endless controlling regulations and repeatedly amended and extended them, over the past 20 years; it has openly used funding mechanisms to manipulate University decisions; it has overtly and covertly applied its considerable influence over Councils’ choices of Vice-Chancellors; and it has manipulated student protests to secure outcomes in its interests without addressing the core issues with which students are concerned.
The DA will do all it can to ensure that these worrying new provisions of the Bill are properly examined, that the Minister’s hunger for power is kept in check and that the financial crisis which confronts the sector is kept front and centre.
Statement issued by Prof Belinda Bozzoli MP, DA Shadow Minister of Higher Education and Training, 28 January 2016
