Page 87 - Transformation Indaba Report

serving students from poor communities - and relatively disarticulated from the
urban corporate support networks enjoyed by their urban counterparts.

b. Unless these two issues – inadequate policy support and economic disarticulation
– are resolved, it is unlikely that these institutions will be able to successfully
promote the goals of higher education transformation. Firstly, without proper
infrastructure, services and solid management and governance systems, they
cannot provide equitable services to, and/or attract and retain good quality staff
and students. Secondly, without full financial aid, particularly via NSFAS, they
will endure chronic instability and dropout rates. And, thirdly, without integration
into a supportive local and regional economic system, it is hard to see how they
can adequately meet their differentiated mandates of research, teaching and
engagement roles in wider society. Therefore, the recapitalization and economic
integration of former HBIs and campuses are a sine qua non for both their internal
transformation and playing a transformative role in their wider environment.

c. It cannot be expected, either by default or design, that HBIs should carry a
disproportionate social responsibility - relative to their size and internal
demographic composition - of enrolling students from poor communities,
whereas a similar class demographic is often not reflected in the enrolment
patterns of many other institutions across the higher education sector. Critics are
often quick to point out that former white universities enrol numerically larger
numbers of poor students than individual HBIs, ignoring the fact that HBIs still
enrol a far greater per capita percentage of students from working class/poor
than middle class and wealthier sections of the population. It surely must be a
serious consideration that universities and the State agree on setting targets for
the enrolment of students coming from poor and dysfunctional schooling
backgrounds. Why should this responsibility only or mainly fall on former HBIs?
After all, setting enrolment targets for working class students is a common and
longstanding practice in countries such as the UK – as an explicit goal set for all
universities to break down inherited and reproductive class inequalities.

18. Equity and Redress

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a. The figures that indicate the extent of change in staff demographic profiles at
universities since 1994 are stark and extremely jarring; they suggest that painfully
little has been done, at least not on a systematic (system-level) basis, by higher
education’s leadership, to ‘grow’ black academics of all genders. This has resulted
in transformation inertias across the national system. There is very little logic in

5 See Andile Makholwa (2015): ‘Of the 475 permanent and associate professors at UCT, only 18 are black African. Add Indian
and coloured professors and there are 71 — still woefully inadequate. Wits University has 202 black full and associate professors,
including temporary staff, out of 916. At both universities, African includes staff from the rest of Africa. At the end of 2013,
there were 491 black (including Indian and coloured) professors in the country and 1,862 white professors. There were 530 black
(including Indian and coloured) associate professors compared with 1,299 white associate professors. Black women are the most
underrepresented group amongst academic staff. http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/education/2015/05/18/campuses-changing-
slowly--and-unevenly.
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