Page 70 - CAO 25th Ann Coffee Table Book

PROF. GRAHAM BLOCH (WITS)
VISITING ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE
20 August 2014
Summary of the keynote speech delivered at the 2013/2014 Annual General Meeting ‘The Demographics of Tertiary Education since 1994’.
There have been some massive changes in the demographics of tertiary education since 1994. Averages hide many things as do aggregates – however, in my day, the only ways you got into teaching halls if you were black were with a permit and by sweeping the floors!
So first let me congratulate the University of KwaZulu- Natal (UKZN) on being part of these changes. I do not know exactly how many admissions are now
from black students, but research output has been upped; teaching and learning and the humanities have been concentrated on in order to emphasise the second and third aspects of university: good teaching, and committed learning or engagement. We can transform and still do good research; this is shown in the University of Cape Town (UCT) and UKZN.
Yet teaching and engagement are seldom rewarded in the way that they should be. Even the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has a list of journals for funding, and talks largely of ‘disadvantaged’ universities while avoiding the term ‘differentiation’.
So I will try to be provocative. I assume as a university you can challenge me and exercise due cynicism, and much critique. So unusually, I will leave much time for
discussion afterwards. Also, it is the education system we have that is really ‘provocative’.
These days you have to have a tertiary degree from a Technical Vocational and Education Training (TVET) College or university to succeed. It is a rocky, competitive world, so you have to be the best to even get a job, of which there are few. Most well-paid jobs go to graduates, despite them shouting louder than others. National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) is a problem: surely you have to pay for accommodation and are entitled to the odd beer if you are to talk over your notes.
You also have to be the best to succeed at science or maths, to solve AIDS or do space research as called to do by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). No one in Europe will solve our problems in Africa for us, or feel sorry for us. No one anywhere in the world is waiting for us to catch up, and saying, “Shame, you had a terrible
past. I know what it must be like and I want you to blow me out of the water.” Not even in BRICS (five major emerging national economies comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).
So how do we do good science, and also avoid wars: it is not just maths but also humanities and culture that we need in this country and continent? Are we producing the scholars and graduates we need in this continent? Can we get ahead, and are we getting value for money in the tertiary sector?
Yes, we are admitting many. But what is our throughput? And are we reinforcing racial divisions? How can it be that if you went to a good school you have a chance; that now maybe you can be an engineer, but this means turning your back on being a maths teacher? Either you are an engineer or an accountant, which thank God is now open to you; or you go back with your good maths to teach.
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