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| UNISA Pro-Vice-Chancellor Prof Narend Baijnath |
What are the best memories you will take from your time at Unisa?
I have worked alongside exemplary leaders at the level of Council and Management over the years who have stood out for their vision, capabilities and dedication to the Unisa cause. These have always stood out also for putting the interests of the institution first, for their even-handedness and fairness, and their ethical fibre.
I have worked closely with a wide range of staff from across the university from diverse portfolios and sectors. I have always been struck by the amount of goodwill and eagerness of colleagues to give their time and energy, to contribute, and to participate in initiatives at all levels of the organisation. During my time at Unisa I have appreciated this as the key ingredient of any success and progress on every initiative I have been responsible for.
I also realised that affirming staff, giving them the space and opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities, and creating a protected environment to take risks, were equally important for success, and for enduring commitment.
Unisa gave me several and diverse opportunities to make a contribution to the development of a great and vitally important institution, and to the advancement of our society. I was availed of opportunities to meet and work with culturally, ideologically and intellectually diverse people at all levels. This has enriched me and expanded my horizons in no small measure, and made me stronger, wiser and fulfilled in immeasurable ways.
What would you like to be remembered for at Unisa?
A friend who I had lunch with recently, in a discussion of what makes a good leader, made the remark that as a leader, it is important to be a gentleman. I hope that I have fulfilled his and others’ measure in this regard. I have striven to be true to my compass—beliefs, values, ethics and sense of duty. I have aspired to be principled, diligent, even-handed and fair in all my dealings, responsibilities and engagements. I hope that my conduct endures as an exemplar of all of this.
What are your plans for the CHE?
I relish the task before me at the CHE, which, being a small and focused organisation, is quite unlike Unisa. However, its role at the systemic level is crucial for the sector, and for uplifting the quality and impact of higher education, and ultimately for uplifting our society, economy and culture.
Within the remit of the core mandate of the CHE, my intention is to be prolific in the range and depth of perspectives the CHE provides on higher education. I also intend to ensure that we are respected locally and internationally for the rigour, quality and credibility of our policy analyses, advocacy and policy advice. Given that a central function of the CHE is that of quality assurance and accreditation, I intend to ensure that we are exemplary on a global scale for our quality improvement, assurance, accreditation and oversight functions.
A valuable role that the CHE can and must play is to foster and lead a public discourse nationally on performance on a range of higher education policy and development imperatives. I intend to give this attention. The CHE has built tremendous capacity in providing analyses and insights into higher education developments, performance and development challenges. I would like to establish it as the ‘go-to’ source for reliable information, analysis, and policy options on higher education in South Africa.
The White Paper on PSET which was launched at the beginning of 2014 provides an extensive canvas that will also shape and inform the work of the CHE over the next 5-10 years at least, and influence its priorities. The central policy goal in PSET is to expand access, promote the improvement of quality and build appropriate diversity so that students have a range of high quality options to select from. Coupled with this is the concern that HE should also focus on scarce skills necessary for economic development through closer ties with and responsiveness to the workplace. Purposeful differentiation is intended to meet a range of social, economic and educational requirements. We have had policy driven differentiation leading to different institutional types. It is possible to have mission driven differentiation, or strategy driven ones which lead to the establishment of specialist institutions such as medical, or science orientated universities. Simultaneously, attention must be given to the quality and quantum of research produced. These are some of the priority concerns I expect to preoccupy me for the foreseeable future.
Other concerns are the number and quality of M&D graduates, vital as much for the success of HE, as for its future sustainability and our national aspirations towards a knowledge economy. Recent figures indicate that the system is graduating just over 2 000 doctorates. This is a far cry from the 5 000 targeted. In association with other agencies and in the sector, this will also receive attention.
Affordability of higher education remains a challenge for legions of students, especially poor black students contributing in significant measure to the high dropout and failure rate. There are indications that the economy has in the region of 450 000 vacancies, but there are 350 000 unemployed graduates. This phenomenon warrants close and detailed scrutiny so that policy and planning options at the systemic level may be influenced. I intend to treat this as a priority.
Goals for expansion of the PSET system pose tremendous challenges. An ever-present danger is that an already diluted resource base available for HE will be spread thinner in order to fund the expansion goals, to the ultimate detriment of the system. Close attention needs to be given to the capacity of the HE sector, the distribution of opportunities and demand patterns regionally and nationally, matched to provision.
Quality improvement is a key imperative. There is a general sense that educators neglect teaching and learning in favour of research, to the detriment of our students and the quality of learning outcomes. Improvement of teaching and learning is vital to improve throughput and pass rates, but also to ensure that graduates emerge with marketable skills and capabilities, responsive to workplace demands. This is already firmly on the CHE agenda. I intend to maintain the impetus.
Capacity within the sector is a perennial challenge as many continue to retire, with the pipeline into the sector flowing at a low ebb. At the same time, institutional governance, leadership and management challenges have increased as these functions have become considerably more complex, demanding a raft of skills and capabilities that many do not possess, to the detriment of our institutions and ultimately our students.
Finally, technology, and the conjuncture of increasing broadband, lower costs and available applications for teaching and learning, change the game for all institutions to be able to offer quality online programmes. Our investments in these must lead to a discernible improvement in throughput, quality of the educational experience, efficiency gains, and better graduates equipped with skills required for the digital world of work.
Recent public debate on higher education precipitated by the Rhodes Must Fall movement, has brought sharp attention to the curriculum in universities—the challenge being to decolonise the curriculum. The premise is that curriculum assigns value to its objects of study and determines the academic formation of future generations. This will remain topical for the immediate future and warrants attention at the national level. I believe that the debate can be influenced and informed by the CHE.
Of pressing concern to the sector should be the question of 21st century skills—what kinds of literacy are required by the digital world of work? With the proliferation of social and educational media, how digital literacy should be developed so students have decoding skills; sound ways of other-than-textual meaning-making; and analysing, distilling and selecting discerningly from an overwhelming amount of content of variable quality. Questions about how these and other emergent trends are addressed in the curriculum will necessitate ongoing review and refinement of our quality assurance and review framework and instruments.
It is clearly going to be a very challenging and exciting role.
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