North West University Vaal Campus Situation

On the Victimisation of Leaders at North West University, Vaal Triangle Campus

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate the integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world”. These are the words of Paulo Freire that come to mind when one thinks of the disturbing situation of North West University Vaal campus.

The South African post-schooling sector is besieged by many challenges that require the attention of the public. The Vaal Triangle campus of North West University is an example of the dire need for transformation that still has to happen in South Africa despite some progress since the 1994 breakthrough.

NWU Vaal, which is basically former Potchefstroom University, epitomises what is wrong in our universities at large. Students at the university have over the years, among many other things, complained about the following:

      i.        Undermining the Student Representative Council (SRC)

    ii.        Racism

   iii.        Imposition of unnecessary fees on students

   iv.        Poor infrastructure and services

     v.        Lack of access to academic buildings

   vi.        Refusal of NWU to avail funds for poor students

In view of the above problems, it is clear that the status quo is really not good and therefore requires change. Integration or conformity to the status quo would be the free sale of the struggle for transformation. The little education that we have should be used “critically and creatively” to significantly change the reality of the education terrain. This is what the progressive forces of change at NWU Vaal Triangle campus had sought to do when they raised their concerns and propositions to the management of the institution. However, the management stubbornly refused to give in to legitimate feelings of unease they felt and suggestions to resolve the problems.

When the students of NWU Vaal Triangle Campus, due to the clear display of arrogance and resistance of management, decided to march for the address of these issues they were met by the might of iron fist response from the institution’s authorities. This march happened in 20 May 2013. Instead of responding and addressing the issues raised by the student body the institution elected to cruelly isolate and harshly deal with student leadership and ‘make an example out of them’ by instituting unnecessary and ill-conceived  disciplinary action against them. You raise issues, you are charged. What is that? Injustice! Victimisation!

For the reason that the student leaders do not sing praise songs for the management, they are victimised because they ‘cause problems’ and ‘disturb the peace’ by raising issues that are uncomfortable for those tasked with managing the institutions of learning. These managers and administrators seem to be deliberately ignorant of the obvious need to transform the institutions of education. They equate and therefore limit transformation to allowing black students to register and having a black Campus Rector from the difficult to change University of Pretoria in the form of Prof. Thanyani Mariba.

The undermining of decisions and the work of the SRC by the NWU Vaal through its senate is not only wrong but downright illegal. The SRC and student body decisions in general are not respected according to leaders at NWU Vaal. This is despite the SRC being a compulsory statutory body in institutions of education as reflected in the Higher Education Act and the statutes of all universities in SA. The university wasted no time in proving this assertion by unfairly rejecting the amendments made to the student governance constitution by the Student Summit that sat in April 2013.  How do we begin to explain and justify the insult of rubbishing of the governing structure of the primary stakeholders? We cannot, honestly.

All these injustices and strangling of transformation at NWU Vaal Triangle Campus happen despite the celebrated presence of the first black Campus Rector. This is undoubtedly another vivid example that the amount of pigmentation in one’s skin is not proportional to one’s commitment, or at least approval of the need for progressive transformation of not only education but society in general. It is now clear that as and when we appoint black people and/or women as per the affirmative action guidelines we need to look beyond or, perhaps, deeper than the skin colour and biological make up.

Leaders of the student movement are vulnerable because the issues of transformation have been almost exclusively left to them by other stakeholders of the NWU Vaal Triangle Campus. There is lack of coordinated and thus consolidated action by stakeholders within our institutions. Consolidation and strengthening of relations among the campus stakeholders is crucial, especially between students and workers. I have argued elsewhere that: “Students and working class alliances have proven to be a necessary revolutionary concoction that is crucial in any progressive struggle. South African liberation history, for example, cannot be honestly told without mention of the revolutionary role of students and organised labour. Many community struggles were led and championed by students and workers”. Student-worker alliances were a significant force in the struggle against apartheid machinery. Students and workers worked together in transport boycotts, fighting high food prices, in leading strikes against apartheid injustices and many other burning issues of the time. The students and workers at North West University and all other universities should not only learn from the past but must also take action that is informed by that learning. It is through implementation of our learning from the past that we shall make a difference.

One of the dominant student organisations in the post-schooling sector, the South African Students Congress (SASCO), in a document named the Strategic Perspective on Transformation (SPOT), claim that one of the four pillars on which the struggle for the transformation of our institutions and society should be community work. This observation is in line with the adage of the revolutionary Steve Biko’s generation of student activists who said “we are members of the community before we are students”. It follows from this that the students of the NWU need to realise that their struggles are part of and are attached to those of the communities around them.

Close inspection of our society reveals a very serious detachment between communities and institutions of education in the post-schooling sector. Indeed, this is also a case with the Vaal Triangle working-class communities like Sharpeville, Boipatong, Sebokeng, Evaton and others. Therefore, there needs to be an intensive mobilisation of communities to participate in the transformation of the institutions so that there can be necessary accountability. These communities should demand that the remnants of the colonial and apartheid past which are still intact at the institution are removed and the university contributes positively to their development.

An intensive mobilisation of communities should rise beyond partisanship and must be aimed strictly at making certain that the transformation agenda is achieved. Currently, the PYA which is the alliance of SASCO, ANCYL and YCLSA seem to be overburdened with the task of transforming the university. Hence it is not surprising that the brunt of the university’s iron fist and disciplinary hearings are directed to PYA due to the realisation by the institution that once this alliance is weakened so will be the transformation agenda. Leaders of these structures will look like agitators who are set on a mission of causing perpetual trouble till such time all motive forces, stakeholders who stand to benefit most, come together.

Where is the media? What and how has the media reported on this matter? Why have the issues and the plight of students at NWU not known and understood beyond the fence bordering the institution around SA? There has been little from the part of the so-called mainstream media in reporting the real issues that are in the public interest from this institution, especially this relatively small yet significant campus. The media must know that besides the political scandals there are other scandalous stories to report like the injustices faced by student leaders at NWU Vaal Triangle Campus. The leaders are now living in fear because they unfairly lost the disciplinary case and maybe dealt with once and for all should they err now. Where is our ‘patriotic’ media?    

Real transformation necessitates a radical overhaul of the terrain of education through dealing with the sites of education like the problematic NWU Vaal Triangle Campus. Campuses should be transformed and turned into people’s institutions working toward the service of society at large.  This cannot happen without the unity of all stakeholders who stand to benefit from the transformation of NWU Vaal Triangle Campus and the institution in its totality. Students, parents, community organisations, trade unions etc have to unite. The unity of these stakeholders will go a long way in shielding students from vitriolic wrath of liberal management and therefore allow transformation to happen. As the cliché goes, unity is strength.

 

Universities should not be permitted to hide behind institutional autonomy for the purposes of derailing transformation. We need to be careful of some ‘reasonable’ arguments against the ‘cutting too deep’ by Dr Blade Nzimande as alleged by University of Cape Town (UCT) Vice Chancellor and chairperson of council. As UCT raises this argument they are busy trying to do away with affirmative action policy despite the reality of inequality being persistent. This clearly indicates that powers bestowed upon Dr. Blade Nzimande, through legislation to intervene in institutions was and remains correct. The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) has no other choice but to ‘cut deep’ and make certain that universities like NWU and UCT together with others, do not strangle, or most unpleasantly, reverse the transformation of the education terrain.

The education of the children of the working class is sacrosanct. It is through education that we can transform our unsurpassed society as far as inequality is concerned. For our education to address the problems of society it needs to be transformed first and that transformation requires the participation of all motive forces i.e. students, organised labour, churches, professionals, community organisations, youth etc.

North West University needs to transform and our leaders need protection. Let us unite for the transformation of North West University.

Education must become the practice of freedom!

Dinileminyanya Sandile Latha is the Board Member of Epilepsy SA, Eastern Cape and former student leader. He writes in his own personal capacity.