cape town

Sibusiso Bengu, South Africa's outgoing Minister of Education, has launched a stinging attack on the mismanagement of the universities that were set up for non-white ethnic groups during the apartheid era.

Bengu accused the universities' administrators of “invoking history to hide patent mismanagement”. Bengu, who will retire from the cabinet after the June election, launched his attack in an article in the country's financial newspaper, Business Day.

Voting with their feet: black students are flocking to historically Afrikaans universities.

His comments, coming from a black minister, will increase pressure on the historically black universities, which have been losing able black students and staff to top universities that were closed to them under the apartheid system of government, which collapsed in 1994.

The historically black universities are a legacy of apartheid, which created separate universities for each major ethnic group, including the mixed-race (coloured) population and the Indian population, while restricting black enrolment at the Afrikaans and English universities.

Since the new government took office, the historically disadvantaged universities (HDUs), as they are known, have benefited from special “redress” funds from the state, in addition to normal operating funds. But Bengu is now claiming that “their fixation with historical disadvantage is blinding them to the real challenges they face as universities”.

Ironically, Bengu singled out for criticism the University of Fort Hare in the Eastern Cape Province town of Alice, where he was rector until he entered government. Between 1993 and 1997, the government more than doubled its support for the university. But its finances showed a surplus of R11 million (US$1.8 million) at the beginning of the period and a deficit of R24 million at the end.

Bengu's article followed the release of a report by Stuart Saunders, former vice-chancellor of the University of Cape Town, recommending that the government give serious consideration to closing down the University of Fort Hare. This month, Fort Hare rector Mbulelo Mzamane called for the establishment of a “Marshall plan” to assist the HDUs. It seems unlikely that the government would close the university, which is the alma mater of President Nelson Mandela and of the Minister of Home Affairs, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party.

But last week Bengu appointed private auditors to investigate the books of Fort Hare and five other HDUs: the universities of Zululand, the North, the North West, Transkei, and the Medical University of South Africa.

Last Friday (19 March), students and staff at Fort Hare took part in a protest demanding the dismissal of Mzamane and two senior managers. Saunders' report alleged that the rector was using university funds to pay 75 per cent of his daughter's fees at Boston University in the United States, and recommended that Mzamane's contract should not be renewed.

Cecil Abrahams, rector of the University of the Western Cape, said he was “surprised” by the minister's statement. “I didn't think we needed to educate the minister of the issue of disadvantagement,” he said, adding that he not only supported the minister's action in setting up the audit, but felt that it should be extended to all the country's universities. “Only then will we be in a position to assess which institutions are viable,” he said.

The woes of the HDUs can partly be accounted for by the non-payment of fees. It is believed that South Africa's institutions of higher education are owed more than R700 million in outstanding fees. The government has set up a fund to lend fees to poor students, but, according to Abrahams, it is able to support only a third of those who are eligible.

Ironically, the gap between the HDUs and the historically Afrikaans universities has widened since the new government took office. Nico Cloete, of the Centre for Higher Education Transformation, says that consequently there is a shake-up in higher education, with “good quality black students moving to the institutions of their choice”.

The historically Afrikaans universities have experienced rapid growth in enrolment of black students. Between 1993 and 1997, black (including African, coloured and Indian) student registration at these six universities quadrupled from 9 to 36 per cent.

In the case of black Africans, the most disadvantaged sector of the population, there were 26,000 students registered at the historically Afrikaans universities in 1997, compared to only 16,000 at the four traditionally English universities.

The drop in registrations at the HDUs can be also be attributed to increased numbers preferring to study at technical colleges offering more market-orientated qualifications.

Funding agencies may be forced to rethink their strategies for targeting disadvantaged students. South Africa's Foundation for Research Development and Britain's Royal Society are among those that have earmarked special funds for developing research capacity at HDUs.