|
May 10 was an interesting day because COSATU, sort of the AFL-CIO of South Africa, called a general strike to protest joblessness, lay-offs and outsourcing (to cheaper wage African -- and Asian -- countries, and non-union shops) trend that has hit very hard over the last years. The strike did have some impact at the Technikon, where just about everyone is unionized, but it was hard to judge since we're now in an office high up in the administration block, cut off from reality. Point made. The ANC government of South Africa is a collection of mixed signals on the strike and the nature of the joblessness problem. Some ministers sound the IMF / World Bank lines; others (and those in charge on the party side) keep close to the ANC's radical labor roots with condemnations of capitalism. The unions themselves are interesting in demanding, for instance, that South African businesses stop primary listing of their stock on the London exchange in favor of the Johannesburg exchange; many of the demands have centered on keeping investment funds here to be used here. One government representative proposed restricting road building contracts to firms committed to using 'labor-intensive methods, … no heavy machinery' -- a solution, perhaps, but one wonders whether he's been on a road crew. But, neither have I.
But I'd meant to discuss education. May 9, there was a student strike at the University of Durban-Westville. That school has a similar historical heritage to ML Sultan Technikon, historically Indian and still with predominantly Indian academic staffs but majority black African student populations. The strike was over the de-registering of 950 students for failure (after the third extended deadline) to pay their fees. Higher education is not free here, though government loans appear to be readily available for students in good academic standing. On the evening news, the head of the UDW Student Representative Council [the counterpart to the gentleman whose dismissal for academic reasons had led to the disruption at MLST, previously reported] cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantee of an education as reason enough that students defaulting in paying fees should not be denied the right to attend, graduate, and so on. It's an interesting argument; the Declaration is in substantial measures referenced into the new South African Constitution -- though whether the Declaration should be interpreted as extending to college degrees might be a stretch. While the argument seems to have some force from a social and political, and perhaps moral, standpoint as a general matter in regard to gaining access to an institution and the government's or society's collective responsibility to make this available, one wonders whether once admission has been obtained on the condition of payment of fees and presumably agreed to on those terms by the student, it doesn't seem a bit late to claim no need to pay. But the argument is made and taken pretty seriously.
Another element is the degree to which the (familiar enough) disconnect in students' minds between a diploma as representing knowledge obtained, as opposed to a diploma as a sort of entry ticket to the job world bought and paid for with one's fees, seems to control with a lot of this student body. In a recent meeting with the head of one of MLST's academic departments, the question came up of the nature of the students' expectations as to their part of the educational bargain. He thought that many, maybe a large part, of the students entering the Technikon had no real idea that there was something that they had to do, once they were admitted to the school, in order to obtain their diplomas. He said that he had begun to understand how deep-seated these problems were, quite early on when the school first began opening up to students from the seriously disadvantaged rural areas, and from very poorer schools. These students would often fail at the Technikon; they were just not prepared by their secondary education even to begin to cope with the demands which tertiary education was making on them. He told of the parents of these failed students coming into Durban, to his office, and just sitting there, not saying anything, unwilling to leave; they seemed totally unable to comprehend that their son or daughter having gotten into the school, the natural (from their observation of workings of the earlier system) result of admission -- graduation and a job -- would not happen. They would have borrowed against the only asset they would have, their pensions, to pay the fees, and now it would all be gone. It was not that they were greedy or unreasonable. They just did not understand. He thought the present issues with the students came from the same sort of lack of understanding. The Technikon has many initiatives to assist unqualified students, but it is a constant, and underfunded, battle. More on this, as we learn more. -- jth.
|
|
