A critique of the proposal to close public universities and convert them into colleges
Dawie Roodt, an economist, should keep in mind that, universities are not narrowly designed as he would think; to produce immediate job-ready graduates, but to fulfil a broader mandate that includes critical thinking, foundational knowledge, research and public service. says the writer.
Dawie Roodt, an economist at the Efficient Group, has advocated that certain state universities in South Africa be closed and converted into colleges, claiming that they are not creating the "right skills" in comparison to private institutions.
This concept stems from a worry about the skills mismatch in the South African employment market. However, the plan to close public institutions indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the varied functions within the post-secondary education and training system, and it risks jeopardising public higher education's long-term developmental, democratic, and intellectual missions.
Misunderstanding the Role of Universities
Roodt should keep in mind that, Universities are not narrowly designed as he would think; to produce immediate job-ready graduates, but to fulfil a broader mandate that includes critical thinking, foundational knowledge, research and public service (CHE 2016, Badat 2010) and according to Manuel Castells, each with their own specific expectations and internal logic.
Castells argued (2001:206) that 'universities perform a major role in the generation of new knowledge'. I assume that Roodt would have known that public universities are grounded in the idea of knowledge production, and innovation contributes to national development in ways that are not reducible to short-term market needs.
A university graduate and, by his own admission, of UNISA, our land university, would have known this. His reckless claim that Unisa is underperforming was without facts.
At least he should be aware that, in the last few years that UNISA, out of its 151-year history, has emerged as one of South Africa's and the African continent's premier scientific research and innovation institutions.
As a dispute to his assumption and weird disinformation about UNISA, the institution has identified ten catalytic niche areas (such as Autotmotive Studies, Energy Studies, Space studies and the Square Kilometre Array, Fourth Industrial Revolution and digitization, etc) that will activate and enhance its academic agenda while remaining focused on the institute's vision of building Africa's Intellectual capacity.
My view is that the role of public universities goes beyond 'immediate' skills production; their purpose includes fostering critical thinking. The failure of Roodt's argument was to realise that the skills gap cannot be solved by solely changing from public to private and from a public university to a private university.
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