Latest news with #viceChancellors
Mail & Guardian
13-06-2025
- Business
- Mail & Guardian
Cutting unemployment rate needs a national, coordinated effort
Universities and businesses need to close the gap between the skills being taught and those that employers need. As we head into the second half of the academic year, a year that has been marked by several student protests related to problems with accommodation and registration, it is also impossible to ignore the shadow cast by South Africa's persistently high unemployment rate — an issue that demands urgent attention from all sectors of society, including higher education institutions. In 2024, the country recorded the My fellow university vice-chancellors and I might be tempted to find solace in the lower unemployment rate for university graduates ( We must also play our part by constantly asking ourselves the same urgent question that should be keeping government and industry leaders awake at night: 'What can and should we be doing to help create employment and a better life for all South African and global citizens?' Feedback from industry leaders Around the world, there are growing calls for universities to close the gap between the skills being taught to graduates and those that employers need. Solutions must come from a collaborative effort involving higher education institutions, the private sector, professional bodies and the government. Based on my work with other university leaders and their teams, there is already widespread awareness of the need for our universities to continually enhance their graduate employability initiatives and the programmes that help students transition into workplaces. But the urgency of the situation demands that we constantly improve our efforts. We need to pay attention to feedback from the job market that the skills and graduates we are producing are not always aligned with industry requirements. To offer an example, South Africa produces a high number of lawyers across all universities. While the demand for legal eagles is unlikely to decline soon, to ensure sufficient opportunities for our graduates, curricula must by now include rapidly evolving areas such as data literacy, digital law, cyber law and global regulations. Most universities include private sector representatives and industry professionals on faculty advisory boards to ensure curricula align with real-world requirements. Still, we need regular interrogation of the feedback channels employed, the speed with which feedback received can be implemented, and a general commitment to 'always be doing better' by our graduates and our country. Micro-credentialing and online study One area where South African universities and other public institutions have been relatively quiet is micro-credentialing — courses which are generally much shorter than a bachelor's degree and which are aimed at teaching a particular skill. As universities continue to adjust to the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rapid upscaling of online education platforms, one beneficial side effect has been the proliferation of ways in which South Africans can gain access to education. Young people who didn't get into their institution of choice, people living far away from cities, older people juggling work and family commitments — all of them now have access to more online opportunities to learn. As the proliferation of micro-credentialing courses continues, the challenge for universities and their leaders will be to create offerings that help our students in the job market, and help employers meet their goals. It is also important for us to remember that our universities and graduates now face escalating competition from institutions worldwide. Adapting too slowly to a rapidly digitalising world will be to the detriment of the higher education sector, our graduates, and their employment prospects. Entrepreneurship, as we know, is a cornerstone of employment. Universities must promote entrepreneurial thinking and skills across all programmes to prepare greater numbers of graduates to start and grow their own businesses, or to use these skills in the organisations where they are employed. This 'think like an entrepreneur, everywhere' mindset has largely taken hold at most South African universities, which have over the past 20 years introduced programmes to provide our students with an introduction to the basics of entrepreneurship, regardless of their field of study. But universities can't do this alone. I must call on employers — whether you're a captain of a billion-rand industry, the owner of a small business that's growing and might just be able to provide a young person with a footing in your industry, or the director general in a government department — to join with higher education institutions to discuss internship opportunities to help more of our young graduates. Universities must also 'push our students out of the academic nest' by encouraging (or requiring) them to get out into the communities surrounding their campuses. Most universities already run community service modules that see our students applying what they're learning in classrooms to real-world problems. In turn they gain practical experience, and a more rounded understanding of what life is like for people of various economic and cultural backgrounds. Creating greater understanding and empathy while improving our students' practical skills is a win-win that will stand our country and world in good stead as the global scramble for resources intensifies, and the need to be gracious towards each other grows. South Africans have repeatedly shown that we are at our best when confronted with a big problem. Our university students and their passion for knowledge and commitment to creating positive change will hopefully inspire you as they continue to inspire me. In turn, we must not fail them. We must all do whatever we can within our sphere of influence to create employment for our future leaders. is the chairperson of the Universities South Africa (USAf) board and vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria.
News.com.au
14-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
‘What are these people being rewarded for?': Fury at university vice-chancellor salaries
Universities in Victoria have been accused of 'executive largesse' and 'failing students' after it was revealed five of the institutions' vice-chancellors were raking in more money than the Prime Minister. Despite multiple scandals affecting the beleaguered sector nationwide, just three of Victoria's nine vice-chancellors – those at the University of Divinity ($219,000), and La Trobe ($869,999) and Monash Universities ($1.1 million) – took pay cuts in 2024, according to their latest annual reports, tabled in state parliament on Tuesday. While the salaries of their counterparts at the University of Melbourne ($1.5m), RMIT ($1m) and Swinburne ($1.1m), Deakin ($1m), Victoria ($850,000) and Federation Universities ($910,000) either increased or remained the same. National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) president Dr Alison Barnes said despite 'years of community outrage, Victoria's chancellors are so out of touch they've signed off on even more executive largesse'. 'On one hand, universities blame budget deficits for job cuts, and with the other they push vice-chancellor pay into the stratosphere,' Dr Barnes said in comments provided to Though a vice-chancellor essentially functions as the Chief Executive Officer of a university, Australia Institute senior economist Jack Thrower said such 'huge' packages 'are not justified'. 'We are continuing to see a governance crisis in the sector, with a new scandal arising every week, while many are employees are subjected to casualisation, wage underpayments and poor labour practices,' Mr Thrower told 'This system is also failing students, Australian universities continue to fall down international rankings and there is no correlation between student educational satisfaction and Vice-Chancellor remuneration.' Vice-chancellor salaries have 'skyrocketed' The fact that university executives take home some of the most generous pay packages in Australia is the subject of regular annual outrage. In January, there was a furore when it was revealed Bill Shorten would pocket $860,000-a-year as vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra – more than double his cabinet minister base salary of $406,063. The former Labor opposition leader's pay, however, pales in comparison to that of his predecessor, Professor Paddy Nixon, whose package in 2023 was $1.8m – and that of his counterparts. According to the NTEU, the average vice-chancellor at a public institution is on a total renumeration package of about $1.048m. The salaries of those presiding over Australia's prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) universities all exceed $1m: the University of Sydney's Mark Scott took home $1,184,999 in 2023, and the Australian National University's (ANU) Genevieve Bell $1.1m. Though not part of the Go8, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil pocketed $1,234,000 that same year. The removal of government regulations on vice-chancellor pay in the late 1980s, Mr Thrower said, was 'the most important' contributor to wage increases. 'Since this time remuneration has skyrocketed, from 1985 to 2023, accounting for inflation, average remuneration for Group of Eight vice-chancellors more than quadrupled,' he said. Not only do these wages put them far ahead of their peers in the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand. They're also at least double that of Australia's state and territory leaders (Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, the highest-paid, will earn up to $498,031 in the 2024-25 financial year), and hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who receives a base salary of roughly $607,500. 'Vice-chancellor pay should be pegged to state premiers and university governing bodies must face real accountability for rubber stamping such exorbitant salaries,' Dr Barnes said. The disparity between vice-chancellor renumeration and that of other university staffers is even more galling, Mr Thrower said. In 2022, it was at least seven times more than that of lecturers, more than nine times than that of high school teachers and over 10 times more than that of primary school teachers. 'What are these people being rewarded for?' Defenders of how much vice-chancellors make often argue the role is akin to that of running an ASX-listed top 100 company given the multiple stakeholders they have to juggle, and size, complexity and 'very high-revenue' nature of their organisations. 'They are also the public face of their institutions, constantly in the public eye and often blamed when things go wrong,' a research paper from UK think tank HEPI read, describing their vilification as a 'witch hunt'. Mr Thrower dismissed this comparison as 'misleading because vice-chancellors are not subject to nearly the same level of scrutiny or accountability as corporate CEOs'. 'Vice-chancellors do not face the oversight of a corporate board, whose members face strict legal obligations and liabilities, not to mention the threat of takeover if they are poorly run,' he said. 'They are also not subjected to anything like the level of regulation and scrutiny that the Australian Security and Investment Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) can apply to privately-owned organisations, nor pressure from consumers protected by Australian consumer law. 'Despite managing large amounts of public money, vice-chancellors rarely face budget estimates, parliamentary inquiries, or other forms of public sector accountability.' 'What are these people being rewarded for? The wage theft epidemic, the insecure work crisis or the shocking governance failures plaguing our institutions?' Dr Barnes said. 'When you put these enormous pay packets up against the litany of governance failures we're seeing in Australia, it's clear they are completely out of step with community expectations.' Government needs to intervene in 'lawless' sector A 'key problem' that faces the university sector going forward, Mr Thrower said, is that there is 'a vacuum of responsibility' between the federal and state governments. 'The Commonwealth needs to step in, fix the governance crisis in the sector and refocus it on the public goods of education and resource,' he said. Dr Barnes agreed that the federal government 'has a huge role to play here in reforming university governance'. In January, the Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment launched an inquiry into the quality of governance at Australian higher education providers – including their 'exorbitantly' high salaries and allegations of wage theft and underpayment. An interim report was tabled last month. 'There's no other job in Australia where you can be paid so exorbitantly while performing so badly, with seemingly no consequences or accountability for the impact on university staff and students,' Labor Senator and chairman of the Committee, Tony Sheldon, said, describing the sector as 'lawless'. 'A strong, well-managed higher education sector is essential to the wellbeing of staff and students, our economy and national interest. Australians deserve universities that put students and staff first, not the interests of university executives.' The inquiry has been supported by Education Minister Jason Clare, who also established the Expert Council on University Governance in January. The panel has been tasked with ensuring the institutions are able to protect staff and students and examine issues around employment security, underpayment and good governance. A Department of Education spokesperson told that both the federal government and wider community 'expects universities to be model employers'. 'This includes making sure that vice-chancellor salaries are reasonable, comparable with similar public entities, and transparent,' the spokesperson said. 'However, universities in Australia are autonomous institutions and currently are responsible for their own decisions on things such as such as remuneration of staff.'
