Asmal slams 'greedy' varsities
2004-01-28 15:15
Johannesburg - Education Minister Kader Asmal has lashed out at higher education institutions, accusing them of creating a new form of colonialism through their drive for financial gain.
Speaking at the inauguration of the University of South Africa in Johannesburg on Wednesday, he argued that the absence of a clear policy framework in long distance learning had led to poor quality education programmes with little relevance to skills and human resource development needs.
He accused the institutions of selectively choosing students through their fees structure.
"Its precisely for this reason that I have asked the Council on Higher Education, CHE, to investigate and advise me on the role of distance education in higher education, including the role of contact institutions in the provision of distance education."
Asmal said the significance of the birth of the "new" Unisa - joining it with Technickon South Africa, TSA, and Vista University - was not so much the establishment of a new distance learning institution that holds its own against comparable international bodies, but its role in the broader restructuring of South Africa.
'Child birth'
Describing in detail the formation of the New Unisa in the context of child birth, Asmal, said at times he thought the process had to be "aborted" or that a "caesarean section would be required".
He said the new institution would play a vital role in the enhancing of skills and the knowledge-base of South Africans and would also contribute to "a range of goals which are central to the Government's Human Resource Development Strategy".
Asmal said that by addressing the concerns of the people, Unisa "must talk truth to power, by recognising that there is more than one truth and more than one source of power."
Asmal also said however that the institution would play a greater role in higher education across the continent and would be done in the spirit and ethos of the New Partnership for Economic Development.
"I therefore intend releasing, at the upcoming All-Africa Ministers of Education Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education in Cape Town next week, a document on a Code of Conduct that should guide South African institutions in their activities in the rest of the continent."
- SAPA