MERGING PROCESSES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

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MERGING PROCESSES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOUTH
AFRICA

• Dr Rolf Stumpf
• Consultant to CHE and former VC of NMMU

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Content

• Brief overview of HE system in South Africa
  before introduction of merger programme
• Policy processes leading to merger programme and
  merger goals
• Initiation of Governments merger programme in HE
• Progress with merger programme
• Evaluation of Governments merger programme
• Conclusion and lessons learnt

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1. Overview of HE system before introduction of
mergers

• 21 Universities ( 1 distance education, 5 rurally
  based universities, 15 urban or semi-urban
  institutions)
• 15 Technikons or Polytechnics ( 1 distance
  education, 14 urban or semi-urban institutions)
• Approximately 120 Teacher Education Colleges (
  large number in rural areas)
• Approximately 70 Colleges of Nursing
• Approximately 12 Colleges of Agriculture
• Ministry of Education Universities, Technikons,
  Teacher Education Colleges
• Ministry of Health Colleges of Nursing
• Ministry of Agriculture Colleges of Agriculture

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1. Overview of HE system before introduction of
mergers

• Universities and Technikons
• - Subject to similar policy framework
• Universities Mixture of research intensive and
  teaching oriented, variation in status and
  quality
• Technikons Focused on career preparatory and
  techno-logically oriented education, variation in
  status and quality
• Distinctions between historically white and
  historically black institutions
• Teacher Education Colleges
• Variation in quality of administration and of
  teacher outputs
• Oversupply of poorly trained prospective teachers
  
• High unit costs compared to universities and
  technikons

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2. Policy framework leading to merger programme
and merger goals

• DoE investigation into incorporating teacher
  education colleges into universities and
  technikons- 1998
• CHE investigation into size and shape of HE
  system 1999
• DoE National Plan on HE- 2001
• MoE Task Team on restructuring of HE -2001
• Government Gazette setting out proposed mergers-
  2003
• Opportunities for input/consultation ?

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2. Policy framework leading to merger programme
and merger goals

• Overcoming apartheid induced divide between
  institutions mergers involved HWIs and HBIs
• Better use of resources and administrative
  systems- mergers involved well run and less well
  run institutions
• Consolidating academic programmes- mergers
  involved institutions in same region
• Promoting student mobility no national credit
  transfer system
• Strengthening research capacity mergers
  involved institutions with varying research
  outputs
• Enhance institutional differentiation- mergers
  created general universities, comprehensive
  universities and universities of technology
• Improve institution-community linkages and
  partnerships

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3. Initiation of Governments merger programme
for HE

• Step 1 Merging of teacher education colleges
  into universities and technikons in 2001-2002
• Reduced approximately 156 (120 plus 36) sites
  for teacher education to 36
• Period of turbulence for staff Employment
  conditions at teacher education colleges were
  determined nationally, while for universities and
  technikons, determined by each institution
• Curriculum alignment of educational programmes at
  teacher education colleges and at universities
  and technikons highly complex
• Facilities of many former teacher education
  colleges not put to efficient usage
• Generally improved training of prospective
  teachers

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3. Initiation of Governments merger programme
for HE

• Step 2 Merging of 36 universities and technikons
  into 21 HE institutions and renaming technikons
  as universities of technology
• Created 6 comprehensive institutions where both
  university and technikon education to be
  offered Crossing binary divide
• Established 6 technikons as universities of
  technology
• Formed 11 general universities (5 universities
  were not affected at all and remained as is)
• DoE established special merger unit and voted
  additional funds to support merging processes
• One merger kicked off in 2003, others in 2004 and
  some in 2005- legally all new HE institutions
  established by 2006.

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• General challenges faced by merging institutions
  
• Resistance from staff In most cases unwilling
  and even forced marriages especially for
  comprehensive institutions
• Lack of guidance as to new institutional
  identities especially for comprehensive
  universities
• Huge differences in institutional cultures
  especially for universities and technikons merged
  into comprehensive universities
• Managing individual expectations with need for
  systemic coherence and institutional consistency
• Some merging institutions now multi-campus
  institutions with some campuses as far as 300km
  apart

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• Strategic challenges faced by merging
  institutions
• Incompatible vision, mission and values
  statements and differences in overall strategic
  orientation eg teaching and research
• Differences in managing community and business
  linkages
• Conflicting institutional positioning and
  institutional branding
• Legal/administrative challenges faced by merging
  institutions
• Differences in governance and legal
  administrative systems Councils, Senates, SRC,
  Convocation etc

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• Differences in approaches to decision making
  centralisation vs decentralisation
• Differences in use and role of institutional
  committees Especially executive management
  committee
• Differences in general rules for students
• Academic challenges faced by merging institutions
  
• Conflicting academic focus areas and academic
  priorities
• Different approaches to curriculum issues and
  programme design

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• Different concepts and practices for ensuring
  academic quality of learning programmes
• Differences in student admission requirements and
  in levels of academic support of students
• Duplication of academic activities and allocation
  of academic activities to new campuses of
  institution
• Financial challenges faced by merging
  institutions
• Merger funding insufficient to fund equalisation
  of infrastructure, ICT and other support systems
• Significant differences in levels of tuition fees
  paid by students from different merging campuses

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• Significant differences in levels of support
  services offered to students health services,
  financial aid, student counseling, etc
• Significant differences in size of and management
  of student debt
• Some merging institutions came into mergers with
  significant institutional debt and overdrafts
• Different approaches to budgeting and financial
  control
• Incompatible space management systems, including
  timetables, for academic activities

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4. Progress with Governments merger programme
Institutional challenges

• Structural and employment challenges faced by
  merging institutions
• Differences in composition and role of executive
  management
• Different academic structures (faculties, schools
  and departments) and styles of academic
  management
• Incompatibilities between structures of
  administrative and other support units
• Unacceptable differences in conditions of
  employment for academic and other staff members
  especially salary differences
• Differences in appointment and promotion
  processes and in performance management

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4. Progress with Governments merger process
Institutional challenges

• Overall challenge
• - Using differences to create new
  opportunities for growth, development, innovation
  and creativity ie changing a threat to an
  opportunity
• - Managing small but very big issues such as
  parking, re-grading of jobs ( secretaries), work
  starting times of administrative and technical
  staff, afternoons off etc
• - Maintaining communication flow, displaying
  steadfastness and fairness
• Managing very variable staff morale
• Designing a new institution rather than
  takeover of one institution by another one

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5. Evaluation of governments merger programme
Merger goals

• Overcoming apartheid divide Overall good
  progress made
• Better use of resources and administrative
  functions Too early to report significant
  progress. In some merged institutions costs have
  risen in others signs of overall gains in
  efficiency and effectiveness.
• Consolidating academic programmes Little
  progress made New HEQF will only become
  operative in 2009, and lack of clarity on
  academic nature of comprehensive universities,
  institutional instability re staff appointments.

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5. Evaluation of governments merger programme
Merger goals

• Promote student mobility No real progress except
  in comprehensive institutions.
• Strengthen research capacity Too early to report
  meaningful progress. Some compre-hensive
  universities have been able to strengthen
  research capacity by creating research
  opportunities for technikon staff.
• Advance institutional differentiation Meaningful
  progress made
• Improve institution- community linkages Good
  progress made.

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5. Conclusion and lessons learnt

• Rationale for some mergers was unconvincing
  such institutions are having severe difficulties
  in achieving stability
• Geographical distance does play a significant
  role multi-campus institutions with distant
  campuses are facing serious managerial challenges
• Mergers are not likely to result in big cost
  savings and could actually increase costs-at
  least initially
• Precise nature of desired character of merged
  institutions should be spelled out beforehand- eg
  comprehensive universities

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5. Conclusion and lessons learnt

• DoEs Merger Unit insufficiently experienced in
  operational issues facing merging institutions-
  should have been headed by ex VC
• Absence of a best practice guide for many of the
  issues facing merging institutions caused
  unnecessary problems
• Merging institutions suffered severely from lack
  of merger funding during merger period
• Merging institutions found it very hard to merge
  and carry on as usual without increased staff
  capacity
• Most merging institutions suffered from student
  enrolment decreases due to market confusion
  which resulted in funding cuts

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5. Conclusions and lessons learnt

• DoEs new HE funding formula was implemented in
  2004 and was not sufficiently geared to take
  mergers into account
• Merging institutions were not sufficiently
  protected from staff raids by non merging
  institutions
• Remains to be seen whether academic drift will
  have been countered sufficiently
• Merging two or three weak institutions simply
  aggravates the problem and is no solution

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5. Conclusions and lessons learnt

• Despite difficulties mergers represent excellent
  opportunity to re-invent and re-invigorate an
  institution.
• NMMU merger a real success story in utilising
  strengths of three merging institutions.
• Thank you and best wishes to Finnish HE system