Globalization, democratization and knowledge production

6.3.3 Indigenous knowledge systems

Fort Hare has used its strategic location close to poor rural communities to engage in research involving indigenous communities. The approach to this kind of research varied. Some academics, like Fatuh, adopted approaches and methodologies consistent with their conventional Western training that sometimes may not suit working with local communities. Academic, Sobahle, was specifically committed to indigenous knowledge systems (IKS) and expressed his views related to IKS. All the students interviewed seemed to engage communities in some way in their research activities and most appeared to have adopted respectful approaches, even though they have found this kind of research challenging at times (I: Mbuyo; Sipho; Vusi; Wandile). IKS is discussed at length in chapter eleven below.

6.4 ACCESS TO RESOURCES

Fort Hare has encountered tremendous resource constraints on several levels; financial resources as noted, physical resources such as computers, laboratory equipment and chemicals, infrastructure such as student residences and laboratories, human resources, such as academic and library staff, and scholarly resources such as library facilities, serial holdings and books. It is of some interest that the majority of participants understood that the paucity of funds and resources was due to circumstances beyond management’s control and thus did not express any negative attitudes towards management for their severely constrained access to resources (I: Fatuh; Gumbi; Miso; Sipho; Zukov and others). Postgraduate student Sipho, for example, attributed the limited access he has to print material and online journals to his limited funding received from the State and the unfavourable exchange rates, given that these journals are published overseas. Nevertheless, the participants claimed that the lack of access to resources seriously compromised their research. Sipho poignantly claimed: “It holds me back. It keeps me less than mediocre, sub-mediocre.” He pointed out that supervisors expected students at masters level to work independently, yet the resources for this were not available. Moreover, students often had limited research skills, having not received a proper grounding in research methodology at the honours level (op cit.). According to Sipho, the first year of the two-year masters programme comprised course work, while the second year consisted of research and the thesis. He found the course work, i.e., teaching, generally of a good standard, but that the supervision of and support for research is lacking.

To exacerbate the problem, there were insufficient student bursaries to support postgraduate students. Sipho acknowledged that the lack of funds for students could not be attributed to the university, but to an inimical part of its heritage as an HBU. The Government, he contended, continued to use formulae that benefited the already advantaged universities in the Eastern Cape, whereas Fort Hare, on the other hand, had a huge debt. The Director of Finance explained that the National Student Financial Aid (NSFA) programme only applied to undergraduate students. Postgraduate students have to access funds through other sources such as the NRF. These views are consistent with the findings of a comprehensive research study conducted by Bunting (2002b) discussed in chapter two. As noted in chapter two, the SAPSE funding formula, explicitly designed for the HWUs, laid the foundation for the financial crises experienced by HBUs and exacerbated the gap between them and the HWUs. In addition, the new funding plan for institutional redress, referred to in the White Paper (1997), had not yet been implemented by the end of 2003. Otto alluded to the difficulties Fort Hare encounters in obtaining government funding, as discussed above.

6.4.1 Research equipment

When Fatuh, Gumbi and Miso arrived at Fort Hare, they found little or no laboratory equipment and no funds to purchase the equipment required or to effect repairs to the existing equipment (I: Miso). Their perseverance led to success and they currently receive funding from the NRF and other sources. Miso, for example, claimed that he had had postgraduate students from the beginning, even though there were no research support systems in place: “I had graduate students all along… although the work was difficult to do because the support systems were not there, even to get books from the library… the laboratory was not there. Everybody was uncertain and there was a low morale you know, so it affected our productivity.”

Students claimed that the laboratory equipment and chemicals were scarce (I: Mbuyo; Wandile). Mbuyo claimed that using the facilities of neighbouring HWU to test compounds was expensive as they charged per hour. Fortunately, the university has recently acquired its own machine to conduct these tests.

6.4.2 IT

Whereas all staff members had access to their own computers and the Internet, students had difficulty in accessing computers and the Internet. Staff and students complained about poor connections and that the lines “were often down.” The IT manager however, claimed that users did not have the basic skills to utilize their PCs effectively. He demonstrated to me how easy it was to log on and access various links through the computer. He iterated that he had often been called out to problems where the computer cords were not properly plugged in or where staff had not been careful about viruses. It would appear that staff and students need extra training in computer literacy and in how to take precautions against viruses infecting the network. Academics Miso and Fatuh claimed that, although connections had been poor in the earlier years, there have been marked improvements since 2001. Henry and Thandi attributed this improvement to the wider bandwidth installed during that year. Fatuh circumvented problems around connectivity, when they occurred, by using his own connections at home. Student Miso noted with concern, however, that most students at Fort Hare would not have had access to computers prior to being enrolled at Fort Hare. He was hopeful that the computer literacy programme would provide them with adequate skills to make better use of available resources.

6.4.3 Library resources

Participants, especially postgraduate students, were most dissatisfied with the limited access to library resources. The librarians were aware of this and attributed this paucity of resources to the unavailability of funds at Fort Hare. Head librarian, Thandi, contended that the new management has realized the importance of a good library for supporting research, but their main constraint has been the lack of funding. According to Thandi, the library building was defective, having been built as an inferior structure for black people during the apartheid regime. The central area of the library was a fire hazard as it was shaped like a chimney and the acoustics were poor, making it “a very noisy place” (I: Thandi).

Since 1997, the library had not acquired any new books because the entire budgetary allocation has been set aside for maintaining subscriptions to a few periodicals, which, by themselves, did not form a core collection of periodicals:

I think management is very supportive, especially the Vice Chancellor… he is a prolific writer … so he knows the importance of research but, as I say, the greatest problem is money at Fort Hare. For instance, … for the last five years we have not bought a new book using Fort Hare money because our entire allocation goes to maintain the few periodicals that we have which… does not even form a core collection. (I: Thandi)

This trend, Thandi claimed, dated back to the apartheid years. She pointed out that UPE, for example, which was only established in 1964 compared to Fort Hare’s establishment in 1916, had double the collection of periodicals. She estimated that UPE has in the region of 264,000 bound issues of periodicals compared to Fort Hare’s approximate 150,000. The scarcity of resources has also resulted in the loss of three “top” librarians who have relocated to Singapore.

Thandi believed that the library receives a fair proportion of the university budget but with the current exchange rates this does not go far. Nevertheless, in comparison to UPE and Rhodes, Fort Hare’s budgetary allocation to the library is the lowest (see chapter eight). Whereas, as a librarian, she believes that the library is the nucleus of the university, she is painfully aware that other areas requiring funding may deserve higher priority, for example, student residences or equipment for the laboratories. Academics and students, however, were not as understanding of the lack of library resources, possibly because it directly affected their research capacity and output (I: Fatuh; Mbuyo; Sipho; Vusi). It may also be that Thandi’s role in management has obscured, to some extent, her loyalty to the library in that she now sees the ‘big picture.’ Either way, this illustrates that while it may be advantageous for librarians to sit on decision-making structures of the institution, because this provides the platform for them to lobby for better budgetary allocations to their sections, it can also co-opt them into perceiving issues and making decisions in ways that are more consistent with management. Senior academic Fatuh posited that the library was “in shambles” when he first came to Fort Hare and he admitted that he had not visited the library for a long while. Mbuyo pointed out that books were not available and the journals were outdated. The additional frustration, Vusi claimed, is that there is not even a bookstore on campus or in town, leading to a “culture of photocopying,” even among the academics. This, he said, was due to Fort Hare’s location in a poor province. He also found that librarians were not helpful, preferring to concentrate on administrative duties instead (I: Vusi). Student Wandile, however, admitted that the library was ill-equipped, but noted that in his discipline, agriculture, he encountered “no frustration with the library.” This seems to indicate that access may vary according to discipline.

Electronic resources and information literacy

According to the librarian, the increasing access to electronic resources has made it necessary for the library to provide training for students to use computers and search engines effectively: “We are starting in a very modest way to train students” (I: Thandi). Thandi has found that students were more comfortable with electronic rather than card catalogues, which, she claimed, made them feel intimidated:

A person would open a drawer and not even know whether this is a title or an author or a subject entry, and close the drawer and open another and everyone sees that you don’t know what you are looking for and how to look for information. But with computers, they’re really taking like ducks to water.
Thandi explained that most students are from rural areas and have never visited a library before coming to Fort Hare: “With the card catalogue there was a lot of resistance because everybody sees that you do not know how to use the library. Perhaps I need to add that most of our students when they come to Fort Hare, they have never used a library before.” As a result, students feel embarrassed about conducting searches in the card catalogue in full view of everyone else in library. She recounted an incident where a student ripped the card out of the catalogue to go and look for the book, and everyone stared at the student in amazement (I: Thandi). Based on her experiences with library users, Thandi asserted, “I feel with computers there is more keenness and people ask questions.”

African journals

Like the other libraries at the other two universities in this study, Fort Hare had little to no access to African journals (I: Mbuyo). Thandi explained that since 2001, librarians have been looking at alternatives such as electronic journals and subscribing to African and South African journals, only to find that several African journals are published in the US or the UK. She noted, for example, that the African History Journal, which she regarded as important for the library to acquire, especially since the university began teaching African history in 1994, is published in the UK despite having mainly African contributors:

With some African journals you will not believe that they are published in the UK and the US. I mean you take African History Journal – where is it published? It is published in the UK, the greatest African History Journal and the greatest number of contributors are African but we paid (for it) in pounds you know. (I: Thandi)