Globalization, democratization and knowledge production

This made African journals unaffordable for African universities.

6.4.4 Research supervision

Students complained about the lack of adequate supervision received from academics, maintaining that they had to struggle through their postgraduate studies. According to Sipho and Mbuyo, “students were weak in proposal writing” making it difficult for them to obtain funds. They claimed that the Govan Mbeki Research Institute, responsible for promoting research at Fort Hare, did not appear to have the capacity to coach students on proposal writing. Mbuyo proposed that a course (not built into any other course) be developed specifically for proposal writing, research methods and time management, commencing at the hhonours level (I: Mbuyo).

Although Sipho was aware that funding was a major constraint in terms of attracting quality research staff and acquiring updated library holdings, he believed that management was “not serious” about the research. Mbuyo also claimed that there was a lack of institutional support for students (I: Mbuyo). Management should ensure that greater priority be given to research during decision-making regarding budgeting and the allocation of funds. Furthermore, Mbuyo and Sipho claimed that students were disgruntled with the Govan Mbeki Research Institute and its lack of capacity to reinvigorate the research climate at Fort Hare.³⁹ He believed that the institute should be staffed by academics who have the “interests of research at heart.” In addition, he contended that he and other students were of the view that funds intended for research were redirected to other areas.

6.4.5 Creative responses

The severe resource constraints have led certain participants to develop their own creative responses. Fatuh’s main response to the lack of access to library journals has been to depend mainly on the Internet for access to both subscribed and free journals. In addition, Fatuh has developed his own library. He has established “collaboration” with colleagues at several other universities so that when he visits these institutions, he also uses the opportunity to visit their libraries and acquire copies of the journal articles he needs. He also writes directly to authors to retrieve copies of their articles.

Fatuh explained that he had succeeded in building the research capacity of his department by learning not to depend on the institution for funds and other support: “I have been here for about five or six years, I have been able to learn not to depend on Fort Hare for anything, apart from my accommodation and electricity… As long as my office is there and my pay slip is there … I do all (the rest) on my own.” Fatuh overcame the numerous challenges he encountered through various creative responses. With NRF funding he arranged for two overseas post-doctoral fellows (a Nigerian and a Bangladeshi, who had completed her PhD in England) for his department. These fellows have enabled his department to overcome the shortage of human resources in terms of generation of research, supervision of postgraduates, supervision of the laboratory and the publishing of research. Through their research experience, they are able to make significant contributions to the research culture of the university. In fact, the knowledge and capacity of one of his post doctoral fellows enabled his department to have personal access to highly sophisticated and expensive equipment at Rhodes University. Fatuh used his own telephone and Internet facilities at home when needed or when connections were not operational at Fort Hare.

According to Thandi, the “Friends of Fort Hare” (FOF) is a formal organization operating in the US and the UK that donates books to Fort Hare (I: Thandi). FOF is linked to an Education Trust in the UK that provides approximately $5,000 for books and a scholarship for a librarian to read for an honours or masters degree at a South African university (I: Thandi). Whereas some HWUs stockpiled banned books during the apartheid years, Fort Hare, like other HBUs, did not have the funds or liberty to acquire such books, which FOF was now helping them to retrieve. Since there was no other library in the area, not even a municipal library, they also collected a range of fiction from donors for the leisure reading of students (I: Thandi).

Students appeared to rely heavily on supervisors as an alternative supply of literature (I: Vusi). Academics like Fatuh, Gumbi and Ruth have developed their own small office libraries, which they share with their students. Although postgraduate students make do with the little that is available, they felt severely constrained: “We make do with the little that is available… It is a major hurdle because we want to keep abreast with the topic… (we) don’t want to be mediocre” (I: Fatuh; Gumbi; Ruth). Sipho explained that the lack of access to resources constrains his capacity to conduct cutting edge research because the information is outdated: “I have to make do with outdated, if not predated information. As much as I know there are (current) journals that are available, even South African printed journals, but our institution, our library is not having enough resources to buy those.” It seemed that Fort Hare could not afford to update its international or South African journal subscriptions.

In order to familiarize school children (prospective students) with the library, the librarians invited school children to visit the library for various projects, for example, a recent exhibition on the history of South Africa from 1948 to 1976 was presented by a staff member who has lived through and has played a special role in that history: “Its hearing history from the horse’s mouth” (I: Thandi). During their visit, the children are shown how to use the library and taught the importance of preserving books. Thandi claimed that she firmly supported digitization because it is the direction of the future. She is concerned, however, that technology always requires updates until we develop a form of technology that will “automatically update itself” ( I: Thandi).

6.5 PERCEPTIONS

6.5.1 Student Views

Whereas the students at the other two universities in this study talked mainly about their research and problems in access to resources or securing funding, the students at Fort Hare engaged in a discussion about broader issues such as macro-economics, politics, institutional change and community service. Sipho, for example, posited that the lack of access to government funding would further prejudice HBUs: “It is a remnant of a predetermined system of affairs in the old apartheid system to ensure that the black institutions remain producers of students who will be subservient to white colonial masters.” Another matter of concern, according to Sipho, is the apparent lack of a vibrant academic climate at Fort Hare which, he believed was due to the exodus of staff during the troubled times of the 1980’s and early 1990’s, which “lowered the morale across the institution.” He felt that academic “debate is dead to Fort Hare.”

According to Sipho, the core purpose of the mergers was to improve conditions at the HBUs: “The merger was a very progressive concept… to ensure that the status quo is done away with, with a frank objective of lifting the standards of the formally disadvantaged institutions.” However, Sipho believed that the merger would only succeed if appropriate resources are allocated for this purpose by the national government. Nonetheless, Sipho like others at his institution did not advocate a merger between Fort Hare and the resource-rich HWU, Rhodes, because of the differing historical legacies, ethos and institutional cultures of the two universities:

I would not advocate for a merger between Rhodes and Fort Hare… because of the two distinctly different educational cultures and philosophies… Fort Hare has got its legacy, its history; regionally, continentally and worldwide. It is such a heritage that has defined what Fort Hare is and which has made it to refuse the merger (with Rhodes).

He believed that mergers should not be imposed by government and that a union with Rhodes would have been negative in the long term because it would have been based on economic factors alone, while turning a “blind eye” to the other aspirations of these institutions (I: Sipho).

6.5.2 Perceptions of HBUs

As a consequence of the low emphasis placed on research in the past, Fort Hare does not have postgraduate students in most faculties. While it is still difficult to attract postgraduate students to Fort Hare, this situation has changed quite dramatically over the past few years. Larger numbers of postgraduate students can now be found in several faculties. Nebertheless, Fatuh explains that retention of posgraduate students is challenge: “It is very difficult. South Africans generally do not want to come here for postgraduate study but (students)… from rural areas that are not well prepared for the university… It takes us a lot of effort to bring these people up… to honours level.” Apparently, the problem does not end there; once these students have received an education at Fort Hare and have acquired research skills, they leave to pursue further studies at the master’s or PhD level at the HWUs:

They become trainable and very aware… they are able to read journals … and say ‘now I am going to Cape Town (UCT) for my masters, I am going to Pretoria (UP) for my masters’. So they go and we have to go back again and recruit another… So for me it was a really big effort to get two or three PhD students. It is difficult to get prospective (postgraduate) students to come here. (I: Fatuh)
Fatuh cited the following as reasons for Fort Hare’s inability to retain these students:

First of all most of our students here are from the neighbourhood, from rural areas. Now once you train them a little bit they want to go to bigger cities. 2) Our sister universities, the so-called historically advantaged, in order to set up their own research teams, they need some blacks. They normally snatch them up at the master’s or PhD level.

He claimed that HWUs do not deliberately “recruit” these students, but that the funding and facilities these institutions offer “entice” these students, making it very difficult for poor universities like Fort Hare to retain them:

Not deliberately, I would not say (recruit them) but then, they entice them. They have money, they have facilities and the students are very willing to go. It is very difficult, very difficult. It is so much impossible to find someone who has had a masters (degree) at the University of Cape Town, who then says, ‘I am going to Fort Hare for my PhD’. It is not common. It is very rare, so it is a very big constraint because our FTE funding depends on the number of students we have, that is, the national department (subsidies). We are unable to retain our students. They go to other universities.

Better funding and facilities per se are not the only reasons that students prefer to attend HWUs. Fatuh believed that Fort Hare was at a disadvantage academically and historically: “Historically, location of the place, it is a bit rural… People believe that HBUs are not quality oriented enough and then that is it.”

Fatuh stated that this abiding perception of HBUs is to some extent, a “well-founded assumption.” He pointed out that many lecturers are teaching oriented rather than research oriented, comprising what Henry refers to as the “significant residue” of staff from the apartheid era (I: Fatuh; Henry). Fatuh explained that it is difficult too for Fort Hare to attract or retain quality researchers because their salary scales are not competitive with those of other universities:

To some extent they (student perceptions about HBU) are well-founded assumptions because many … lecturers are not research oriented. Another unfortunate thing is that the university has not retained good quality lecturers. Good quality lecturers who are interested in research are not well paid. I hate to say this for them, Fort Hare pays the least salary and therefore most lecturers might want to leave, so the departments are not well staffed. The assumptions of the students are, to some extent, well founded.
According to graduate student Sipho, there is no factual basis for the negative perceptions of Fort Hare: “It is widely known although not accepted reality that a stereotype has prejudice, an understanding that the programmes, and the quality thereof, provided by HBUs are of an inferior standard compared to white counterparts.” Sipho contended that this perception was ill-founded since graduates from Fort Hare have “shown their mettle to the outside world” not least of all, the former President Mandela and Bishop Tutu. Sipho believed that HBUs should be given extra support by the government so that they may have equal opportunities to produce students of a high calibre. For Sipho, the difference between these universities and HWUs is that HBUs focus on a national ethos whereas HWUs still have an ethos related to their founders, i.e. white colonials.