Chaotic university admissions need attention

He also told listeners there existed better co-ordination between the Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education to prevent a recurrence of these problems in future. Participating in the interview via telephone from Johannesburg, I was not convinced by the director general's on-air statements.

Already, the University of Johannesburg had become synonymous with a big squatter camp, where hopefuls from all over the country congregated to gain university entrance.

Many did not qualify for university entrance, despite the much-celebrated matric results. When I put this to the director general on air, he insisted that all these issues were being co-ordinated and would soon be a problem of the past.

It seemed churlish then to keep pressing on negative factors when children, their parents and government, were celebrating a matric pass rate which we were told, was the highest in many years.

Wanted: Another discussion

I requested the interviewer then, to host another discussion in the future to assess what had happened to the students. How many had entered tertiary education and how many were left out of the system?

Of course, that never happened.

Somewhere deep inside of me, I knew it would not be a matter of 12 months before a substantial number of these students found themselves in exactly the same position the following year.

Again, this was a bitter truth parents did not want to hear at the time. I recall a truck driver calling in during the radio interview. He was elated about the matric results of his daughter. She was the first to have passed matric in the family. And yes, she was going to university. I wonder what happened to that young woman.

Now, we have come full circle. Even before the ink has dried in the papers on the contentious debates about the quality of our latest matric results, the universities have to deal with late applications.

Many are as unprepared as they were last year. The University of Johannesburg has once again resembled another disaster zone; it seems this is now a yearly pilgrimage, when people come from nowhere as it were, with their blankets, clothes and meagre food provisions, to camp outside the gates of the university waiting to get a place in the queue.

They undertake this trip with the hope that it will broaden their horizons.

It was a tragedy waiting to happen

No media spin can change the fact that the university was ill-equipped to deal with the crisis. No media jargon can change the fact that UJ did not reflect on the experiences of last year, where young people - the majority of them black students (yes let us also remember that) - camped outside with no access to basic facilities or food, braving the heat and all that lurks in the dark. The tragedy has finally taken a fatal turn. A mother accompanied her son to the university a few weeks ago and came back in a coffin - how tragic. Many were injured.

It would be easy to pretend that this is only happening at UJ.

Last year, we read stories of students who gained entry to Walter Sisulu University and other institutions of learning in exchange for sexual favours with university administrative staff and the heads of faculties. These transactions take different forms - for some it is sexual encounters while others exchange wads of cash. And where, we must ask, is the government in all this? What level of responsibility must be shouldered on them?

Now, as often happens in our country, our minister of higher education wants a centralised university admission system to solve these problems.

(Image: GCIS)

I would be the first to say, bravo! If I knew this would solve the problem. However, I fear Dr (Blade) Nzimande is trying to manage a crisis in a way that is likely to compound the problem.

Condemning the UJ - painful and tragic as the incident is - does not really address the problem. After all, even Wits University just down the road from UJ, has had its own tragedies, in the past.

A few years ago, a foreign student died on the steps of that university.

After handing in his thesis, he was locked out of the university system even before the thesis was marked and the degree conferred. Despite the fact that the university was still responsible for him, when he had a medical crisis which was patently serious, the response of the university was a case of little too late.

They do not value human life

What is the connection, you might ask? It is simple; our universities like so many of our public institutions, do not value human life. They are more concerned with technical fine-print that shields them from taking full responsibility. Delaying urgently needed treatment and medical assistance to a student is no different from a parent or a student being crushed in the stampede at the gates.

All human beings deserve to be treated with dignity at all times.

South Africa needs to do some serious re-thinking, planning and an earnest assessment of what education means for our young, our economy and our future.

That way, we will perhaps go past this limited view of post-matric education. Why are matric results released so late? Why in a country like ours do we not strengthen artisan training and skills provisions and other areas?

Incidentally, the students of today are not the first to descend on universities without preparation. I am from that generation which made its way to university - clutching only hope and passion. I was the first in my family to go to university.

Stretched to breaking point, the University of the Western Cape took us in. We gained not only education but that also helped us to becoming productive and active citizens.

Eventually we left not only with our certificates but also with a host of new skills, knowledge, and self-liberation. Along the way, we had our challenges and knocks. However, our dreams never turned sour.

They most definitely did not become nightmares!

Source: Daily Dispatch via I-Net Bridge