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Title: THE FUTURE OF THE HUMANITIES IN SA HIGHER EDUCATION: QUO VADIS


1
THE FUTURE OF THE HUMANITIES IN SA (HIGHER)
EDUCATIONQUO VADIS?
  • Nhlanhla Maake
  • 18 November 2008
  • n.maake_at_yahoo.co.uk

2
CONTENT - The following QUESTIONS will be asked
  • 1. What is the raison detre of universities?
  • 2. What are the universities own propositions?
  • 3. What external influences have been brought to
    bear?
  • 4. What criteria of evaluation/assessment are the
    universities subject to?
  • 5. Do the humanities still have a place?
  • 6. What does the restructuring within
    universities mean?
  • 7. Looking ahead What operational types/models
    can universities apply?
  • 8. What have been the fruit of the humanities
    over time?
  • 9. In what way can the contribution of humanities
    be brought to the centre in SA education?
  • 10. What is the role of the faculties of
    humanities in the 21st century?

3
METHODOLOGY AND MODE of this presentation
  • This presentation will comprise of
    contextualising the humanities through
  • monologue,
  • dialogue,
  • Socratic dialogue,
  • anecdotes from experience,
  • parables and
  • analytical inquiry.

4
Essay on Universities Personal experienceby N
Maake
  • What I actually set out to confide in you is
    my short-lived and shameful academic career. Let
    me start from the beginning. Some years ago I
    appeared before an interviewing panel for a
    junior position in one of the South African
    universities. The chairman (he was obviously a
    man, please!) of the panel asked me what subjects
    I could offer. I answered that I was at home with
    economics, political science, social
    anthropology, sociology, linguistics, philosophy
    and literature. My list was continuing but the
    chairman interrupted me and pronounced that the
    faculty expected that I should be narrow and
    sharp, not a Jack of all trades.

5
Continued
  • If you aspire to be a professor you much
    carve yourself a specialisation niche, he said.
  • I told the panel through him that I preferred to
    be broad and blunt a kind of Jack of several
    trades and master of most of them. Who wants to
    be a professor, anyway, and specialise in narrow
    subjects such as The behaviour of the mouse in
    English literature?, I asked rhetorically.
  • To cut a long story short, I got the job,
    despite what might have sounded like lack of
    modesty on my part. Dont ask me how.

6
Continued
  • In one of my first lectures I had to
    introduce twenty-seven semiliterate third-year
    students to principles of political economy. I
    prescribed the three volumes of John Stuart
    Mills Principles of Political Economy, and the
    three volumes of Karl Marxs Das Kapital.
  • In my introduction to these works I told them
    (sorry, postulated) that in order for them to
    understand Marxs work better, they had to read
    Mills first. The two works were one an
    antithesis of the other, and I simplified some
    major concepts as a matter of introduction.

7
continued
  • I thought three weeks was sufficient time for
    them to read all the works and gave instructions
    to that effect.
  • When the Dean of the faculty heard what I had
    done, she was horrified and summoned me to her
    office. She told me in no uncertain terms that my
    expectations were ridiculous. What I had to do,
    she instructed me, was to compile a study pack.
    This was meant to be a portable encyclopedia
    comprising of a few chapters truncated from five
    or six books, bound and given to students to
    read. Reading a complete book would kill them,
    she insisted. I had to preface the study pack
    with some simple and straightforward outcomes,
    based on the Outcome Based Education (OBE). They
    were meant to be something like this

8
continued
  • By the end of the module students will be able
    to state in 3 complete sentences when and where
    Karl Marx was born and that Marxism was derived
    from his name.
  • By the end of the module students will be able
    to explain in 10 points why the Third World is
    dependant on Europe and America for aid.
  • By the end of the module students will be able to
    explain in 10 points why Asia and Africa are
    incapable of advancing beyond the agrarian stage
    without US and European Union intervention.
  • By the end of the module the students will be
    able to demonstrate in 10 points that capitalism
    is better than socialism.
  • By the end of the module students will be able to
    answer 10 multiple-choice questions by selecting
    1 true answer out of 2 a grossly false one and a
    true one.

9
continued
  • When I objected to writing this claptrap, I
    was summarily dismissed. I resorted to my trade
    union for help but despite the fact that I was a
    paid-up member the shop steward informed me that
    I was not a classical working class person or
    proletarian but a comprador bourgeoisie, as a
    result defending my case would be tantamount to
    sacrificing and deferring the ideals and advent
    of the dictatorship of the masses. I cancelled my
    membership.

10
continued
  • You will think that its matter of sour grapes
    when I swear to you that looking back, I do not
    regret my expulsion from higher education,
    because degrees nowadays are not worth the
    parchment on which they are printed.
  • Some universities dont even bother to waste
    money on purchasing parchment. They simply use
    recycled paper, and for that matter, produce
    degrees and diplomas well in advance to save on
    rising costs of raw material and production.

11
continued
  • I was informed confidentially by reliable
    sources that some of our erstwhile South African
    institutions print degrees immediately when
    students are registered, and postdate them by
    three or four years depending on the duration of
    the degree or diploma to be taken. As students
    drop out, the university IT systems automatically
    withdraw the degrees and the printed copies are
    shredded manually by an absent minded clerk. I am
    reliably informed that technology being what it
    is, some of the documents remain stubbornly on
    the system, and some people are known to have
    appeared for job interviews with postdated
    degrees.

12
continued
  • I am also reliably told that in all South
    African universities the value of students has
    dropped lower than the Zimbabwean Dollar, that
    they are no longer counted per head. Each student
    is now something called a full time equivalent
    (FTE) or a fraction of it. Imagine going to the
    university to discuss your childs academic
    progress, only to find him or her bound to
    another or two others as one FTE.
  • Enough of this nonsense, I am not the parent of
    a FTE but a whole student. I am told that the
    Ministry of Education introduced this policy, the
    objective being to produce a maximum number of
    Graduate Equivalents (GEs) out of those who do
    not drop out.

13
continued
  • When it comes to Masters and Doctoral degrees,
    it is widely known that in some universities one
    thesis is conferred on several students. The
    titles of a number of theses in one of these
    universities bear testimony to this. They read as
    follows Work stress among white collar workers
    in a Brick company in the Vaal Work Stress
    among manual labourers in a Potchefstroom
    factory and Work Stress and cardiac problems
    among campus rectors in the North-West, etc. All
    one has to do is to cut and paste the subjects
    and sample of research and location, and voila! a
    thesis is completed in one sitting, thanks to
    advances in technology. One professor in that
    particular university has a reputation for
    producing ten PhDs per annum. Given such a
    nerve-wrecking pace of scholarship, who would
    aspire to be professor?

14
continued
  • Being an active revolutionary, I am not given
    to sitting on my arm chair and pontificating
    without finding solutions and implementing them.
    I have already gathered a group of fellow
    intellectuals and academics, all of them rejects
    like myself, to plan establishing a new
    University. The name I have in mind is
  • UNIVERSITY OF NOAH.

15
continued
  • THE UNIVERSITY OF NOAH
  • will offer only one degree programme and there
    will be only one statement of outcomes, a la OBE
  • By the end of the degree students will be able to
    be like Noah of the Old Testament.

16
continued
  • Our brand and logo will, of course, bear an
    ark floating in a flood of knowledge. Noah was a
    multi-skilled man par excellence. Architecture,
    Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, Logic,
    Zoology (with specialisation in Marine Biology,
    Animal Husbandry and Taming), Ornithology,
    Botany, Meteorology, Navigation, Nutrition,
    Ecology, Project Management and Carpentry were
    all within his facile mastery. He could balance
    knowledge and application (sorry, Theoria and
    Praxis).

17
continued
  • In the University of Noah the parents of our
    students will be proud, for each and every one of
    our students will be a graduate in his or her own
    right a singular and complete graduate but not a
    composite equivalent of anything. If the idea
    does not take off, I am migrating to Zimbabwe
    through our porous border, where opportunities
    for a new beginning abound.
  • Esaays in Humour www.nhlanhlamaake.blog.com

18
OUTCOMES OF THIS PRESENTATION
  • At the beginning and of this presentation
  • There are definitely no outcomes
  • except those which each one of us will draw for
    him/herself.

19
  • Our grand business undoubtedly is,
  • not to see what lies dimly at a distance,
  • but to do what lies clearly at hand.
  • Signs of the times - Thomas Carlyle

20
  • I felt that he Thomas Carlyle was a poet, and
    that I was not and that as such, he not only saw
    many things long before me, which I could only
    see when they were pointed out to me, hobble
    after and prove, but that it was highly probable
    he could see many things which were not visible
    to me even after they were pointed out.
  • Autobiography - John Stuart Mill

21
1. RAISON DETRE of universities and imperatives
  • Teaching/learning
  • Research
  • Execution community engagement.
  • Are these commitments determined internally or
    externally?

22
2. PROPOSITIONS
  • The above are proposed in the vision and mission
    statements of SA universities
  • elaborated in the Institutional Operational Plans
    (IOPs),
  • Strategic Plans (SPs) and
  • Rollout Plans (ROPs)
  • project managed through HEQC audits and
  • Quality Assurance (QA) processes
  • evaluated in terms of the needs of the private
    sector
  • rewarded through local and global university
    rankings and
  • state subsidies, sponsored chairs and
    fellowships.

23
3. EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
  • State and ideology
  • Private-Public Partnerships
  • SETAs
  • Standards set by professional bodies
  • Needs of the knowledge/post-industrial economy
  • Status Local and global rating
  • Material and cultural capital/incentives.
  • What are the benefits of these influences for
    universities with regard to the Humanities?

24
4. CRITERIA OF RANKING
  • Essential Science Indicators (ESI)1
    Disciplines, citation and publications
  • Biology and Biochemistry
  • Chemistry
  • Clinical medicine
  • Engineering
  • Environment/ecology
  • Geoscience
  • Materials science
  • Plant and animal
  • Social Science general
  • Space science
  • 1 Anastassios Pouris. 2006. The international
    performance of South African academic
    institutions a citation assessment. Springer
    Science Business Media
  • Rated Cape Town, Witwatersrand, Pretoria,
    KwaZulu-Natal, Stellenbosch, Free State.

25
5. WHERE DO THE HUMANITIES FIT IN?
  • 5.1 Retrospective overview of University of X,
    Faculty of Humanities a Microcosm
  • In the 1980s select 14 departments
  • African Languages
  • African Literature
  • Afrikaans and Nederlands
  • Classics
  • Comparative Literature
  • English
  • German Studies
  • History
  • Linguistics
  • Modern/Romance Languages
  • Philosophy
  • Religious Studies
  • School of Translators and interpreters

26
5.2 Retrospective overview of University of X -
Departments
  • In the 2000s select 8/14 departments
  • African Languages
  • African Literature
  • English (Literature Languages Studies).
  • History
  • Linguistics ?
  • Media Studies
  • School of Translators and interpreters
  • X Language School
  • Where did all the philosophers go?

27
6. RESTRUCTURING IN TERMS OF
  • Managerial and administrative structures
  • Federalisation private sector jargon
    DVCs/CEOs, (Executive) Deans Programmes (PQM)
    streamline relevance and currency
  • Designation Directors, Heads of Schools and
    Heads of Departments
  • Clusters Faculties/Colleges, Schools and
    Departments
  • Further atomization of disciplinary boundaries
  • Quantitative imperatives versus qualitative
    efficacy.
  • Does this restructuring suggest
    inter-disciplinary engagement or old wine in new
    skins?

28
7. LOOKING AHEAD - TYPES/MODELS
  • OLD/CURRENT MODELS
  • Disciplinary student supervisor within
    discipline
  • Disciplinary co-operation student, supervisor
    co-supervisor within discipline.
  • POSSIBLE/EXPERIMENTAL MODELS
  • Intra-institutional and Inter-disciplinary
    co-operation student, supervisor second
    supervisor across disciplines.
  • Inter-institutional and Inter-disciplinary
    co-operation student, supervisor second
    supervisor across institutions within
    discipline.
  • Inter-institutional and Inter-disciplinary
    co-operation student, supervisor second
    supervisor across institutions across
    disciplines.
  • Other experimental models.
  • Are we bold enough to experiment in our faculties?

29
8. WHAT CONTRUBITION HAVE THE HUMANITIES MADE?
  • 8.1 A Classical Perspective
  • The Industrial Revolution and Modernity 19th
    century faculty of humanities
  • Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and Historical
    Materialism/Political Economy (Marxism)
  • John Stuart Mill and the Principles of Political
    Economy,
  • Jeremy Bentham and Utilitarianism
  • Charles Darwin and the theory of Evolution
  • Henry Newman and the concept of a University
  • Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations
    (Economics)
  • Thomas Carlyle and Historiography
  • Matthew Arnold and the English literary tradition.

30
8.2 A modern/postmodern Perspective
  • The 20th century faculty of humanities
  • Jean-Paul Sartre and Existentialism
  • Foucault and the Order of Things
  • Kwame Appiah and the Illusion of race
  • Bertolt Bretch and modern Marxism in Theatre
  • Mudimbe and the Invention of Africa
  • Paolo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed
  • John Mbiti and African Philosophy and Religion
  • Frantz Fanon and the Third World Psychiatry of
    race

31
continued
  • Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and the Theatre of
    the Absurd
  • Martin Bernal and Afroasiatic civilization
  • Goerge Lukacs, Theodore Benjamin and the
    Frankfurt School.
  • Louis Althusser and state modus operandi
  • Edward Said and Orientalism
  • Julia Kristeva and the concept of the Other
  • Homi Bhaba and the Third space
  • Ngugi wa Thingo and decolonising the mind.
  • What has the faculty of humanities of the
    Republic of letters contributed in directing
    world affairs?

32
9. BRINGING THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE HUMANITIES
TO THE CENTRE IN SA EDUCATION
  • What is the impact of the humanities on other
    disciplines, especially given new problems and
    benefits of migration?
  • What is the role of language and literature on
    human welfare and human rights with regard to
    understanding new cultures and enculturation?
  • What is the influence of the humanities in
    understanding and protecting human dignity and
    rights?
  • What is the impact of the humanities on science
    and technology, especially with regard to sharing
    knowledge with global citizens?

33
11. CONCLUSION
  • To paraphrase Mill
  • Dont poets see things, which others can only
    see when they are pointed out to them, to
    hobble after and prove, but that it is highly
    probable they can see many things which were not
    visible to others even after they were pointed
    out?

34
If the humanities then have no future, the tool
of the trade of every sphere of life, then
  • Our political systems will doomed from lack of
    sophistication and lapse into a farce of
    uneducated populated by uncouth dramatis
    personae,
  • Our Legislature will degenerate into incompetence
    and into a primitive state,
  • Our Executive will slide into barbarism and
    further incompetence,
  • Our judiciary systems will be dysfunctions,
  • Our health system will disintegrate,
  • In short, we will become the laughing stock of
    the world and come out poorer.

35
Did the African Nobel Laureates come from?
  • Albert Luthuli (1960) Humanities.
  • Desmond Tutu (1984) (Theology) Wole Soyinka
    (1986) Literature.
  • Nadine Gordimer (1991) Literature.
  • Nelson R. Mandela Frederik W. De Klerk (1993)
    Law.
  • Kofi Anan (2001) Economics and International
    Relations.
  • John Maxwell Coetzee (2003) Literature
  • Wangari Maathai (2004) Biology and Veterinary
    Medicine

36
  • Nisale ka(ku)hle
  • Adieus Goodbye
  • Totsiens Kwaherini
  • Le sale hantle
    vhasale zwabudi
  • Aur revoir Le sale sentle
  • !!!!!!!!!!

37
  • Oops! Sorry!
  • Discussion time!
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