FOREWORD BY THE VICE-CHANCELLOR
In South Africa, the merging of universities and technikons across the country has led to the consolidation of 35 institutions into 21. While the process of mergers was riddled with its own frustrations and uncertainties, strangely enough it also provided opportunities to align Higher Education with practical proposals in line with our country's national goals and imperatives.
Through the merging of technikons and universities, a third type has been added to the traditional technikon and university landscape, viz. the merging universities created comprehensive universities and the merging of technikons and technikons created universities of technology (UoTs) with much greater capacity and a concentration of expertise.
Given our radical change process in terms of our governance, accountability and sound education practices, we seem to have reached an inflection point that has and still may determine the Vaal University of Technology's (VUT's) future directions and academic standing. Ironically enough, this new world order (i.e. our new democracy) governing higher education, heralded with an ever dwindling resource base from government, higher education seems to be bedfellows with irrelevance stagnation and even failure for institutions.
The credibility of our institutions is questioned by government, industry, commerce, business, community and above all by its very products, as we are confronted by fast changing social political and economic challenges.
I have thus drawn very heavily on the intensity and impact of the relationship between Higher Education institutions and industry as key to long term sustained development and growth of our new knowledge economy. This newly formed Higher Education landscape bears very strong evidence of South Africa, as it tries to position itself and move up the value chain and develop a national system of innovation, i.e. the application and practice of creating new ideas, which are invariably aimed at the introduction of new inventions into the market place. On the contrary, the key challenge in technology achievement and transformation is inherent in the "innovation chasm" between industry, research and international technology resources. Thus, in trying to close this innovation gap or chasm, we have opened up new ways of strategic partnerships between Higher Education institutions and industry.
While one is not against the logic behind the benefits of such partnerships, one is equally aware that not all institutions have the capacity to create and sustain gain sharing partnerships due to the fact that Government funding of universities is in decline. Public funded universities are in financial distress. The growth of other income sources is increasing, implying that stakeholder base is broadening. Diverse external interests now need to be accommodated by both Higher Education Institutions and business. This is becoming even more worrying to those newly formed universities of technology especially as they, irrespective of their histories of origin, are now matched against long standing institutions with exceptionally good research track records and sound financial basis. This inward flow revenue for the new universities eg. Universities of Technology (UoTs) is very negligible, hence partnerships or strategic alliances are critical to our mandate and survival given that we are not strong in research and have recently acquired degree standing status.
The question is - how can we as a university of technology within highly commercialised environments make a difference? Since we are well partnered with business, industry and community, how then can we be a catalyst for urban renewal and economic growth? Thus as a new generation technological universities we are forced to run our institution according to the vibrancies of both the new global arrangements and national imperative of our Government's transformative agenda.
In conclusion, D. Pink refers to this new landscape as "A whole new mind" - a new generation of universities of technology, which are actually geared toward replacing the 20th century information age viz. "that everything we do, everything we make, will from now on, need to spark on radically different insights, crackling ideas and sparkling attitudes. For the first time we realize that the global market place is so overstocked with goods and services - that business as usual is no longer an option. Our current conceptual age is, essentially about an economy that is fuelled by competitive, innovative driven offerings.
Thus meaningful, gain sharing partnerships between the Vaal University of Technology (VUT), industry and community engagement will imply that our programmes, offerings, qualification, collaborative research and cooperative education efforts should be shaped, and focus on the national, local imperatives of the regions economic growth, viz. poverty reduction strategies, job creation, counteracting joblessness and job losses. If we, through our partnering, can do this then the Vaal University of Technology (VUT) will certainly recreate itself as a leading player and provider in terms of responding to the needs of our region and country.
Prof I N Moutlana
Profile of the Vice-Chancellor
- The Dilemma of Femininity : A Revisionist View
- The Significance of Women with the Church - A Historical Perspective
- Reframing Ethics within Higher Education
- Challenges Facing Higher Education: The Problem of Academic Literacy
CONTACT:
Vaal University of Technology
Private Bag X021, VANDERBIJLPARK, 1900,
Gauteng, SOUTH AFRICA
Tel: +27 16 950 9000
Fax: +27 16 950 9999
Website: www.vut.ac.za
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Prof. I. Moutlana, Vice-Chancellor and Principal: Vaal University of Technology
Prof. Moutlana is one of South Africa's foremost educationalists. She is a Fullbright Scholar (1985) and holder of a Doctorate from Harvard University.