There needs to be an entire reimagining of the higher education landscape in the country before it collapses entirely. Clearly the issues plaguing the basic education sector which have been identified repeatedly over the last 20 years, but have gone unaddressed by a succession of education ministers, have now come home to roost in the higher education sphere.
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Chief amongst these is the gap in preparedness between grade 12 exitees and first year university students. This has been exacerbated by the significant lowering of pass marks, enabling more students to ‘qualify’ for university entrance.
Add to this the recent announcement of free higher education, and you have a recipe for disaster. The consequences of this ‘shoot from the hip’ populist measure announced by the former President are already manifesting themselves in the de facto collapse of the NSFAS scheme as applications trebled to over 600000.
In most countries, university education is regarded as a privilege, rather than a right and the output of these institutions is closely aligned to the skills requirements of the economy.
What the combination of lower entrance standards and free tuition has effectively done is to essentially degrade the value of most university degrees. This also exacerbates the culture of entitlement amongst our youth, which is beginning to be acknowledged as a key factor in the gap that is opening up between us and our peers on the continent. Students are enrolling for whatever degree they can qualify for without any reference to their natural aptitude or needs of the economy. This is evidenced by the thousands of graduates with ‘soft’ general degrees.
Still too few grade 12 learners are achieving the requisite marks in mathematics and science to enable them to enter the fields where skills shortages exist, and thus employability upon graduation is higher.
While the exclusion of large section of the population from higher education in the past must be acknowledged, creating a vast pool of under qualified or poorly prepared graduates as restitution for this does the country and our young people no favours.
After matriculating, Vijay Naidoo studied Economics in the UK. Upon his return, hejoined the family construction business as MD for 10 years.
He subsequently joined his sister in their furniture manufacturing business as director for quality assurance and operations. He was responsible for all quality aspects of their products, and led the project to the business achieving an ISO 9000 quality accreditation. As an export focused business, this was important for our international competitiveness.
Mr Naidoo has an abiding interest in quality management and productivity improvement, particularly in manufacturing.
More recently, he has focused a lot of his time on giving back to the community by way of mentorship of small businesses and sitting on the executive of the South Coast Chamber of Commerce. He also sits on the Board of the Ugu South Coast Development Agency.
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