148 Ethics in Higher Education: Values-driven Leaders for the Future
would be more flexible about meeting the requirements for upfront
payments for fees. But still disruptions continued, and protests escalated.
What, in essence, was the issue? Is it transformation? Is it
disillusionment, ignorance about the idea of a university? Or is it about
anger, about the political and economic state of the nation?
It is evident that under the rubric of transformation much of the
protests are emotionally charged. A great deal of the anger has to do
with perceptions that the university is stubbornly untransformed. In
reality the concept of transformation is ill defined. On the matter of
racism as well as the alienating, oppressive environment students insist
that is their daily experience on campus, universities have done much to
begin to attend to this, but it also true that this is not a matter that is
resolvable instantly. The same can be said about other critical issues like
Africanisation, curriculum reform, employment equity and institutional
culture are all long term goals. The demand for an end to out-sourcing is
a governance matter that requires engagement not just with Council but
also to ensure the financial sustainability of any reforms that are made.
There did not seem to have been any mechanism for any meaningful
engagement towards negotiations and resolution of matters in dispute.
Arguably the greatest casualty of the pandemonium at university
campuses across the country has been the stature, authority and
leadership of the office of the Vice Chancellor. It is painful to observe
that the Vice Chancellor as the executive leader and manager of the
institution is treated with so much disdain, disrespect and disregard in
the institutions, by government, staff and students, and in some
instances, by University Councils. This begins not just with the students
but the way in which government undercuts the authority of the Vice
Chancellor, but it has a lot to do with the diminishing authority that Vice
Chancellor exercises in our higher education institutions. Students have
clearly shown disrespect and no regard for the person of the Vice