Business Day
*Third university goes under administration* *Karl Gernetzky, Business Day, Johannesburg, 18 October 2011*HIGHER Education Minister Blade Nzimande has given stakeholders at Walter Sisulu University (WSU) until tomorrow to raise any concern before he appoints an administrator and decides on measures needed to prevent the institution's collapse.
The Eastern Cape university has been under financial pressure since its inception in 2006 and has itself appealed to the department to intervene. The institution had been "underfunded from the start", only receiving R400m of the R1,2bn required to effect the merger of the three institutions which formed it in 2006.
A report into the university by an independent assessor appointed by the department last month recommended an immediate intervention. It concluded that serious problems in the governance and financial management of the university were undermining its functioning. It needed funding of R300m from September to December to prevent its collapse, and a significant restructuring of the university's model.
Last week salary payments to staff, due on October 15, were delayed indefinitely after acting director for human resources Siyabulela Mnyaiza said the university was no longer able to meet its financial obligations.
This will be the third institution this year that has been placed under administration, after the department's appointment of administrators at the University of Zululand in April and Tshwane University of Technology in August due to mismanagement.
Mr Nzimande has been adamant that these interventions were a "last resort" and were distracting the department from its broader objectives.
A large part of WSU's problems relate to its geographical spread --- four campuses over a 1000km radius. It was created by the merger of Border Technikon, the Eastern Cape Technikon and the University of Transkei and was part of a broader restructuring of the higher education landscape, involving the consolidation of 36 universities and technikons into 23 universities.
"WSU was formed through the merger in 2006 of three financially weak, historically disadvantaged institutions. The merger was underfunded from the start," university spokeswoman Angela Church said yesterday.
WSU had been running a budget deficit for the past five years while student debt has risen to R345m, she said.
The director of the Centre for Education Policy Development, Evaluation and Management, Dr Martin Prew, warned against viewing the consolidation of higher education as a bad idea.
"What had not happened at WSU, which had occurred in other successful mergers, was the inclusion of a high-performing institution. Taking three struggling institutions and expecting them to become (a successful one) was perhaps a step too far."
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