Political parties should be banned from university campuses in South Africa, according to a number of academics and senior administrators. These include vice-chancellors who attended a recent academic roundtable discussion on the book Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #FeesMustFall by University of the Witwatersrand vice-chancellor Adam Habib.
Unrest has left many staff and students suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to associate professor Lis Lange, deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning at the University of Cape Town. Cloete said exchanges between political parties and student leaders in an effort to influence university governance and produce effects at the national political level took place at higher education institutions around the world, which served as training grounds for future politicians. This type of interaction is viewed as largely beneficial.
Referencing the performative nature of student politics described in Habib’s book, Cloete argued that their political duplicity was not so much a matter of their character but rather a strategy employed by the rent-seeking political class to which they were seeking to gain entry. The problem is a systemic one, said Lange. Acknowledging the benefits of free higher education creating equality in society, she said the tertiary sector, nevertheless, had to be funded somehow.
The scale of the challenge, combined with pressures exerted by student unrest, have led to an almost permanent state of crisis management and there are limits to what the universities can provide, as articulated by Habib: “We can ameliorate the situation for students with initiatives such as food schemes, et cetera, but we cannot take responsibility for the failed development project.”