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The overpoliticisation of teachers’ unions and its impact on young minds must end if we are to prosper as a nation, writes Khumbulani Mngadi
A university used to a hub of knowledge production, innovation and critical thinking.
In the past a university was a place of reasoning and intellectualism.
One could not get into the university simply because one met the minimum requirements.
It was meritorious. It was a place for inquiring, critical and independent minds and people with sound reasoning and insights.
When you set your foot at university all these instincts were stimulated and your mind was conditioned for only one thing – making a meaningful contribution to the world of knowledge.
Today universities have become places for hooliganism and political thuggery.
We have been witnessing violent protests on campuses and the culture of thuggery and vandalism has been increasing at alarming rates.
Read: ‘The minister can’t relate to the poor’: Students continue varsity protests
Infrastructure has been destroyed and millions of rands spent on security and insurance.
Instead of focusing on solving societal problems, innovating solutions and creating new lenses to view the world, our universities have become breeding grounds for political expediency and malice.
However, the problems at universities are microcosms of deep-seated societal ills.
In order to restore the noble ideals of universities, we need to introspect and work on finding lasting solutions.
One of the reasons we are in this quagmire is the ill-conceived political agenda of massification in the higher education sector.
The fallacy that universities are for everyone is a big problem.
Yes, we need more PhD holders and professors, but at what cost?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with everyone wanting to be a top mathematics professor but logic dictates that this is not possible.
Therefore, there is everything wrong with forcing our young people to do subjects or into streams that they are not gifted in.
The only outcome of this is that they end up unemploy-able and ultimately disillusioned.
If our schooling system is to produce the correct outcomes, the powers that be must re-examine the scope of career choices as this is vast and keeps growing.
There should be proper guidance from lower levels to channel young people into the appropriate streams.
First, let us demystify the notion that the university is the only option available to pursue studies at tertiary level.
Our tertiary education sector is very broad.
The introduction of nine more further education and training colleges and two new universities is set to make the space even broader.
The onus is upon the basic education department and schools to counsel pupils properly about the options post-matric.
The revival of comprehensive schools may also help in ensuring that pupils get channelled early.
In order to do this and to do it correctly, it should be compulsory that schools hire trained career guidance teachers.
Universities should also do their part and schedule career guidance expos and invite companies to talk to pupils early in their academic life.
Second, we must deal with the big elephant in the room: the over unionisation of teachers.
While exercising their democratic rights is perfectly fine, teachers should not make our schools sites of political battles.
The same can be said about the over-politicisation of students at universities.
This bad culture starts at school level, with teachers using their unions to launch and build their political careers at the expense of the pupils.
Teachers fight to become shop stewards or principals instead of teaching.
In this toxic environment your alignment to a powerful union gets you promotion.
Ill-prepared principals get appointed to run schools.
Even school governing bodies get embroiled in promotions and tender squabbles. They are not appointed on merit but on their political affiliations.
Pupils carry this bad culture to the universities and jostle for political positions instead of studying.
In essence, the whole education system fails to groom the African child holistically.
The priority in every school should be teaching and learning, not political activism.
Third, we need to build a culture of alumni caring about their alma mater, something that is minimal in this country.
Universities, colleges and schools all over the world have alumni structures that play a pivotal role in shaping the direction of these institutions.
It is high time we cultivated this culture of ploughing back.
This country is endowed with young great minds but because we have an individualistic culture we are not harnessing these assets.
There are pockets of giving back, individuals come together to create financial schemes for deserving students.
We must deepen this by adopting schools and capacitating them.
This way we will be building caring societies. Beneficiaries will emulate this culture. They will also take ownership of their institutions and they will reject the culture of vandalism.
Lastly, I propose we strengthen our civic education in all spheres of society.
It must also form the greater part of the curriculum in schools.
This will help us not only in curbing this unrelenting violence but it will create a better political awareness among youngsters.
The grave mistake committed by the politicians is their failure to groom young people to be better leaders.
Instead they groom political stooges for their own ends.
The leadership void we see in the universities is the direct result of this culture of creating minions.
One way of unlearning this culture is by strengthening our existing leadership programmes.
Mngadi, a higher education analyst, is based at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He writes in his personal capacity
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