Reflections Of South African Student Leaders

preface Professor Narend Baijnath Chief Executive Officer Council on Higher Education In 2016, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) published the reflections of eight former vice-chancellors and deputy vice-chancellors in a book titled Reflections of South African University Leaders, 1981 to 2014. Reviews of the book suggested that it contributed significantly to a better understanding of the stringent demands of visionary and transformative leadership required by university leaders in the fastchanging and increasingly complex public higher education sector. As a sequel to Reflections of South African University Leaders, 1981 to 2014, the CHE, in collaboration with the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), is pleased to publish Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017, as a collection of the reflections of 12 former student leaders who served in positions of leadership in South African public universities – typically as presidents or executive members of respective Students’ Representative Councils (SRCs) – between 1994 and 2017. The Higher Education Act (No. 101 of 1997, as amended) recognises SRCs as legitimate structures within the broader governance matrix of public higher education institutions. In order to present a balanced perspective on how transformation of higher education has unfolded since the dawn of democracy, it is in the view of the CHE quite critical that the voices of students are also recorded in accounts of the seminal changes experienced over this period. Twenty-five years since the dawn of democracy, higher education institutions still face many challenges of not being able to effectively address the concerns of students on key issues of access, success, transformation and funding. The frustrations of students in this regard have sometimes triggered student protests, some of which have been accompanied by violence, resulting in the suspension of academic activities and closure of university campuses. Readers will recall the highly publicised student protests such as #RhodesMustFall at the University of Cape Town, which gathered momentum as it spread to several other campuses and itself transformed into the ‘decolonisation movement’ before transitioning into #FeesMustFall and related campaigns such as #EndOutsourcing. One of Preface / xi

the many lessons learnt from these protests is that there is a dire need for the decision-makers in higher education institutions to recognise the student voice. As key stakeholders, students should be engaged meaningfully and constructively, especially when they represent the vanguard struggles which address legacy and contemporary struggles in our society. An intriguing aspect of the 2015/16 protest movement was that it was portrayed as ‘leaderless’. This has raised questions about the role of leadership in student governance. Do student leaders represent the masses of students? Do they have real authority and influence on the student body politic? Whose interests do they serve? How do they determine if they are successful or not? How are they perceived by those they purportedly lead and represent? The search for answers to these and other questions was the main motivation, on the part of the CHE, to contemplate the research project that has culminated in this publication. At the time that the CHE was still conceptualising the research project, the HSRC received funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for a nationwide research and archiving project on the 2015/16 student movement, including a focus on the developmental trajectory of the student movement from the early post-apartheid movement to #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall. The clear convergence of the research project that the CHE was planning to embark on, and that which the HSRC had just started to work on, led the two organisations to agree to work together on the reflections of former student leaders. Reflections of South African Student Leaders, 1994 to 2017 is based on comprehensive interviews with former student leaders, each of whom provided a personal account in their own words of their experience in the position of student leadership. The interviews were transcribed and written as chapters focusing on the backgrounds of the interviewees, their respective journeys to become student leaders, and their roles and responsibilities while in student leadership positions. The chapters also cover the former student leaders’ views on the threats to, and opportunities for, the development of the higher education system broadly, and student governance in particular. The former student leaders concerned were provided an opportunity to review the earlier drafts of their respective chapters, and they approved the final chapters published in the book. The interviewees are from different backgrounds and of diverse political persuasions. Some were student leaders in universities located outside the urban areas while others were student leaders in township and urban universities. The representation also covers historically white universities and historically black ones. Furthermore, among them are those who were student leaders at merged institutions and those who were leaders at institutions that were not merged. They also represent a mix from traditional universities, universities of technology and comprehensive universities. With respect to political persuasions and affiliations, the interviewees are affiliated to different political parties and/or student political formations. xii / Reflections of South African Student Leaders

The book is a ‘must read’ for current and future student leaders. The experiences shared by the former student leaders, including the lessons they learnt in hindsight, are invaluable to the current and future crops of student leaders. They are likely to glean much from the book about student leadership visions, strategies and tactics which could contribute to making them better leaders. The book is important for current and future leaders of higher education institutions as it provides insights into the thinking, aspirations, desires, fears and modus operandi of student leaders. Such insight can contribute to developing and implementing appropriate strategies for achieving meaningful and constructive engagement with current and future student leaders. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the former student leaders for their voluntary participation in this project, and for willingly sharing their experiences and the lessons learnt from their experiences. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Dr Denyse Webbstock, who led the book project on the CHE side until she resigned in December 2018, and Prof. Thierry Luescher, who was the project co-leader on the HSRC side, for a job well done. This book would not have progressed to completion without their steady resolve in the face of many obstacles. I thank Mr Ntokozo Bhengu of the CHE, Mr Nkululeko Makhubu of the HSRC, Dr Denyse Webbstock and Prof. Thierry Luescher for conducting the interviews with the former student leaders, transcribing them and converting the transcriptions into book chapters. I also thank the publisher, African Minds, for seeing the value of a book of this nature and agreeing to publish it. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge with appreciation the role played by Dr Amani Saidi in taking up the leadership of the book project in January 2019, on the side of the CHE, following the resignation of Dr Denyse Webbstock, and steering the project through to completion. Preface / xiii

chapter 1 A quarter-century of student leadership Thierry M. Luescher, Denyse Webbstock & Ntokozo Bhengu As part of South Africa’s transition to democracy and the creation of a single higher education system from a medley of technikons, black township and bantustan universities, Afrikaner volksuniversiteite, and English universities with a distinct white colonial imprint,1 the nature and extent of student representation in higher education governance was re-imagined for a post-apartheid era, reinforced through legislation. The impetus for change was expressed early on in the report of Mandela’s National Commission on Higher Education of 1996. Student representation within formal governance structures was expected to provide students with avenues to express and negotiate their concerns and demands, and to contribute to shaping the fabric of university life. The principles of ‘democratisation’ and ‘academic freedom’ were to underpin a new philosophy of ‘co-operative governance’ in which students’ voices were to be included in major decision-making processes.2 This impetus was articulated in Education White Paper 3 of 1997 and formalised in the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 (HE Act), which mandated formal student representation in governance throughout the 1 2 Bunting, I. (2002). The Higher Education Landscape under Apartheid. In N. Cloete, R. Fehnel, P. Maassen, T. Moja, H. Perold & T. Gibbon (Eds), Transformation in Higher Education: Global Pressures and Local Realities in South Africa. Cape Town: Juta. Hall, M., Symes, A. & Luescher, T.M. (2002). Governance in South African Higher Education. Research Report. Pretoria: Council on Higher Education. A quarter-century of student leadership / 1

system and institutions of public higher education.3 The Students’ Representative Council (SRC) became a legislated governance structure in all South African universities (while previously it had only been formally recognised in certain university private acts and statutes, and in the Technikons Act 125 of 1993). Henceforth, student representation was mandatory in the two highest decisionmaking bodies of universities, the University Council and the Senate, as well as in the Institutional Forum and the Student Services Council, and by extension on many of their committees. The HE Act further provided for the representation of students in the Council on Higher Education (CHE), the statutory advisory council providing advice to the minister responsible for higher education. In addition, by means of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) Act No. 56 of 1999, the NSFAS board was composed in such a way that students’ voices would also be represented in matters of student financial aid. Student representation thus became statutory in national higher education governance, planning, funding and quality assurance, as well as at institutional level in all matters concerning students and the institution at large. And yet, throughout the past 25 years, and quite contrary to the expectation of the policy-makers of those years, student protests have continued across much of the sector in relation to recurring grievances. The key issues have persistently been academic and financial exclusions, student funding, accommodation, institutional transformation and institutional culture, as well as matters of governance. Despite the formal means provided by the HE Act and NSFAS Act for students to represent their interests in the ‘boardrooms’ of formal decision-making bodies, student protests ‘in the street’ remain a recurrent, if not normalised, and frequently violent part of university life on many campuses. Why? Examining this phenomenon has become ever more pressing in the wake of the intense student protest wave of 2015/16, starting with the #RhodesMustFall campaign at the University of Cape Town, and its reverberations across many campuses of historically white universities, the original #FeesMustFall campaign of late 2015 with its long history reaching into the early days of black student politics after 1994, and eventually the culmination of the protests, in late 2016, in the #FeesMustFallReloaded campaign, which shut down academic work on many campuses for weeks and required a collective effort by university leaders, academics and student leaders for the 2016 academic year to be rescued. The successes of #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall campaigns aptly demonstrate the lack of efficacy and responsiveness of higher education authorities – at institutional and system level respectively – to pressing student concerns, 3 Department of Education (1997). Education White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education. Government Gazette, Notice 1196 of 1997. Pretoria: Government Printers; Republic of South Africa (1997). Higher Education Act No. 101 of 1997. Government Gazette, 18515 (Notice 1655) 19 December. Pretoria: Government Printers. 2 / Reflections of South African Student Leaders

unless a serious crisis is created. And the culprits claimed victory. The former vice-chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Prof. Adam Habib, famously claimed that with the #FeesMustFall campaign students achieved in 10 days the policy change that vice-chancellors had requested for 10 years!4 Similarly, for over two decades, students at historically white universities in South Africa – underpinned by surveys and in-depth studies – called for a ‘deep transformation’ of their institutional cultures and curricula. What does it all mean? Staying focused, we must ask: Has the post-apartheid regulatory framework for higher education governance failed? Have the provisions for student representation failed? Is there a need for a new reimagining of higher education governance and student leadership therein? A growing body of research from across the African continent shows that the relationship between student representation and student activism is not contradictory; rather, protesting is often an extension of politics in the formal governance structures, sometimes complementary to, sometimes in place of, what student leaders fail to achieve by working through formal structures.5 This body of research on the dynamics of student politics tells us many kinds of stories; they are, however, typically told from a removed, academic perspective and confined within specific case studies and timeframes. An alternative approach to understanding the merits and pitfalls of the current model of higher education governance, the dynamics of student representation and activism, and the roles of SRCs therein, is to seek the reflections of those who have been intimately involved. In providing a platform for former student leaders to relate their recollections in their own voices and from their standpoints, this book seeks to provide material for a critical consideration of the questions above. Aim and approaches The primary aim of the book is to give a platform to South African student leaders of the period from 1994 to 2017 to reflect on their experiences of involvement in student leadership at SRC level. At the outset, we developed a semi-structured 4 5 Desai, R. (2018). #EverythingMustFall: The High Cost of Education [Documentary]. Braamfontein, Johannesburg: Uhuru Productions. Byaruhanga, F.K. (2006). Student Power in Africa’s Higher Education: A Case of Makerere University. New York: Routledge; Cele, M.B.G. (2015). Student Politics and the Funding of Higher Education in South Africa: The Case of the University of the Western Cape, 1995–2005. Doctoral dissertation, University of the Western Cape, South Africa; Jansen, J. (2004). Changes and continuities in South Africa’s higher education system, 1994 to 2004. In L. Chisholm (Ed.), Changing Class: Education and Social Change in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press; Luescher, T.M., M. Klemenčič & O.J. Jowi (Eds) (2016). Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism. Cape Town: African Minds; Munene, I. (2003). Student activism in African higher education. In D. Teferra & P. G. Altbach (Eds), African Higher Education: An International Reference Handbook (117–27). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. A quarter-century of student leadership / 3

interview schedule to cover six topics: (1) the personal background and context of student leadership involvement; (2) reflections on the role of the SRC and student leadership, the internal organisation of SRC politics, SRC electoral systems, and training and support to student leadership; (3) reflections on the challenges of student representation in co-operative governance and the strategies and tactics used to represent the student voice and influence change; (4) the use of different forms of interest intermediation, including protesting, and the former student leaders’ understandings of the emergence of a nationwide student movement in 2015/16 centred around #FeesMustFall and other campaigns like #EndOutsourcing; (5) reflections on the lessons learnt from their experience for successful student representation; and (6) reflections on the impact of the student leadership experience on their life, including its impact on their political attitudes and ideology, continued participation in politics after university, impact on the choice of subsequent studies, career opportunities and professional life, and impact on personal life. In the development of topics and questions for our inquiry we were guided by existing theory and empiric

South African Student Leaders 1994 to 2017 Reflections of South African Student Leaders The book is important for current and future leaders of higher education institutions as it provides insights into the thinking, aspirations, desires, fears and modus operandi of student leaders. A 'must read' for current and future student leaders.