At a time when the country has been braced for violence from anti-immigrant protests, a strong whiff of xenophobia from parliament is deeply disappointing — and all the more insidious because it seems hardly to have been noticed.
The portfolio committee on higher education & training issued a statement on June 24 saying it is “concerned that some of South Africa’s public universities are relying too much on foreign academics, particularly at professor levels”. Committee chair Tebogo Letsie said this was despite substantial public investment in higher education, research development and academic support programmes.
The committee quoted statistics showing that at some institutions, the number of foreign professors exceeds the combined number of African, coloured and Indian professors. At the University of Cape Town, “the full picture is this: 39.7% of professors are white, 39.3% are foreign nationals, and only 22.6% are African, Indian and coloured professors combined”.
Many of the foreign nationals at our leading universities are from other African countries, a fact that one would expect the portfolio committee to welcome rather than resent. It would indicate that we are playing, and benefiting from, a regional and continental role.
If a university is to remain world-class — and international surveys confirm that status for many of our leading institutions — it needs to attract the best from the continent and the world. It must also produce scholars who are in demand elsewhere; quality institutions depend on the cross-pollination that comes from both imports and exports of top personnel.
That sounds reasonable, but it is actually the thin end of the wedge of a dangerous intellectual xenophobia
The portfolio committee statement claims it is not against foreign academics. The concerns, said Letsie, “are rooted in transformation, skills development and accountability rather than opposition to internationalisation. This is not about xenophobia. We must invest in developing South Africans and creating pathways for them to reach professor level.”
Of course we must, but it is not clear why this should be at the expense of foreign academics. Even the DA seems to be keeping its options open on the issue. Its deputy minister of higher education, Mimmy Gondwe, has said South Africa benefits from foreign academics, but she maintains that their appointments must be made lawfully and when no South African can fill the post.
That sounds reasonable, but it is actually the thin end of the wedge of a dangerous intellectual xenophobia. The next steps will be to make funding conditional on “acceptable” ratios of local to foreign academics, and then for students to launch protests against individuals.
Universities have three main sources of income: student fees; funding from the state (mainly for research); and donations, mainly from corporates and alumni. They cannot afford to compromise on the quality of research and teaching, or to gain a reputation for academic protectionism. If they do, donors and students will turn away, while the state’s return on research investment will decline.
Our leading universities were vocal in their opposition to apartheid and in their insistence on the right to choose their curricula. Unlike schools, they have statutory autonomy — they need to use that space to insist on their right to decide who they appoint to the faculty. If they don’t, it will be taken away from them in the dubious interest of “patriotism”.
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