Cutting operational costs is one way public universities could survive, long-term

Stellenbosch University is considered to be a very well-resourced institution compared to others, said Bismark Tyobeka, yet it still faces a projected six-year deficit of R1.4 billion.

Professor du Plessis had suggested universities cut operational costs and make better use of their assets. ”We have to be intentional about these cuts,” said Professor Tyobeka. “At Stellenbosch University, when it comes to a crunch, Professor du Plessis, as the Chief Financial Officer, mandates the deans to cut by 8% and those that cannot demonstrate they can do it, he does it for them. I think that is what intentionality refers to,” said Tyobeka.

Dr Kirston Greenop, Head: Corporate Citizenship at Standard Bank South Africa, who was the second speaker in the session, had suggested that universities look at where they are heading beyond just teaching, especially in their communities. Are they aware of their environmental impact? Are they contributing to overall societal growth and development? She had also urged universities to align their financial plans with the sustainable development goals to open up new funding opportunities. They could also consider alternative funding models such as crowdfunding and ethical research funding.  

Professor Tyobeka then referred to one comment during the Q&A, that had referred to how university residences were often forced to subsidise broader socio-economic issues. For example, many students would rather stay at residences where they could get a warm bath and a meal instead of going home for the holiday break. 

The FSG’s plenary session on Higher Education Funding and Financial Sustainability into the Future, International Experiences also featured two speakers.

“What we could take away from Dr Dajana Djovic, is at least we’re not alone,” said Professor Tyobeka. Dr Djovic is head of Global Research and Innovation Policy at Universities United Kingdom (UUK). She had spoken online about how they had seen persistent cuts in the block grant across different administrations in the UK. Brexit had also contributed to their problems as the enrolment of international postgraduate students, and the funding that came with it, had taken a big knock. 

She said among other responses, universities in the UK were organising advocacy campaigns, such as 100 Faces, a where alumni who were first-generation graduates in their families narrated how university education had changed their lives. These stories were being documented on the UUK website. 

“The simple message from Dr Thamsanqa Zikode, [Head of Portfolio: Regularity Audit in the Office of the Auditor-General] was that the fiscus is dissipated, and that to continue to rely on it is basically suicide for universities. We need to be innovative, but we need to be accountable for what we get. Financial controls within university system must be strengthened so that even when there is a difficult discussion of whether we should continue to get funding from the state, at least we are not seen as part of the wastage of the government,” said Tyobeka. 

He said the general recommendations were that universities need to be proactive in changing their financial future rather than relying on external policies for interventions. They should find the balance between implementing cost cutting measures and maintaining education quality.

Professor Moyo said she would focus on the broad ideas that came out of the session rather than on what each person had said.

She said a number of speakers spoke about budgeting for research. Institutions budget for many things but research, in terms of infrastructure and the people who do this research — both research staff and postgraduate students — is an area that needs more attention.

Other ideas raised included:

• The capacity to help researchers with grant proposals – some universities are more advanced than others in terms of the type of support they offer so collaboration might help.
• The need to collaborate — not just with other universities but also with industry partners and philanthropists who fund researchers.
• The need to look at the research ecosystem, not only in South Africa, but also within the African region to reinforce the Pan African agenda because internationalisation is encouraged but collaboration within the African continent is not on the same par as international collaboration with the Global North.
• Funding and its ethical considerations – do we accept funding from just anyone? Do we check what type of organisations we’re getting the funding from? And how does the funding contribute to sustainability? Sometimes you can become a slave to the funding organisation because you haven’t checked the implications; and
• How we communicate our research to engage the public sector and the people we need to influence to ensure the research is visible and accessible. Not only in terms of open access platforms but to make sure information about the research is communicated to the different stakeholders so they can also participate positively in what universities are doing.

Professor Moyo said participants called for a collaborative approach among universities to navigate the funding challenges to maximise the impact of outputs. “Impact means we must set our agenda together with the different stakeholders at the beginning, by aligning our research agendas with societal needs, fostering partnerships and enhancing internal capabilities so that we, as universities, can contribute meaningfully to addressing national and continental issues.

“We also talked about equitable partnerships, making sure that when we are negotiating with other partners, we ask ourselves: ‘What is in it for us? What is our role?’ rather than just accepting the agenda that is brought to us without interrogating that,” said Professor Moyo.

Dr Maria Toshkova, director of Global Partnerships at the University Design Institute of the University of Arizona in the United States, spoke in an online presentation about how they had grown from 80 000 to 180 000 students, thanks to technology and many online students. 

Professor Mala Singh, Executive Director: People and Culture at North-West University, focused on how people leadership and management is changing post covid, and what we need to do. Are we fit for purpose? How do we ensure that we can ensure there’s a connection, there’s a relevance, and the people we employ have the skillsets to support the work of the academy?

Dr Linda Meyer, Managing Director of IIE Rosebank College, spoke about operational efficiency. We need to ensure we become more operationally effective and efficient internally, so that we can start saving in some areas and use innovation and technology to enable some of the work we do. 

The LMSG’s other session was on leadership: How do we position leadership in the context of change and complexity? What kind of philosophies do we need for leadership? How we should think of leadership as a collective effort, not just imbued on an individual. The session also looked at governance, and the relationship between the executive and non-executive components of universities.

“The key takeaway here is that we need to find a way to support our governance structures more closely. At USAf, we’ve been talking about working with the DHET (Department of Higher Education and Training) and the CHE (Council on Higher Education) around going back to those national induction onboarding programmes. I think we have to control the wheel and ensure that happens, because if our governance system breaks down, our university leadership and people and staff and students will suffer,” said Dr Seale.

Strategy groups take a lead on universities’ most strategic concerns and advise the Board, annually, on key initiatives to be undertaken in pursuit of specific goals. They regularly engage with relevant government departments and other organisations to keep track of developments in the regulatory environment, and for the resolution of specific issues, respectively. USAf has six such groups – each chaired by a vice-chancellor. Of those six, this article summarises deliberations of only three.

Gillian Anstey is a contract writer for Universities South Africa.