Battle over Unisa’s future: Let Blade cut freely

The intention by Higher Education, Science and Innovation Minister Blade Nzimande to place the University of South Africa (Unisa) under administration has had a lot of pushbacks.

But the longer this decision is delayed or blocked, the more the students of this institution will continue to be disadvantaged.

Nzimande’s move comes after the damning reports of independent assessor Prof Themba Mosia and the ministerial task team, chaired by Dr Vincent Maphai.

The reports slammed the management of the institution and highlighted maladministration, coupled with other governance challenges that Unisa is facing.

READ: Unisa’s legal battle against administration decision worries students

But instead of these issues affecting Unisa being put in the spotlight, Nzimande is being accused of a number of things that discredit his intentions of placing the university under administration.

Hence, the urgent high court application by Unisa’s council last Thursday, which interdicted Nzimande.

Strangely, management believes placing the institution under administration is not necessary and may only serve to harm the university.

It seems management is seeking to salvage whatever is left of their jobs at the expense of the institution’s progress.

What they are doing is preventing the minister from doing his job: restoring order at the university.

READ: Nzimande says courts being used to ‘curtail’ his executive authority

Currently, Unisa is faced with lazy management and absent workers, resulting in issues affecting the students not being addressed.

Some students claim their e-mails are not answered by lecturers and the Unisa website and student portal are often down, especially when they need to submit assignments or exam scripts.

It was also claimed that many assignments were either unmarked or lost, while some students wrote exams without knowing their assignment marks.

All these challenges made it hard for students to have a smooth ride with their studies.

Yet the Unisa management seems unbothered by this and hasn’t shown any means towards taking concrete steps in addressing these challenges.

They seem to be doing their best to instil fear in the students.

They claim that once Unisa is placed under administration, the students’ qualifications will be worthless, the institution will lose its credibility and students’ studies will be disrupted.

However, honestly speaking, what do they base this conclusion on?

This is false propaganda that should not be entertained at all. We shouldn’t be allowed to be distracted from the main reason of why Nzimande is calling for Unisa to be placed under administration.

READ: Nzimande interdicted from placing Unisa under administration

His aims are to directly confront the problems that Unisa is grappling with. He must be given space to stabilise the institution before it reaches a point of ruin that cannot be reversed.

Nothing seems to be functional at Unisa as we speak. Therefore, administrators cannot make the situation any worse, but there is a high possibility that they can make things much better.

Their job is to turnaround the institution to the state it deserves to be in.

The minister must be resolute in his decision because this step is and will be the only light that Unisa has so desperately needed.

Because if Nzimande expects Unisa’s vice-chancellor, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, and council chair James Maboe to resolve these challenges, the integrity of the institution will be in jeopardy.

It is high time that Unisa be put first by its management. For failure to do so, the reputation of the institution will take the biggest hit.

Nzimande’s decision is correct under these circumstances and Unisa’s management should accept the decision.

They should stop being self-driven and allow what is necessary to restore the stature of Unisa to prevail.