ENVISION 2030 will place DUT at the Cutting Edge of Higher Education – Khaye Nkwanyana

ENVISION 2030 will place DUT at the cutting edge of higher education

The announcement in September 2020 by the World University Rankings that the Durban University of Technology (DUT) is now one of the top five universities in South Africa and ranks among the best on the continent is truly exciting for people of KwaZulu-Natal.

This felicity is an important one in terms of the role that a university must play as a catalyst of skills revolution, economic development, research output and societal development in general, because institutions should remain the lodestars for our future. It would be shortsighted to attribute this improvement to Professor Thandwa Mthembu as a sitting ViceChancellor alone, because he came into an already stable environment from his predecessor, Professor Ahmed Bawa. However, it is important to note his particular leadership style, accompanied by a trajectory of far-reaching vision, since his arrival.

He instituted turnaround interventions, tempered with long-established business processes and broke free from old and lacklustre work processes despite initial resistance in some quarters. He is a shrewd Vice-Chancellor in the mould of a Chief Executive Officer in a big corporate company, with a line of sight in all aspects of the business. It also helps that he is a typical self-effacing rector while getting the job done; sometimes modesty can be a necessary boon in a demanding environment.

The major disruptions that Professor Mthembu has made since his arrival include ensuring quality in cutting-edge research by attracting various Chairs to enable researchers to continue punching above their weight. It is not surprising that DUT received so many citations. His biggest delivery is the ENVISION 2030, which was widely consulted. This vision re-imagines the University by 2030 and the milestones to be achieved in the immediate, medium and long term. Of course, it is not going to be a walk in the park to navigate that intractable minefield towards the end goal. All of these interventions account for a great deal in the seismic rise of the Institution.

Universities across the world are now, all of a sudden, confronted by the new post-COVID-19 impositions to the system. The post-COVID-19 environment is going to serve as a catalyst to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) impulses that were already invading the higher

Khaye Nkwanyana is the former Spokesperson for the Ministry of Higher Education and Training. He works for the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Competition. He is a graduate of the former ML Sultan Technikon, now DUT, and served as a member of the Executive Committee of Convocation.

education landscape, disrupting the old modus operandi before COVID-19.

The new normal means quick adaptability and making the best out of the new. Organisational changes will require higher learning institutions (HEIs) to break free from old bureaucracy in their response to change. The advent of undergraduate and postgraduate virtual lectures, for instance, in some categories is by no means a choice anymore. To embrace it comes with its own implications, ranging from financial to change management reorientation. In this context, as all HEIs across the world are agonising about, is the ability of the University to transition faster.

Another related issue is with regard to the much-vaunted new programmes that are occasioned by the advent of the new economies within the context of the 4IR, the post-COVID-19 economy and the entrenchment of a just-transition outlook of the future economy.

This new economic universe is unfortunately rendering obsolete some of the known professions and, consequently, the corresponding programmes offered by universities. A lot of market research is needed to ensure that young people are channelled into these new niche areas of training and that institutions find qualified academics in those areas who will not perform lip service in teaching them.

This transitional environment can be a golden age for those institutions so aptly prepared and agile as to be the earliest birds to catch the fattest worm. But equally, this environment and its fluidity can become fatal in the pursuit of achieving premier university status. In this context, programme reviews and the introduction of new skills that industries and modern economy need is a sine qua non.

The Human Resources Council (HRC), chaired by the Deputy President and managed by the Higher Education and Training Minister, has done a lot of work around skill pipelines in terms of their market supply and demand, and those course offerings that HEIs must increase their throughput in order to satisfy the market demands. However, there is a need for new market research that will consider today’s new skillset demands to which HEIs must respond. I have no qualms about the capabilities of my alma mater in terms of seizing the moment and galloping forth like all the best institutions in the country and the world to turn this era into its golden age.

The HEIs that will emerge are those that will swiftly react to and embrace this new mutational reality without attempting to halt it. Slowness and an old, conservative academic ‘red tape’ approach towards change will result in them being pushed to the end of the queue as time is not on their side.

I have no qualms about the capabilities of my alma mater in terms of seizing the moment and galloping forth like all the best institutions in the country and the world to turn this era into its golden age. The community of DUT will have to look at the bigger picture, unite, support the vision and pull in the same direction from all constituent bodies – from the academic side to supporting staff and unions. ENVISION 2030 must be a point of entry and departure to the entire community of the University and be internalised, even by student bodies.