Rise and fall of Fort Hare

Kader Asmal could usefully begin his labours as education minister by considering the education of Nelson Mandela. Anthony Sampson’s recent biography of Mandela begins by tracing its hero through his Methodist mission school education at Clarkebury, a few miles from the Great Place of the Tembu kings. Clarkebury did Mandela proud. By the time he finished there the school had grown to include a teacher training college, workshops, hostels, a sports field and tennis courts.

When Sampson visited it he found that, “Today it presents a tragic vista of crumbling buildings, collapsed roofs and gutted schoolrooms, burnt down by pupils rioting against the Transkei Bantustan government.” Sampson then follows Mandela through to the even better Methodist mission school at Healdtown. “Today”, Sampson records, “the school is largely ruined. The handsome central block, with its picturesque clock tower, has been restored and, sponsored by Coca Cola, revived as the comprehensive high school; but most of the schoolrooms and houses are empty shells with smashed windows, rusty roofs and overgrown gardens.”

From Healdtown Mandela went on to Fort Hare, then at its apogee under its first principal, Alexander Kerr, a strict and austere Scot of equally Methodist bent. Kerr insisted on economy in all things (starting with a spartan diet for the students) scholarly rigour, firmly non-racial, liberal values and, above all, he passionately insisted that all students must be thoroughly grounded in Shakespeare. It worked: this was the great era of Fort Hare — of the first black professors such as the great Jilli Jabavu and Z.K. Matthews and of students of the calibre of Oliver Tambo.

Sampson does not say what happened to Fort Hare later. This picture has been provided by the former vice chancellor of the University of Cape Town, Professor S.J. Saunders who, at the behest of the education ministry, reported on the state of Fort Hare earlier this year. The following extracts from his report reveal that it is a very sorry state.

“Matters came to a head when the Interim Transformation Forum called for the suspension of the vice-chancellor, the deputy vice-chancellor academic, the registrar and the council, following on the failure to pay salaries in a timely fashion in December (1998) and January, and the withholding of payments deducted from salaries and wages to the Receiver of Revenue and other parties. This followed on the increase in the deficit at the end of December from an expected R13.8 million to a deficit of R46.8 million . . .

“The vice-chancellor of the university is Professor Mbulelo V. Mzamane, appointed in 1994. The vice-chancellor is a gregarious, outward-going person whose appointment gave rise to great expectation in the university as a whole. Unfortunately he has become the subject of serious criticism from virtually all sectors of the university. He is away from the campus for a great deal of the time. The reasons for his absence are unknown to the university community; some believe that he spends most of his time fund-raising, but he has not been responsible for any new funds accruing to the Fort Hare Foundation . . .

“There are widespread allegations that he interferes with and cuts across proper procedures and makes inappropriate changes to decisions which have been taken using the correct procedures. A significant number of those interviewed alleged that there was inappropriate involvement by the vice-chancellor in the approval of staff to go on the staff development programme (study and research leave) and that some academic appointments were made without advertisement or interview and without the departments being involved. There are widespread allegations that the committees of the university are dysfunctional and that the vice-chancellor is away so much that most committee meetings, of which he is a member or chairs, do not take place. There are allegations of his failure to deal properly with grievances procedures which (in part) lead to litigation, and there is a number of cases pending against the university . . . There is general agreement that he fails to communicate with the university . . .

“The vice-chancellor told me that he does not see it as his responsibility to communicate. He is criticised for saying ‘I am not a finance man’, when questioned about the financial state of the university. Documents circulating in the university show that the university is paying for 75 per cent of the academic fees plus a 75 per cent residence subsidy for the vice-chancellor’s daughter in Boston, USA . . .

“Also circulating widely on campus is correspondence relating to the payment of funds for student bursaries into the vice-chancellor’s personal bank account . . . There is evidence of over catering for functions hosted by the vice-chancellor. A farewell party on 25 September 1998 involved an invoice reflecting R15,723.13 for ‘drinks’ . . .

“The deputy vice-chancellor (academic) is Professor T. M. V. Maqashalala. It is common cause that the relationship between the vice-chancellor and the deputy vice-chancellor (academic) is not good and there is very little communication between them . . .

“Taken together, there is a lack of collective leadership in the university, allegations of a failure to follow procedure, an undercutting of middle management, both in the academic and the administrative sector, which most feel have had serious consequences for the university . . .

“There is a serious loss of morale among the academic staff. The majority of deans and heads of department feel they are not backed up by top management with respect to absenteeism, overpayment of staff when on leave and in other matters. The average academic member of staff works two and a half days a week. Some of those who do come to the campus, do no work at all. Very little research is undertaken and there is poor personnel and institutional discipline . . . The entire computer science department has resigned. There is hardly any support for academic development programmes . . .

“Morale is equally poor among the administrative staff and here again absenteeism is an important feature and there is very poor discipline . . .

“Staff development, i.e. study and sabbatical leave, has been liberally granted in the last few years. Astonishingly, some members of staff have had this privilege for up to five years on full pay. A number have had the privilege for two and three years and a significant number do not return to the university and suffer no penalty, which they should suffer in terms of contractual arrangements. In addition, some members of staff on study leave and sabbatical continue to receive their transport allowance despite the fact that they are not in the country, and this has been repeatedly brought to the attention of those responsible, but without any action being taken. It is possible that these staff receive R500 per month for ‘meals’, as do other academic staff at the University of Fort Hare, even when they are out of the country . . .

“There are ‘ghost’ employees in the university . . . a sample of 200 employees audited, demonstrated that 10 had no authority for salaries, seven no authority for houses and one no authority for a transport allowance. A full report was to go to the next council meeting, but that did not occur. The minutes also reveal that there was no control over drivers’ overtime pay, that there were discrepancies in the petrol account . . . In 1996, the audit committee reported that the University of Fort Hare should “crack down on corruption” which was occurring on a ‘wide scale’ . . . The minutes also note that some staff leave the campus at lunch time and that some are paid while being absent without approval . . .
“In 1998, two academic members of staff were paid for the whole year: one did not come to the campus at all and the other spent only three hours on the campus. No action was taken. There is a record of a member of staff being on sick leave on full pay for a year . . .

“The university has an agreement with Vodacom and all members of staff have mobile telephones . . . Some members of staff owe money to the university when they resign, but despite the policy which should be enforced to recover this money from the pension money due to them, frequently this does not occur . . .

“Very few of the university cars are functioning and yet there are nine drivers, many of whom are paid overtime . . . The most lucrative posts in the university in 1998 were said to be the drivers and herders of goats on the experimental farm because, in the nature of things, herders of goats have to work early in the morning and late at night and over the weekend and therefore are in a position to claim large amounts of overtime . . .

“There is no internal audit function. The council has been looking at this matter for some months, but no action has been taken and the only person in that department is a very junior one who is referred to by some members of staff as “Mr Corridor” because he seems to spend all his time there and it seems that the function is really non-existent . . .

“The executive committee of council approved an amount of R420,320 for a concert at which Miriam Makeba was to appear. There was an idea that the funds could be recouped from the SABC, but no such funds have been recouped to date. At the same meeting, the committee was informed of R4.2 million unauthorised overspending . . .

“The retrenchment of 938 workers in 1997 caused great tension with the unions . . . and the consequences of that action have persisted. The vice-chancellor and the registrar have been singled out in this regard and have been threatened, and special security measures were taken by the university . . . which included surrounding the administration building with razor wire and employing burly, well armed security guards. The registrar has been continuously protected by security guards from that time. He receives security comparable to a head of state in his journeys between the campus and his home . . . Allegations have been made that he has been subject to death threats. There is a guard at night on the vice-chancellor’s residence . . .

“The university did experience in the recent past frog-marching of the deputy registrar (academic) off the campus by the unions. He didn’t return and eventually was paid out R398,000. There are allegations that the unions “gang up” against administrative appointments and unduly influence these matters, including some academic appointments. The unions are improperly over-represented on a number of university committees, including selection committees and the interim institutional forum . . .

“When I met with the interim transformation forum, of the 21 people there whose constituencies I could identify, 11 represented trade unions, three were academics and four were students. It is clear that this is not in conformity with what is intended in the legislation . . .

“In January 1999, when again there was a three-day delay in paying salaries, and the deductions were not paid over, the staff were not informed that the pay run was to be delayed, nor were they informed that the deductions were not being paid over. The vice-chancellor was to go overseas in November, but was prevented from doing so by the deputy vice-chancellor (finance) who pointed out to him how serious the financial position had become, but the vice-chancellor did go overseas a few days before the salary crises in December and it was left to the chairperson of council and other members of management to deal with the problem . . .

“Rumours abound on the Fort Hare campus. I was told of murders, some used the word assassinations, and there is undoubtedly a great deal of insecurity.”

Thus in the 1930s it was possible for a young Tembu chief like Mandela, brought up in rural poverty, to graduate from Clarkebury to Healdtown to Fort Hare and end up sufficiently well educated to become first a lawyer and later a distinguished president of his country. In the 1990s these avenues do not exist for young Transkeians, even if they are of chiefly stock. Sixty years on things have gone backwards to the extent that we are not able to educate the Mandelas and Tambos in our midst.

After Saunders presented his report to the education ministry, the vice-chancellor and two senior colleagues were asked to go on six-months leave while corruption at the university is investigated. The apparent moral for Asmal is that he should invite back as many Scottish Methodist missionaries as he can find or, failing that, that he should at least insist that their economy, austerity, rigour and liberal values should still be central to our education system today. That, after all, was what worked; what came after did not.