Ahmed Bawa:

Porous interface

between university and community

(Maandblad Zuid-Afrika, September 2015)

Durban University of Technology maintains strong ties with the local community. And with special care for life outside the class room, staff members hope to prepare their students for all that lies ahead.

Professor Ahmed Bawa was inaugurated as vice-chancellor and principal of Durban University of Technology (DUT) in September 2010. ‘I thought I had a good idea of what a South African university was,’ he says, looking back. ‘But over the past five years I learnt that we are still discovering what a South African university should be. It is a process, and we do not yet know what the outcome will be.’

Before coming to DUT, Bawa was a faculty member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Hunter College and a member of the doctoral faculty at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Previously, for about nine years, he held the position of deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Natal and subsequently at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Ahmed Bawa holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Durham, in the United Kingdom.

Recently, his sojourn as vice-chancellor and principal of Durban University of Technology was extended with a second and final period of five years, until 2020. With all his experience, both in South Africa and internationally, Bawa is aware of the fact that the character of each of South Africa’s 26 universities is different and determined by unique historical, socio-economical, and geographical circumstances.

Interwoven relationship

Bawa’s own university, DUT, was formed in 2002 when Technikon Natal and ML Sultan Technikon merged, and was previously known as the Durban Institute of Technology. DUT has five campuses in Durban and two in Pietermaritzburg. Because of its origins as a technikon, DUT has always had strong ties with local businesses and industries. Today, DUT still values work-integrated learning, especially in fields like engineering and applied sciences. Therefore, the university has recently strengthened the industrial advisory boards for each of its 57 departments.

DUT also has strong ties with other parts of local society. In general, Bawa favours the idea of what he calls ‘porous’ interfaces between the university and the community. Take the Imbali Education Precinct, for instance, a cooperative project of one of the Pietermaritzburg campuses with a range of other institutions in the vicinity, like a Further Education and Training College, two high schools, a number of primary schools, a special needs school, early childhood development facilities, and various clinics. ‘This will allow us a much more interwoven relationship between the university and the schools,’ says Bawa. The university will ensure that every teacher in the precinct is qualified and that teachers have opportunities for further study. High school students can experience what university life is like. And the school of education will use the local schools as a place for research and engagement, while education students can do their practical training there.

DUT has similar plans for the creation of a community college on campus, for cooperation between the Health Faculty and a nearby clinic, as well as a sports project. ‘In general,’ Bawa says, ‘reflection upon the possible role of the university within the community has provided the university council with interesting ideas of what the future of this university should be, and shaping it in a completely unique, local direction, which will distinguish it from other South African universities.’

Second curriculum

Like all South African universities, DUT is confronted with the results of a largely dysfunctional secondary school system. For 2015, the university could accommodate about 7 100 new students – against 91 000 applications. ‘The vast majority of these students weren’t really ready for university education,’ Bawa contends. ‘The huge challenge we face is to try and understand how, within a period of three years, you can start making up some of the deficits.’ Bawa recalls a meeting he had with the first year students of 2011. ‘There were 6 500 of them, in different groups, and I asked them: “How many of you have read anything by Zakes Mda?” Six thousand five hundred students and not a single hand went up. I was shocked.’ Bawa and his staff, therefore, decided to devote 30% of the curriculum to a general and more ‘rounded’ education. Apart from essential skills like essay writing, public presentations, and maths, these general education courses also encourage students to reflect upon social, cultural, and ethical questions.

Apart from this, DUT pays much attention to the so-called ‘second curriculum’, the space where each student does most of his learning: outside the class room. These living and learning conditions fill Ahmed Bawa with grave concern, especially since for many young students, coming to DUT is their first experience of city life. ‘Many of them come from rural backgrounds,’ he says, ‘while the university campus is in a typical South African inner-city environment, and that is a tough environment.’ Through elaborate mentoring, both by staff members and post graduate students, the university helps the students navigate their new circumstances, giving them a chance to succeed. ‘But with all the challenges of HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, and violence, we can only protect them up to a point,’ Bawa admits. ‘The second curriculum is about life skills. Our message is: we are going to help you to protect yourself, but you are going to have to protect yourself.’ Bawa adds, ‘It is never enough though.’ With the most recent outbreak of xenophobic violence, in May 2015, some of DUT’s over 1 000 students from other parts of Africa were targeted too. Bawa: ‘It was quite easy to secure them while they were on campus, but when they are outside of campus, it is very difficult.’

Many DUT students come from poor backgrounds. A little over 30% receive financial aid, which means their families have no income at all. Supporting these students costs ZAR 300 to 400 million per year. Some of this money comes from government, some from alumni and other donors. But this too is ‘just scratching the surface,’ Bawa admits. However, Bawa is also concerned about students who allegedly come from a middle class family, earning just enough so they do not qualify for financial aid. ‘They have to save, try to get loans, and that makes them very vulnerable.’ At the beginning of each year, the university is confronted with aspiring students for whom there simply is no financial aid. DUT is not a wealthy university and must itself be careful not to fall into debt. The fact that the national government has allocated more money for financial aid has brought some relief. According to Bawa, the national Department of Higher Education and Training is very supportive in providing opportunities for access. What worries him, however, is the decline in subsidy per student. ‘The overall budget is growing, but that is because the size of the system is increasing. It is just a matter of time before the decline in subsidy per student will begin to have a negative impact. For a university like ours that is detrimental.’

Language policy

DUT is an English medium university. Not all staff members are proficient in isiZulu, and it would be very expensive to offer parallel medium classes in both English and isiZulu. But outside the classes, attempts are being made to integrate isiZulu into the functioning of the university. During all formal functions, for instance, like the graduation ceremonies, translation is available.

At the residences, students from a non-English speaking background can seek the help of a tutor – a senior student – with the same mother tongue. Also, DUT has a growing number of staff members who are proficient in both English and isiZulu, so that the students can engage them in their own language. Thirdly, the students get academic English courses as part of their general education, and there are writing centres on campus that can assist them when they need help writing a paper. All these amenities are provided for free. Bawa thinks there is still a long way to go before the university can run its academic program in isiZulu, because of the deficit in terminology. Nevertheless, he sees no harm in using isiZulu in the development of people’s ideas – as is already happening during the tutorials at the residences. ‘It is here,’ Bawa says, ‘where the second curriculum becomes really important.’

Local is global

‘Both research and teaching at DUT show a strong interest in elements drawn from the local context,’ says Bawa. An example is a research project by DUT’s Department of Biotechnology into the use of fermentation in the preparation of food over the last hundred years in Zulu culture. After Bawa negotiated with the local chief, about fifty students went into the community and collected data among four generations of women. For this project, it was vital that the students could speak isiZulu. Afterwards, the students and the lecturer replicated the old practices in the laboratory. ‘Work like this provides us with the opportunity to tell the people out there that knowledge resident in the communities is extremely important, and that we’d like to get at it and that we’d like them to be a part of our research projects,’ Bawa says. Shortly after the results of the fermentation project were published, the biotechnology department received an email from China, where researchers were working on a similar project. Bawa: ‘It was a wonderful validation of the knowledge based in the communities, both here and there, to be able to bring them together.’

Unlike the University of Cape Town, for example, the staff at DUT is predominantly non-white. However, the DUT staff does show an overrepresentation of people of Indian descent. Bawa: ‘That is a big issue for us, because the majority of our students are isiZulu speakers. So we deliberately try to get more African people on our staff.’ This is done by identifying talented students and junior staff members and providing them with the opportunity to do a Master’s or a PhD. What also helps, according to Bawa, is the presence of senior lecturers from other African countries. They function as role models for their students. Already, Bawa sees more young South Africans taking an interest in an academic career. ‘I think if you were to come back in ten years, you’d find that there will be many more Africans of South African origin in academic positions.’

With regards to international collaboration, over the last ten years Bawa has noticed a shift towards Africa, Latin America, and Asia, especially India and China. Although Bawa still values the interaction with Europe and North America, he is also excited about the new perspectives opening up. ‘Suddenly you’re dealing with science systems where the big challenges are not really that different from our own.’ The Chinese interest in the fermentation project is a case in point. ‘Isn’t it fascinating that in China too, scientists are unearthing community-based knowledge? Apparently, there is a universal need for us to go back and focus on the kinds of histories embedded there. As we become more intensely local, we are also becoming more intensely global.’