THE Cape Peninsula University of Technology has recently become the fourth university in the last year or two to go into administration and recent reports in the press indicate that another university in Gauteng is about to suffer the same fate. The burning question is how is it possible for institutions of higher learning to suffer such ignominy?
I believe one of the reasons is that these institutions, many of whom have budgets of several billion rands, are run by academics who have little or no knowledge of governance and financial matters generally. Given the dearth of quality students and the need to train students who can be readily employed rather than hundreds of thousands of students with qualifications in the humanities who are jobless, the managerial abilities of universities are going to be severely tested in the near future.
David Rosenberg, associate professor, department of accounting, Rhodes University
Letters
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