DE LA FISCALÍA GENERAL DEL ESTADO DE OAXACA

NMMU, a comprehensive university was formed in 2005 as a direct result of the ongoing transformation in SA’s HE sector and the 2001 NPHE which outlined the rationalisation of the sector in the form of mergers (Pinheiro, 2010). NMMU is a merger of two universities, the University of Port Elizabeth and Vista University, and a technikon, Port Elizabeth Technikon. A brief historical overview of the three institutions is given and then the current mission of NMMU is discussed.

The University of Port Elizabeth was established in 1964. The Afrikaner- Broederbond was responsible for creating this university (O’Malley, n.d.). The Afrikaner Broederbond refers to a nationalist SA movement that influenced political processes in the apartheid years. Conservative English and Afrikaans universities largely supported the Nationalist Party’s segregationist policies. The University of Port Elizabeth was a dual-medium (English and Afrikaans) Whites-only university. The language policy was a way of including conservative English-speaking White South Africans (Bunting, 2002).

Vista University was one of several multi-campus universities established in 1981 and situated in urban Black townships across South Africa. The rationale behind Vista University was to keep Black students off White campuses and in Black townships, while readying them for limited skilled labour. Their mission was to train Black students to be useful to the apartheid state (Bunting, 2002). Vista was an eight campus institution with a central office in Pretoria.

Port Elizabeth Technikon, founded in 1882, was a conservative institution that supported the policies of the nationalist government. It was an all-white institution and even up until 1990, 89% of its student body was White (Bunting, 2002). The technikon’s educational mission was providing vocational training for White South

Africans.

The rationale behind the merger of the University of Port Elizabeth, Port Elizabeth Technikon and Vista University was to strengthen education provision in what was seen as a limited catchment area. Programme offerings complemented each other; there were also significant differences which could give NMMU greater scope, offering access to a wider range of students and meeting a greater variety of vocational needs (DOE, 2002). Furthermore, it was believed that:

Rationalisation in undergraduate diplomas and certificates was possible; A consolidated endeavour to develop as research culture could be productive; adjacent campuses allowed the possibility of shared infrastructural and administrative resources. The incorporation of the Port Elizabeth campus of Vista University would help to integrate students from different backgrounds and provide a presence in a disadvantaged community (Gillard, Saunders, Terblanche and Sukel, 2012: 15).

Perceptions prior to the merger in the three institutions revealed concerns about the balance of vocational and academic programmes, funding for students and possible retrenchments in the merged institution. The management of the University of Port Elizabeth felt that they had transformed since their Broederbond days and were providing a quality education (Portfolio Committee on Education, 2004). Though publicly it was said that all three institutions were going in as equal partners, Vista felt it was being swallowed up by the two larger institutions (Portfolio Committee on Education, 2004). This was because going into the merger were two well-resourced historically White institutions and one disadvantaged historically Black institution. Lack of funding for needy students and a high failure rate were particular concerns at Vista (Portfolio Committee on Education, 2004). Furthermore, some stakeholders at the university and technikon foresaw increasing tension between the different academic cultures of the university and the technikon. The initial incorporation of academic programmes at the NMMU was the offering of university type and technikon type programmes with separate admission requirements as this was seen to have minimal disruption of academic activities (Ogude, 2005). The ultimate vision was for broadened access with opportunities for horizontal and vertical movement between qualifications (Ogude, 2005). However, because the HEQF framework for articulation had been unclear, this remained

uneven, as will be seen later in the discussion of articulation in the PMA programmes.

NMMU has identified, among its strategic priorities to be achieved by 2020, the need to “Determine the academic size and shape of NMMU in a manner that optimises our strategic niche as a comprehensive university and responds toregional, national and global development needs” (Vision2020, 2010: 25). In addition, to “Design and implement a range of access routes as well as progressionand articulation strategies and pathways between qualification types to enhancestudent access and progression” (Vision 2020, 2010: 27). These priorities speak to market needs and articulation between programmes and, as noted before, the second strategic priority has been impeded by a lack of clarity on articulation in the PQM.

Despite the seemingly clear outline of its priorities, a recommendation by the Higher Education Quality Committee Audit Report on NMMU (CHE, 2009) was for an institution wide debate on the nature of its comprehensive identity as there was found to be a lack of clarity of its understandings of its institutional type. This could be interpreted as an institution still grappling with its academic identity.

In response, NMMU stated that organisational, governance and human resource demands were initially strengthened and that since 2007, the focus had shifted to institutional identity and that its Vision 2020 process provided ways of conceptualising its academic identity (NMMU Institutional Audit improvement plan, 2010). Especially pertinent to this study, one of Vision 2020’s eight strategies priorities was the development of an integrated strategic academic plan namely, that “NMMU will adopt a distinctive knowledge paradigm”10 (2010: 21) characterised by a critical, liberating and social justice discourse.

The NMMU vision 2020 statement outlines its comprehensive institutional type as “situated in an … integrative paradigm (that) purposively strives to achieve a connectedness between the knowledge domains in which the university operates, as well as between itself and the communities that it serves” (2010: vi). Furthermore, student mobility and flexibility are said to be enhanced as qualifications have many

10 _{Section 2.5.3 in this chapter critiques notions of disciplinary knowledge as defined by paradigms} and questions their continued relevance in current HE institutions.

entry and exit points with vertical and horizontal articulation pathways between various qualification types at different levels of the HEQF (Vision 2020, 2010). However, Moeng (2009), in her study on the meanings that academics assign to the notion of a comprehensive university, concurs with the CHE (2009) report finding that among NMMU academics there is a lack of a common understanding of the term comprehensive university and that the term is shifting and intangible.

Stakeholders at NMMU indicate that this new university model has the potential to offer “unparalleled opportunities in linking more vocational (applied) type of instruction and scholarship with that of more traditional (theoretical) means” (Pinheiro, 2010: 18). So too, Foxcroft argues that, “The range of programme and articulation options… has the potential to create multiple entryways and learning pathways for applicants, resulting in increased access opportunities” (2009: 2).

Moeng finds that while 66,7% of academics view the comprehensive university as offering “access to a wider range of university and technikon programmes, with articulation between degrees and diplomas” (2009: 222), 61,2 % of academics felt that some current programmes had not changed. Academics from the ex-PE Technikon feel that ex-Technikon programmes are marginalised and the implication is that students are not offered “a sufficiently wide scope of potential programmes to choose from, career pathways and career opportunities are reduced and thus articulation possibilities between diplomas and degrees are limited “ (Moeng 2009: 326). This 2009 study supports what the Green Paper for Post-School Education and Training (2012) acknowledges about the lack of success of the articulation between qualifications.

With regard to attainment of the NPHE’s (2001) goals of equity of access and participation at NMMU, Black African students were found to have the least chances of success and NMMU was encouraged by the Higher Education Quality Committee to look into its foundation programmes to improve participation (CHE, 2009). Though 60,7% of students registered were Black African at NMMU, success remains racially differentiated and more males than females were registered (CHE, 2009).