Manamela tells universities to fix their finances without losing their public purpose

Higher Education and Training Minister Buti Manamela has told South African universities to tighten their finances and governance while holding on to their public purpose, saying the two obligations cannot be traded against each other.

Speaking at the 4th Universities South Africa (USAf) Higher Education Conference at the CSIR Convention Centre on Wednesday, Manamela said a university that cannot pay its bills cannot do its job. But he said the opposite failure counts too.

“A university that balances its books, while losing its public purpose, has also failed,” he said.

The conference, held under the theme “Co-creating a Resilient Future”, brought together university leaders, academics, researchers, professional staff, students, labour representatives and international guests.

Manamela framed the future of higher education around three connected questions: how universities are financed, how they are governed, and what knowledge and human capability they build in a changing world. Public trust, he said, runs through all three and depends on the choices made about resources, power and knowledge.

On money, the Minister drew a line between student financing and institutional financing. The two are connected but not interchangeable, he said. Getting the National Student Financial Aid Scheme to work reliably is essential, but on its own it does not repair a laboratory, renew a library, support a research programme or reverse years of deferred maintenance.

“A funded student needs a functioning institution. A functioning institution needs students who can afford to learn. Our financing debate must hold both obligations together,” he said.

He warned against waste, saying every rand lost through poor procurement, unmanaged projects or decisions taken for private advantage cuts into what is available for teaching and research. He called for an honest account of the full cost of student success, including which costs are necessary for academic quality, which activities can be shared, and which arrangements persist only because nobody has been willing to change them.

Success should not be measured by enrolment alone, he said. The question is whether students learn, complete their studies and gain the capacity to contribute to society and build livelihoods.

On governance, Manamela reaffirmed university autonomy and academic freedom, saying universities must be able to produce evidence and arguments that government may find inconvenient. Councils, senates, executives, students and staff each carry distinct responsibilities that need clear boundaries and working relationships.

“When councils drift into daily management, executives evade oversight, or institutional disputes become contests over access to resources, the university loses time, money and credibility,” he said.

Accountability, he argued, should reach past the submission of documents to whether decisions are lawful, conflicts of interest are managed, concerns are heard and consequences follow misconduct.

The Minister also called for closer collaboration between government, universities, industry, communities, students and labour. Areas he named included shared infrastructure and services, research and student development partnerships, improved governance arrangements, and expanded work on shared computing resources, research networks and African language technologies.

“Co-creation becomes meaningful when each participant accepts obligations, as well as making demands,” he said.

The conference programme, the funding split between NSFAS and institutional budgets, and the specific governance arrangements Manamela referred to are not set out in the government’s summary of his address, which is the basis of this report. No resolutions, deadlines or follow-up meetings were announced in that summary.

Source: SAnews (South African Government News Agency), Universities urged to balance financial sustainability with public purpose, https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/universities-urged-balance-financial-sustainability-public-purpose