JSE-listed Stadio and AdvTech, which own tertiary institutions and offer courses accredited under the same system as public universities, want to be able to call themselves universities to help them compete better and assist graduates in job hunting.
Public universities and private higher education institution qualifications are evaluated, registered and accredited by the Council on Higher Education and the SA Qualifications Authority (Saqa).
But private institutes cannot use the name “university”, and they say this is an “artificial barrier” that gives a false perception that they have lower quality courses.
AdvTech’s Tertiary division offers 210 accredited courses from higher certificates to doctorates to 47,539 tertiary students.
Its institutes include Independent Institute of Education (IIE) Varsity College, IIE Vega, IIE Rosebank College, and the IIE School of Hospitality & Service Management.
Stadio, whose stated aim is to compete with Unisa, had 38,362 students at the end of 2021 and offers qualifications in film, IT, law and policing, media, design, commerce, architecture and education, with engineering and humanities faculties to be added soon.
The desire for the name “university” in part comes from the former exclusion of a law graduate from the profession.
In 2020 the Law Society of SA and the Law Society of KwaZulu-Natal argued a student with an accredited four-year law degree from an AdvTech institution could not register as a lawyer as they had not attended “a university”. The matter was resolved in court with the Constitutional Court ruling that deciding the institute was not a university in this case gave rise “to an absurdity and injustice”.
It, however, alerted AdvTech to the fact that graduates could face similar challenges in professions that require statutory recognition.
Previously, private higher education institutions could not call themselves universities, but a law in 2017 required minister of higher education Blade Nzimande to write regulations to determine the criteria for recognition as one.
When he failed to do so, AdvTech approached him in 2019 and asked for the criteria, but their engagement failed and they took the minister to court.
AdvTech won an order in May forcing him to publish draft criteria by no later than August 17, with the draft published 10 days before the cut-off date.
The department, in a statement, said the draft was released as a result of “an extensive research and consultative process” that began in 2018.
Both Stadio and AdvTech say the new draft criteria that proposes the process to become a university, try to clone unfunded private universities into public ones, rather than recognising them as unique institutions.
“Regrettably, the recently released draft criteria do not remedy the situation, but rather are set to exacerbate it,” AdvTech told Business Day.
The draft policy creates three categories: a higher education college with an undergraduate and skills-based focus with limited research, a university college that is transitioning to a university and a university.
It was out for comment until last month.
Universities have the most stringent requirements and must offer teaching, research and community engagement. The draft states they must possess extensive research capabilities across a broad range of areas and be focused on postgraduate and doctorate graduates.
Concerns were raised at a University SA event that certain existing public universities would not qualify as they do not produce enough post graduates.
‘University college’
If a private institution wants to become a university it must first become a “university college” and be mentored by a university under trustees in a process that can take a decade.
The trusteeship approach and lengthy time frame has met resistance from both Stadio and AdvTech in their comments on the policy.
“Numerous challenges arise from this condition, including that a state university would then be enabling and creating a competitor. What would be the incentive for a university to do this?” AdvTech asks.
AdvTech also pointed out that some state universities face performance, governance and management challenges, raising questions about their suitability to appoint trustees to mentor private universities.
Chief academic officer at Stadio Divya Singh said the university criteria requires an intense focus on research, which should not be expected of private institutions, “given that they do not receive any state subsidy for research”.
“Instead of being as narrowly prescriptive with a one-size-fits-all, as the draft is, the department should benchmark and learn from good practices” she said, citing Australia, Botswana, India and Egypt, that allow private universities with different strengths.
AdvTech CEO Roy Douglas said: “It is the right of a prospective student to have a choice of what they will study and where, and equal opportunities should not be jeopardised by false perceptions when the institutions are equal in all but name.”
However, according to its website, at a University SA event, Mahlubi Mabizela, chief director responsible for higher education policy and research support, said the policy was not in response to a private institution being unhappy with restrictions on using the name university.
He also explained that the prohibition was a result of “bogus” colleges in the late 1990s claiming to be universities.
In response to criticism of the draft, department of higher education & training spokesperson Ishmael Mnisi said: “The draft policy has been published for public comment and we are yet to determine if what it proposes is not acceptable.”
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