South African History Online

Speech at the Installation of Professor Melck

University of South Africa 29 March 1999

Mister Chancellor
Chairperson and Members of Council
Members of the
University
Distinguished Guests

It is a special privilege to return once more to address an audience at this
distinguished South African institution of higher learning. This time it is to
celebrate with you the successful conclusion of a long and inclusive process to
select and appoint the chief executive officer whose task it will be to lead the
university into the next century.

Allow me in the first place to extend our congratulations and best wishes to
Professor Anthony Melck. We are aware of your distinguished service to this
university both as academic and administrator. We in government had first hand
experience of your skills and wisdom when you served as Deputy Chairperson on
that very important organ for the regulation of inter-governmental relations,
the Financial and Fiscal Commission. We commend the University of South Africa
on its excellent choice, and more united to fulfil its mission and discharge its
duties to the country and society.

Establishing these processes at our universities presents a particular
challenge, one that is shared by some other sectors of our society. The
challenge revolves around the difficult task of changing and transforming
institutions, without in the process damaging those institutions or the quality
of the work that must continue within them. UNISA's experience teaches us that
we are making great progress into his regard, and that the vigour of reconciling
different positions and interests can be accommodated without compromising the
dignity and institutional coherence of the university.

Universities are amongst those institutions in which form is often as
important in establishing quality as content. Questions as to the dignity and
institutional coherence projected by a university are therefore becoming
increasingly important as we pass through the first phase of establishing our
institutions in our new democracy.

The general public with an interest in the universities is seldom in a
position to make judgements about the relative quality of research and teaching
at different institutions. What does reach it are perceptions about the
stability of institutions, the quality of management, and the general sense of
institutional commitment amongst the constituent parts of the university. It is
therefore important for staff and students, management and employees, to always
carefully consider the broader impact of any actions and statements taken or
made within or about their institutions.

The first phase of our democracy draws to an end as we prepare for the
election of a new government. This is a time for all of us, not only those in
the political sphere, to take stock and to evaluate our progress and
achievements as well as to plot the way ahead.

For government the first phase was to a large extent one of developing and
putting in place the policy and legislative framework required to abolish
apartheid's legacy and to start transforming our people's lives. Much has been
achieved in the delivery of services in these five years, and the lives of
millions have been changed by the access they have gained to such basic
amenities as primary health care, decent schooling, clean water, housing and
electricity.

Yet, much remains to be done, and we can truly say that these next five years
will mark a period of accelerated implementation and delivery.

That must also be that challenge to all our people and all sectors of our
society. No government can transform society on its own. That task calls for
partnership and commitment on the part of our people and all institutions.

The universities might themselves have found the first five years of
democracy a period for evaluating a changed environment and for planning and
repositioning themselves. It was understandably a time in which they had to wait
for, and then study the outcome of, the National Commission on Higher Education.
And there were new policies and pieces of legislation to be absorbed. Surely,
the period for implementation and delivery of quality services for which society
subsidises the universities, has now arrived.

International factors over which we had no control have obliged us to shift
the dates for the achievement of key economic targets relating to our economic
policy framework. That South Africa survived the turmoil in the international
financial markets better than most emerging economies, is in large part due the
determination with which we have stuck to our policies of financial and fiscal
discipline.

We shall therefore have to apply ourselves with even more discipline and
commitment to productivity in order to achieve the economic goals that will help
create more jobs and free up resources to deliver services to our people.

That is the context within which the universities must also do their
planning. This government has steadily increased the level of state
subsidisation of the universities. A simple appeal from universities for more
money would therefore be both misplaced in view of the level of subsidy, and
foolhardy given the well-known constraints of our economy.

What society would now be looking for from the universities and the
university system, are clear plans and indications of the part they see
themselves playing in the reconstruction and development of the country within
those constraints.

South Africa's economic development and our progress and a modern society
hinge crucially on the quality of education we can provide, as a matter of
urgency. As generators of new knowledge and as agencies for the transmission of
the pooled wealth of human knowledge, our universities are key to the survival
of our society in the form that we envisage and hope for.

There is nothing academic, in the bad sense of that word, in our call upon
the universities to be in the forefront of productive intellectual work as we
enter the new century. It is a matter of crucial importance for the quality of
life in our country.

We are confident that the University of South Africa will rise to the
challenges of the changed and changing times. You have a proud history of
distance education that stretches far beyond our borders. you have to resources
and the collective wisdom to adapt and to transform in order to continue to be a
leader in the 21st century.

We wish you well, Professor Melck. From the luxury of retirement I shall be
watching your progress and that of your institution.

Go well.