Itumeleng Mafisa
Pretoria - Unisa has in the past two years been working towards stemming the tide against some of the niggling issues, the university has said.
The university has been embroiled in a series of maladministration scandals after the recent Independent Assessor report, which painted a bleak state of affairs at the institution.
However, the institution said it had been doing well, and pointed to its marked improvement in the Times Higher Education University Rankings.
In the rankings, Unisa has shown a marked performance improvement directly linked to the university mandate of research, teaching, and learning.
In its latest Best Global Universities rankings, the authoritative publication US News World Report placed the embattled Unisa among the top 10 higher education institutions in South Africa, and the top 900 globally.
The ranking also placed Unisa’s engineering disciplines across the board in joint first place in South Africa.
These rankings indicate that the university continues to improve its research, teaching and learning position, as well as its global impact.
In the two years of her reign, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Puleng LenkaBula has managed to raise the academic standard of the institution.
While the assessor’s report was scathing against her, it dates back to systemic issues from as far back as 2016. In two years, it would be difficult to apportion the blame for the institution’s collapse on her.
As the assessor’s report reveals, the “Ministerial Task Team Report concludes that the council is the root cause of the problems at the university and recommended its dissolution, based on a number of observations.” The report was released in 2021.
The assessor correctly points out that his report confirms most of the findings of the Ministerial Task Team, however, the Department of Higher Education did not give a directive to implement the recommendation.
The past two years of LenkaBula’s tenure have been marked with various investigations. To a degree, she had little if no time to focus on taking the institution forward.
This assertion on the real performance of the current vice-chancellor who has been slammed for her expensive taste following the assessor report, is also backed by the improvement in the Times Higher Education rankings from 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Last year, the Times Higher Education announced the result of its rankings, which includes institutions in countries or regions classified by the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE Group as “Advanced Emerging”, “Secondary Emerging” or “Frontier”. Major countries in this group include mainland China, Russia, India and Pakistan.
Unisa was one of only 11 South African universities to make the Emerging Economies University Rankings 2022. It features in the segment 201–250, up from the 251–300 segment in 2021.
Philip van der Merwe, editor in the Department of Institutional Advancement at Unisa, said since taking over the reins in January 2021, LenkaBula has introduced a number of interventions that have yielded multiple improvements.
He said one of these has improved compliance with the Department of Higher Education and Training’s enrollment management agreement with the institution for the first time in over six years.
“Given that a record 698 universities from 50 countries and regions were evaluated, the university is proud of its ranking and its significant upward movement compared to 2021,” said LenkaBula in a Unisa communication portal.
“It is significant that the Emerging Economies University Rankings uses the same performance indicators as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, measuring teaching, research, research impact, industry income and international outlook. This is a clear indication that Unisa is on the right path as an engaged university practising engaged scholarship of undeniable quality as measured against global standards,” she said.
Phil Baty, Times Higher Education World University Rankings’ chief knowledge officer, said Unisa had a difficult 18 months to contend with, but added it was turning the corner.
“After what has been an extremely challenging 18 months for many, I am confident universities from emerging economies have the strength and quality to adapt to a new, hybrid way of teaching and learning. I am looking forward to seeing how their higher education systems prosper from the opportunities that arise, both internally and on an international scale,” Baty said.
Pretoria News