Classrooms: The New 'Killing Fields'
The phrase "killing fields" evokes gory images of wanton mass murders.
North of the Limpopo River it could refer to Rwanda, once scene of a mindless ethnic genocide that almost wiped out the country's entire population in the 1990s.
In the Middle East it could be the disputed territories where Palestinians are, at the slightest provocation, being killed and maimed by Israeli forces.
Here at home the phrase could describe Vlakplaas and other murderous places, where black people's brains were blown up by racial supremacists while they enjoyed their brandy and Coke.
It could also refer to places in KwaZulu-Natal and on Gauteng's East Rand, where some political leaders once demonstrated their unquestionable thirst for blood rather than a democratic dispensation.
Or, it could be Iraq and Afghanistan, where George Bush's "war on terror" found bloody expression.
It is in this context that I felt a chill in my spine when I read about the new meaning of the phrase in relation to our universities.
A bit of background would be appropriate. Soon after he was appointed Higher Education and Training Minister, Blade Nzimande commissioned an important study on the role of humanities and social sciences in society.
Nzimande's concern was that the influence of humanities and social sciences on society offered by our universities was declining.
He put it as follows: "It is clear to anyone who is a public social or political activist that humanities and social sciences in the post-1994 period are playing a less prominent role in the lives of students, guiding their thinking about the crucial issues that face them."
And so Nzimande cobbled together a group of academics to draw up a charter of humanities and social sciences in a bid to elevate this field of academia or at least arrest its decline.
The academics produced a rather unimpressive report, one that you would least expect from esteemed researchers, especially on such a crucial assignment.
The academics should be ashamed to have put together a report that, in addition to it being poorly written, lacks depth and comparative analysis.
I couldn't help but wonder how much Nzimande paid them.
Be that as it may, what drew my attention in the report, completed in June and circulated by Nzimande to the media recently, is the new meaning of the phrase "killing fields".
According to the report the phrase is a graphic description of, among other things, the high rate of failures among first-year university students.
The report states: "So the real crisis point in our entire (humanities and social sciences) is at first-year level. The problems are many: large classes, understaffed (academic) programmes, poorly qualified staff and poorly run departments, high failure rates, poor resources, limited access to computer labs and unsupportive library systems."
It is apparent that the universities are not just "killing fields" in so far as wasting the time of many innocent children by enrolling them and then failing them as a matter of necessity.
They are actually "killing fields" in the sense that they are destroying the brains of young people under the guise of higher education and training.
In so doing the universities are contributing to South Africa's alarming rates of illiteracy, unemployment and unskilled graduates. Quite the opposite of their raison d'être.
One lecturer interviewed by the research team is quoted as having said: "Every programme will take a lot of first years and some of it (the reason) is financial because students also mean fees, they mean income. So there is also a dangerous situation nationally here where students might be a fundraiser, but nobody cares about what they are because of the large number of students."
The report then remarks: "What is shocking is not only how many people fail but how many people actually pass under conditions of suspect pedagogic encounters."
It's the worst scandal that this country has ever faced.
The importance of higher education cannot be overstated.
It is as significant for improving the quality of life as it is for improving the global competitiveness of a nation.
A worried US President Barack Obama once remarked about the importance of keeping America competitive: "A nation that out-educates us is a nation that will out-compete us."
He hit the nail on the head.
Now, what more of the "killing fields" in South Africa?
What is even worse is that the fields of death are not limited to humanities and social sciences. They stretch wider.
"Though the first-year 'killing fields', as it was graphically described in our first workshop, is not restricted to humanities and social sciences subjects and there are indeed high failure rates in other areas, this does not mean that an intervention in our areas of study needs deferral or postponement," say the academics in the report.
But the humanities and social sciences are worse off because they are the primary sites "where the effects of a massified student population are felt, and where the unwieldy classes are the norm rather than the exception".
The report proposes wide-ranging measures to deal with the crisis. Among these is increasing student financial aid. It also proposes "close monitoring" of the growth of humanities and social sciences intake by universities.
There should also be measures to deal with irregularities in the education system.
The monitoring could be done by Nzimande's department, in consultation with newly envisaged National Centre for Lifelong Education and Educational Opportunities.
Nzimande is still mulling over the report.
The report also states few of those students who survive the "killing fields" make it to post-graduate degrees. And the survivors who make it to Masters and PhD levels are frustrated by poor supervision.
One student told the researchers that the supervisory sessions with his lecturer had become sessions of "tears".
When parents send their children to school, they do so with the aim of creating a better future, to break the vicious cycle of poverty. Now, that future lies in the hands of those who man the "killing fields".
How tragic.