Cape Town - UCT’s council has bemoaned the lack of participation in the hearings of the Institutional Reconciliation and Transformation Commission (IRTC), which looked into the culture and practices at the university, including decolonisation and unjust discrimination.
The IRTC was started following the #FeestMustFall protests, which saw university infrastructure burnt down, students arrested and issues around racism, sexual violence and alienation raised by students and academics highlighted.
Council chairperson Sipho Pityana said the different accounts and interpretations of the challenges facing the institution would be published together with the IRTC report, in order to enrich what are likely to be ongoing conversations about transformation and reconciliation at UCT.
Pityana said the diversity of views was unsurprising, given the contested nature of the events and environment which the IRTC investigated.
He said they noted that the brief of the IRTC was extensive and thoroughgoing. “Disappointingly, the levels of UCT stakeholder participation were poor,” Pityana said.
“Council noted the IRTC’s highlight of the pain of racism and gender-based discrimination, experienced by some in our institution.
“While disturbed by the persistence of these unacceptable practices, council is unsurprised – after all UCT is a microcosm of a country where, after many years of confronting this scourge, it remains a serious societal challenge.”
He said they remain resolute in their determination to defeat it, working together as a community.
“Council was pleased to note that many of the IRTC’s recommendations are consistent with the transformation initiatives that are already under way at the university. This is a strong affirmation of the efficacy of our efforts.”
Some of the findings in the report include that students, implicated in the violent protests, be given amnesty; the university conduct research on the best ways to embrace diversity; that the university embrace the Bill of Rights; that retention of black academics, in particular female black academics, be promoted; and the university appoint a panel to determine how to strengthen the mental health services available to staff and students at the university.
Pityana said they agreed that while some of the findings of the report might be contested, there was clearly more work that needed to be done by the university – in achieving both transformation and reconciliation.
Pityana said they resolved to adopt the recommendations of the IRTC subject to the issues raised on record by the current UCT executive.
“Council also resolved, in the interest of reconciliation and given the passage of time, that regarding the matter of outstanding student disciplinary cases (as recorded in the case files of the University Student Disciplinary Tribunal) dating back to 2016 and 2017, which had been put on hold pending the IRTC process, these cases be withdrawn,” Pityana said.
Deputy chairperson of the UCT’s Association of Black Alumni, Peter-Paul Mbele, said the proposed measures to promote inclusivity in the institution will always be supported by UCTABA.
Mbele said they seek to bring life and meaning to the sentiments carried in the Transformation Report of 2018, as led ever-so-progressively by the vice-chancellor, Mamokgethi Phakeng.
“The report speaks to such elements as recruitment, promotion and development of black staff at the university, which are all important in changing for the good, the practice of transformative teaching at UCT. Transformation may be a journey but, like every journey, the destination must be clear and known to all. The implementation of these sound recommendations is long overdue,” Mbele said.
UCT’s DA Students Organisation chairperson Caleb Kay said the university should solely focus on mental health issues, rather than wasting time on finding racial quotas to fill up staff.
Kay said diversity was important to have in an environment where ideas came from different angles, “but anything that forced race-based policies has always proven to do more harm than good, in my opinion, and there are much more problems at the institution than this, such as mental health issues”.
“It is thus important that the university focuses its attention on finding ways to promote a system that tackles mental health issues in order to ensure that students feel comfortable within the university space and do not resort to dropping out, or worse, suicide,” Kay said.
Kay said the IRTC is a committee that generally gets things wrong. “There are too many biased people in there to make an objective finding on many things,” he said.