By Edwin Naidu
Limpopo-born medical doctor Professor Mosa Moshabela will officially be installed as the 11th Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cape Town (UCT) on Monday, a few days after ticking off 100 days in the hotseat.
While Moshabela has settled into the role in a relatively short period of time, he says he does not expect an easy ride as the vice-chancellor of the 195-year-old UCT.
“A part of me is excited, and another part is preparing for a rocky start, which I hope will stabilise swiftly. I’ve also been told there’s a lot of excitement on the ground, but expectations are high,” says Moshabela.
Aware of the need for mending and building relationships at UCT, he says what bothers him the most is that staff and people at UCT feel fractured, polarised and divided.
“They don’t feel united as a community. I don’t necessarily think that if you don’t have a good team that gels well, you can stay at the top of your game and maintain the level of excellence we expect of UCT. We’ve got to create an enabling environment for people to thrive and succeed,” he insists.
The married 44-year-old father of three began work at UCT two months earlier than expected on 1 August. He replaced Emeritus Professor Daya Reddy, who had been the interim vice-chancellor since the departure of Prof. Mamokgethi Phakeng, who went on early retirement in March.
The fractured relationships brought out into the open following the acrimonious departure of Phakeng go back to the reign of Dr Max Price between 2008 and 2018, when the #feesmustfall student protests escalated.
However, the suicide of Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Prof. Bongani Mayosi in July 2018, lifted the lid on student unrest, racism, discrimination and the slow pace of transformation at UCT.
Following Mayosi’s death, the university’s response to its various issues was criticised in a 157-page report. Phakeng and her leadership struggled to implement its recommendations.
Moshabela admits that he is concerned about the financial future of universities, particularly UCT, which ran on a deficit of R349.29m in 2023 with a budgeted shortfall of R220m in 2024.
At the beginning of the 2023 academic year, the university experienced disruptive student protests related to financial exclusion.
The university’s inability to provide minimum acceptable levels of financial aid to potential students, along with the troubles of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), worsened the problem in 2023, with a repeat in 2024. This year saw the NSFAS direct payment system failing, which left students stranded without allowances and accommodation.
According to the 2023 annual financial report, the outlook for student debt at UCT is bleak.
The outstanding student fees for the current year are R594 million, and credit losses on student debt have increased by 46%, from R166 million to R241 million.
However, UCT’s balance sheet is healthy, with R3.27 billion in liabilities against R16.79 billion in assets.
“A large part of the challenge in the sector has to do with the dwindling funds from the government because we are a public university, and nearly all tertiary institutions are publicly funded. And unlike what we’ve seen in other sectors, say in the basic education sector, we’ve seen privatisation [and] this helps with sustainability,” says Moshabela.
He adds that on a global level, UCT is competing against institutions that are private education providers regulated as tertiary providers in South Africa.
“They are not constrained similarly, yet we compete with them. We must compete with Harvard and Oxford for talent, for everything, yet we are a public, publicly funded institution.”
While conceding that UCT has the privilege of being better endowed than other institutions with a solid supportive alumni network and a strong donor network, the bulk of its funding comes from the government.
He urges for funding sources to be consolidated in the short to medium term.
Moshabela says while UCT is better situated to withstand any financial hurdles, he sees the major threat coming from the movement for free higher education, where the source of income from student fees can be limited or eliminated quickly.
“The political movement around it is strong, and if this (fees being scrapped) happens, UCT might survive much longer than others. But other institutions will probably be crippled immediately.
“But that’s where the threat is going to come from. I don’t see going forward any other direction than for universities to start negotiating and looking for more self-funding, self-partial regulation institutions, like UCT will end up modelling themselves very much on the likes of Oxford and Harvard and others if they must succeed,” he says.
According to Moshabela, one way towards a sustainable future is attracting endowments as a third-stream of income.
Turning to his priorities for UCT, Moshabela wants unity on campus, aims to attract the best talent and ensure the university is financially sustainable.
He says he will leave no stone unturned in understanding what he must do to succeed in his job. He has applied for an MBA to study executive management.
He also plans to talk to former vice-chancellors about their experiences, tapping into institutional memory to learn from them.
Above all, he wants UCT to impact society on a broader level.
“I want everyone at UCT to feel at home, to feel that they are in a place where they can be the best versions of themselves,” he says.
INSIDE EDUCATION
