This is according to Prof Linda du Plessis, deputy vice-chancellor of the North-West University (NWU) responsible for institutional planning and operations on its campus in Vanderbijlpark, during the recent NWU Leadership Summit hosted in Johannesburg.
As one of the keynote speakers, she shared the leadership lessons she learnt during the #FeesMustFall protest campaign as it played out within the higher education sector.
“I do believe that change brings with it a sort of necessity for innovation and growth – and more so when one speaks of radical change,” said Prof Du Plessis and added that transformative change is fundamental to addressing they myriad of South Africa’s ails.
In her address, Prof Du Plessis referred to a recent report by Derek Yu, an associate professor in Economics at the University of the Western Cape, that puts it that South Africa’s unemployment rate has been rising steadily for the past nine years. The rate has gone up despite policies being adopted that promised to cub joblessness. These policies included the New Growth Path which was adopted in 2011 and promised to create 5 million jobs and reduce unemployment to 15% by the end of 2020.
“But from 2011 what has happened? Unemployment increased by 2,2 million, bringing the number of unemployed to 6,17 million. If these trends persist, achieving the even more ambitious goal set out in the National Development Plan (NDP) of dropping the unemployment rate to 6% by 2030 becomes questionable,” explained Prof Du Plessis.
According to Yu’s calculations, 28 000 jobs will have to be created every month for the next 12 years to achieve the NDP outcomes, which according to Prof Du Plessis necessitates radical change. She also said that universities are important stakeholders in helping to shape the graduates of the future, generate knowledge to advance the economy and become sustainable institutions of the future.
Student protests and a period of unmatched transformation
According to Prof Du Plessis the #FeesMustFall campaign was not only about fees, it was a call for a better future and for social justice. She explained how universities were caught between extremities: support the call for free education and at the same time keep the academic project going. Protecting the university as an open space for academic freedom, yet losing infrastructure of which the renovating cost could have funded 2 000 students for a full academic year.
She sighted the following leadership lessons that came to the fore during the protest cycle:
- Never forget to see the bigger picture.
- Diversity: strengths lies in differences and not in similarities.
- New viewpoints lead to better results.
- Never forget to listen.
- Draw a line and take a decision.
- Get to know the millennium generation and avoid stereotyping.
- Surround yourself with positive people.
- Out of every situation new opportunities are born.
- Legitimacy lies in the eye of the client.
Prof Du Plessis closed her presentation by telling delegates that the time for radical change is now and that it is only through collaborative efforts by society in general that South Africa will overcome its many challenges.
