Posted on by Odi

#FeesMustFall: Re-imagining the University

The closing months of 2015 were marked by unprecedented student protests calling for both free tertiary education and the end to outsourcing of domestic and security workers within the university sector. It has become clear in 2016, as the #FeesMustFall movement continues and protests become angrier, South African universities are being re-imagined and altered. Undoubtedly, a change is necessary but the voice of post-graduate students in all of this seems to be mute.


Photo credit: barbourians via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

The truth is that university fees are out of reach for most South Africans. But, this piece is not intended to argue the merits or demerits of the current swell of student protests. It is becoming clear that no matter how these protests end, universities in South Africa are being forced to change. Professor Vuyisile Msila wrote an interesting opinion piece on the current wave of student protests and the need for the discussions around the social implications of symbols and knowledge systems. The main point that I got from his piece is that we still need to grapple with what higher education means at a societal level.

The media focus has weighed heavily on undergraduate fees, but that is just a tiny part of the equation. We are research leaders on our continent, but South Africans are powerfully affected by the state of international growth and global trends in research and education. With the global economy coming to a screeching halt and rapid digitization of knowledge, we haven’t really addressed how universities in South Africa can adapt and where post-graduates studies fit in addressing the challenges ahead.

We need to be asking — at least I know that I am – what is the purpose of being in a university or studying further, if it is not to help Africa meet its current challenges? Universities need to house innovation hubs, cross-disciplinary projects and overall be ahead of the developmental curve. Yet we are at a point where all of this could fall away if the change is not managed intentionally.

At the height of the protest, our department was warned that we have to be more financially prudent because of anticipated reductions in funding for non-critical projects. To be honest, I didn’t really feel the difference because my programme head has always been extremely cautious with funding. But, I wonder what the impact of the quality of tertiary education, at all levels, would be if appropriate funding couldn’t be found. Globally, there has been increasing pressure on the knowledge economy owing to increasingly scare funding. This has profound implications for African universities who are tasked with finding solutions to Africa’s various social and developmental challenges.

The university funding crisis also has implications with regards to talent rentention.          In European ,and American universities,the lack of appropriate funding has seen tenured positions become scarce. Similarly, South Africa faces an increasing risk that young graduates– particularly those who are black and/or female — would be co-opted in the university system without the prospect of getting a full time job. It is understood that you are likely to start your working career at a university in a contract or ad hoc position-which has a smaller pay package than that of full-time staff. What is clear, however, in the aftermath of the fees must fall, is that full-time opportunities are going to dry up and that teaching would likely be undertaken by staff from historically marginalised groups. This does not sound horrible at face value, but these “adjunct” lecturers will receive considerably less pay with little to no prospects of change. Such a system is running rampant in the USA, with devastating consequences for researchers. In South Africa too, brilliant academics of all persuasions would leave the universities for the private sector because of their inability to meet their basic needs.

Surely, we don’t want to simply repeat the mistakes being made by our international competitors. I leave this piece with two questions: What should the ‘new’ South African university look like? And, where do post-graduates fit in in creating the new academy?

Posted on by ScientistSim

Viruses: Their tiny dictatorship and why I love them

We may have surpassed the age where scientists said the flu is caused by “mysterious somethings”, but we are still very much in the dark about viruses. Virologists are even torn when it comes to knowing if they are alive. At the very least, viruses are shortcuts on the principle of life itself. While the rest of life is scrambling to evolve complex mechanisms, viruses are the couch potatoes of micro-organisms. Essentially they are just Netflixing their way through series in their sweatpants while the world around them runs the Comrades. Then, instead of putting on the pounds, they end up winning an Olympic gold for marathon running and everyone else is left a bit bewildered. They compete, they attack, they overthrow and they invade. They are the Hitlers, Mussolinis and Idi Amins of the immune system – but unlike their human counterparts, I love them.

I was 14 when my love affair with these tiny parasites started. I was (and am still) small for my age — perhaps that is why I found a kinship with them. They are in the smallest of packages and have managed to jump across species, dominate lifeforms and cause havoc without lugging around any of their own cellular machinery. HIV impressively hijacks the very system that is there to destroy it, Ebola can hide its cell surface proteins to avoid detection, and influenza forces cells to burst to enhance viral release. I appreciate the skill with which they shrewdly take command, often under the radar of our supposedly complex but largely unprepared cells. Another feature that sets viruses apart from their microbial brethren is how quickly they can adapt. Viruses that consist of nothing more than a bit of DNA or RNA wrapped in protein can change dramatically within a couple of hours, whereas bacteria have a far slower mutation rate. It is their simplicity that gives them power that very few complex systems can counteract.

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Read more about complexity versus success here.

A virus doesn’t necessarily achieve anything by killing its host – that could lead to its untimely destruction. Ultimately, self-interest just requires simple transmission and replication. Often a virus enters a host benignly with no visible symptoms and while it may kill a few cells, it does so with limited destruction. In a reservoir host, the host that the virus originated in, there is a truce; a sort of dictator parlay. In these situations the virus ‘rents’ the space and the space doesn’t complain (sort of like Donald Trump in the Republican party). When the virus makes a move and spills over into a new host, though, all bets are off (i.e. Donald Trump becoming president of the USA). HIV, Ebola, Marburg, swine flu and yellow fever are just a few examples of successful plagues (or, zoonoses) that have made the evolutionary leap and caused massive damage in doing so. Like a horror movie they are so intriguing, I can’t stop watching them through my fingers.

As I speak with admiration for them, it may seem counter-intuitive that I spend my days growing them, giving them some host cells and then finding cruel and unusual ways to kill them. This is the first lesson about medial science: know your enemy, appreciate them, truly have passion for them. Scientist need to be devil’s advocates, always balancing disdain with adoration. In this way you will find creative answers to hard questions. You can get a PhD that really means something.  In my case, knowing what I’m up against is what will always keep me a few replication cycles ahead. I constantly marvel at what nature has to throw at us and I hope this will make me a good virologist: over-thrower of dictators!

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