Varsity brain drain

Academics are hitting the road for the promise of big money in the private and public sectors.

The trend has prompted a study by Higher Education SA, which has members in all 23 of this country's universities.

"There is recognition that the salaries of academic workers do not keep pace with those of employees in other sectors of the economy," Higher Education CEO Jeffrey Mabelebele said.

"[We are] conducting a study on academic salaries across the entire public university sector with a view to determining a benchmark."

A recent advertisement by the University of Cape Town's department of chemical engineering put the salary and benefits for a senior lecturer at over R500000 a year.

An ad for a senior mathematics lecturer at Rhodes University showed they would be taking home more than R100000 less than that, despite the fact that a doctorate would be an advantage for candidates.

Dr Geoff Heald, lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand Business School, said higher salaries were "undoubtedly" attracting brilliant young academics with "exceptional qualifications" away from academia.

"It creates a brain drain. The risk on the other side of the coin is that the low salaries could attract mediocre academic bureaucrats to our universities who simply can't cut it. They would leach our tertiary education of creativity and leadership," said Heald.

Mabelebele said the trend was worrying because the future of South Africa largely depended on the strength and capabilities of the higher education system.

Cape Town mother of two Liesel Venter and her husband have been saving for their children's tertiary education for years.

But Venter has ploughed even more money into their education insurance policies to ensure that the children have the option of studying abroad.

She said the quality of tertiary education in South Africa was falling.

"Combined with the low level of basic education, parents should be worried," said Venter.

University of the Free State vice-chancellor Jonathan Jansen said academics quit for many reasons, including better pay and retirement benefits. But he said they were constantly being replaced.

"Understandably, young black lecturers in the professions [such as law or accounting] leave more often because of the massive increase in salaries available in both the private and public sectors for talented workers.

"This has an adverse effect on the equity commitments of institutions and is one reason why formerly white universities struggle to change their racial profiles," said Jansen.