'It's like making a cabin attendant a pilot for also spending time on a plane' - Jansen hits out at low academic standards

Declining academic standards in South Africa have sparked a virtual slap from Jonathan Jansen‚ the professor and university rector‚ according to a post on his social media accounts on Thursday.

While he didn’t name him‚ Jansen appeared to have taken a swipe at South African Broadcasting Corporation board chairperson Mbulaheni Maguvhe’s professorship.

Maguvhe‚ the last remaining member of the board‚ was grilled by a parliamentary committee this week over his fitness to hold office and the crisis at the public broadcaster.

Jansen shared this comment on Facebook and Twitter:

“I do not want to mention names‚ but I have repeatedly warned about how some South African universities are giving away professorships to people with the flimsiest of academic research achievements. It is a scandalous practice that seriously devalues the academic stature and substance of our universities.

"This is our ‘20% math pass rate’ in some universities.”

Jansen then added this comment: “It’s like making a cabin attendant a pilot for also spending time on a plane.”

It appeared to be a reference to the opinions of Democratic Alliance’s Belinda Bozzoli‚ who questioned the embattled Maguvhe’s credential’s in a PoliticsWeb article entitled: “How did Mbulaheni Maguvhe become a UNISA Professor?”

In it‚ she wrote that “Maguvhe falls short of most of the requirements for Professorial standing”‚ saying that his research record “contains several publications in discredited journals” and his “claimed book is published by a disreputable publisher and does not appear on any standard search engines for academic assessment”.

Bozzoli wrote that at least six of his published articles “are deeply dubious in every way”.

Jansen has referred to the standard of academia in various ways in his regular newspaper column and at public events.

Earlier this year‚ he referred to it in the context of declining funds for universities‚ saying: “The public universities are in serious crisis and the public served by these institutions of higher learning better take note ... Institutions that were built up over decades‚ sometimes over a century‚ are faltering before our eyes without a whimper from the public voice.

“... If there is no money to pay staff or upgrade facilities or hire the best professors or invest in research and development or generate innovations in quality teaching that are transforming opportunities for all students‚ then the mere shuffling around of people inside buildings hardly counts as a university.

“While a building with a sign that says ‘university’ might signal ambitious intent‚ it fails to exist under conditions of under-resourcing by the government‚ the unplanned massification of the student body and chronic instability that so often destroys the very facilities required for teaching and learning.”