JONATHAN JANSEN | Where and what you study will make all the difference

Where should I send my child to university? It’s the time of year when parents send me anxious messages about this. And it matters. Your child’s choice of university will determine the chances of a good job or the likelihood of an exciting placement in postgraduate studies. Sadly, not all South African universities are the same.

My first piece of advice is there is no need to send your child overseas for a first degree. Our top universities offer solid undergraduate education that rivals anything I have seen in the rest of the world. Do not waste your money unless you are so wealthy that even the terrible exchange rate has no impact on your bank balance. In any event, most undergraduates fresh out of high school are too young and immature to study thousands of kilometres from home.

In SA, choose your university carefully. Under no circumstances should you study through Unisa at the moment. It saddens me to say this as a proud alumnus of that once-great institution, but the place is in complete shambles, as a ministerial task team recently found. There, corruption and dysfunction feed ferociously off each other, creating administrative chaos on a scale never seen before in higher education. You are wasting time and money even if, on paper, Unisa offers the opportunity to learn and work for those who cannot afford full-time studies.

Avoid universities such as those in Durban and Pretoria where campus dwellers are constantly protesting, thereby disrupting lectures weekly and threatening the quality of the degree and, sometimes, the lives of staff and students. Protests are good, a vital learning in civic education and social activism. But opposition to every grievance under the sun dilutes the educational experience and the qualification’s meaning. If you can, avoid such institutions at all costs.

You might be surprised to learn that excellence is sometimes tucked away on campuses outside the large metropolitan areas. Even though Makhanda is literally falling apart because of incompetent municipal leadership, Rhodes University is still a jewel in the crown of Eastern Cape universities (chemistry there is world-class). Similarly, the QwaQwa campus of the University of the Free State (plant sciences is outstanding) and the University of Venda have made remarkable strides in building the quality of their education offerings over the past decade.

Even within some highly reputable universities, do your homework about what and where (department) your child studies.

Even within some highly reputable universities, do your homework on what and where (department) your child studies. For example, at one Cape Town university students I know have been deregistering from political science classes because of an openly racist lecturer who targets whites in his classes. That the institution has failed to act against this person tells you everything you need to know about study choices.

Reputation matters, and in this regard you need to remove your racial blinkers if you limit your choices to historically white universities. One of the most impressive stories of higher education transformation is the University of the Western Cape (UWC), which offers quality degrees and impressive research in areas such as biological sciences and studies in land reform. UWC should be a strong option for first-degree studies.

Again, do your homework regarding programmes and specific areas of study within a university. You will find in many of our institutions outstanding academic programmes, among them the excellent philosophy concentration at the University of Fort Hare, palaeobiology at the University of Cape Town, or wastewater technology at the Durban University of Technology.

Sadly, most of our students do not have a choice of where to study. They are limited by finances to the nearest available institution. My advice to such students is to do the very best you can with the first degree, wherever you are, then compete for a place at a more reputable university for postgraduate studies. Where and what you study matters.

By way of emphasis, knowledge of the university is important. This week I am excited to bring to Stellenbosch University a busload of talented high school pupils, mainly the children of seasonal labourers from the vineyards of the rural Western Cape, to gain exposure to quality programmes on campus. For these first-generation students, a degree from a good university changes everything. But it does mean making the effort to know who you are, what you wish to study, and where you plan to pursue your degree.

Good luck!