Read the interview:
Reimagining African higher education means aligning traditional academics with the needs of the digital era and the labor market. With deep insight into African university systems mindset, former Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg Ihron Rensburg outlines what a next-generation institution could look like — one that merges physical and digital spaces, integrates real-world experience, and nurtures both career readiness and creative exploration.
So a couple of things come to mind. The first is, of course, the idea of the digital twin. So the traditional university and its digital twin, its online proposition, I think that's probably the first urgent issue on the table. But there is probably inside this, it's just the idea of us working hard on getting the basics right in the traditional let's step up our game, so to speak.
As we begin to germinate the idea, catalyze the idea and scale up over the next decade, the idea of online learning. There is a second issue that should preoccupy us. And that is to achieve a far better connection between teaching and learning on the one hand, and the labor market on the other hand. I'm, of course, one of those who is a traditionalist and has kind of jealously guarded the space of the university, unlike the space of the tech, technical, vocational College, the space of the university is space, especially undergraduate programing of formative learning.
And we know already how that formative learning has become far too specialized in the last 3 or 4 decades. If you think of it around World War One, World War two, the offerings were far more formative in nature, combining in the so-called liberal arts model, the idea of being able to explore anything across the knowledge fields of the arts and religion, if you like, or theology and the sciences.
In the 50 years, 60 years or so since, we've seen that narrowly to becoming far more professional oriented, and we've seen the professional societies taking on greater responsibility and becoming pretty powerful in accrediting or discrediting institutions from offering, quote unquote, their programs. Right. That's a conversation for another day. The issue for me, I think, for now, is how do we, as we generously got the idea of formative learning, a space for, laying the foundations for life beyond undergrad education, for life that is lifelong in its learning and in its growth.
If you like learning, I already anticipated that I will go through three, possibly four careers, not jobs, but 3 or 4 occupations or careers in my lifetime. For you to be able to do that means you need to find a better balance between specialization and formative education. Every two specialists. It narrows the space. If it's too formal, too traditional, if you lack formative, it also has its consequences.
And so the second issue for me is for us to learn from the professions. And the example of medicine always comes to mind, in which we integrate learning with clinical work. Right. From a critical point in the undergrad, learning or training period. And so I think that offers us the possibility of thinking, perhaps, of how we combine formative and specialization, in that instance in particular with, on the other hand, the practice oriented work.
And so if we could, if we could just think a little bit more about that dimension, I think we would, we would, would be doing very well. And then finally, if, if we are, if you like, a third area, if, if we are able to, to catalyze all institutions into a space linked to the second one, where we are far more effective at catalyzing entrepreneurialism.
Right. You may want to say that catalyzing innovation and startups, we would do well now, of course, again, cautious about the idea that, if we train entrepreneurs, then that's the panacea for the future. I'm careful about that, because out of a million graduates, the question is how many are going to be entrepreneurs?
How many are going to start up new entities? If we can do 10%, I would say great, right. But of course, in this conversation, we shouldn't think [about] constraints. We should open the gates, so to speak, and think about having, these labs over said collapse, having these labs on our campuses where young people are able to experiment and explore whether they are the kind of people who are going to be our great innovators of the future, or whether they are going to be better in the public and private sectors at stewarding and steering innovation inside there.