The government may downgrade or close down universities that fail to live up to what is required of them, a new draft definition of different types of tertiary education institutions bluntly warns.
That means universities must do a broad range of published research, must contribute to their local community, and must offer a lot of doctoral options.
The requirements equally to public institutions and private universities, such as
Solidariteit's Afrikaans university Akademia or the
Stadio group, which aims to be a private alternative to Unisa.
Those that do not qualify as universities may be reclassified as university colleges – which fall under the auspices of a full university.
Such university colleges are intended to be proto universities, which must prove their administrative and academic mettle before becoming standalone institutions.
A university college must offer a fairly broad range of study, or it may be classified as a higher education college instead.
The detailed requirements for each of the three are laid out in a draft policy for the recognition of South African higher education institutional types
gazetted for comment by higher education minister Blade Nzimande on Monday.
"Private higher education institutions that fail to meet the criteria for their officially recognised institutional type will be subject to deregistration and/or change in registration," the draft warns.
Under the draft criteria, higher education colleges will either specialise in something such as business or nursing, or will operate "in a limited number of interconnected fields or domains, for example: allied health sciences such as nursing and emergency medical care; safety, security, policing and military studies; or, art, drama, film and design."
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