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[porcupine]

I have an upcoming interview for a job at Wits (University of the Witwatersrand). I've worked in SA before and have family connections there, and I keep up with SA news. However, I have not been in SA for a few years. As I prepare for the interview, I find that I am having a little trouble finding out some information online; also, as I'm not really a part of SA academic culture right now, I feel that I would benefit from some perspectives from forumites with more recent experience of working there.

I would welcome any advice you all might have on interviewing with this institution. I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on any current political issues and relevant debates affecting the institution, current research priorities, degree of student preparation for university-level work, and the institutional culture.

[historienne]

If this is still relevant - I am not really an expert, having never taught at Wits myself, but have been affiliated as a visiting researcher in the recent past.  I would be looking at:

1 - funding formulas, esp the subsidy system of rewarding academics financially for publication (see for brief explanation this news article: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-02-25-publish-or-be-damned).  The NRF is a (the?) major funding source for most South African unis.  Its info online is decent, if not 100% complete (http://www.nrf.ac.za/).  Grad student funding is also largely done through the NRF.  On the other hand, get an NRF chair and you will be set for life!  But this feeds into larger issues of government agenda-setting for research in ways that can make humanities scholars feel somewhat marginalized, as much government money has an explicit development agenda, which lends itself more readily to STEM/social science work.

2 - Educational preparedness of students.  You will want to talk convincingly about strategies for dealing with the vast range of skills that students have when they arrive at Wits.  So much of secondary ed is in shambles that even very bright students may arrive really, really unprepared to do college-level work.  There are some specific efforts at remediation, but still, nationally the completion rate for university students is about 15%.  I don't know what time frame that is over, but it is widely acknowledged to be a serious problem.  You wouldn't be expected to fix it single-handedly, but I imagine people would be concerned to make sure that you won't freak out at this challenge and quit after a year (as has happened in the past, in the disciplines I'm familiar with).

3 - Relatedly, languages.  I don't know what the current status of this debate is, but there is an ongoing discussion of how to incorporate African languages into higher ed, especially since many students do basically all of their secondary education in their home language.  For the moment, Wits is still an English-medium school, but it is not outside of the realm of possibility that there will be future serious efforts to incorporate Zulu and/or Sotho through, for example, simultaneous translation of lectures.  At the moment, there's not money for it, so no one is trying. But something to have on your radar.

[passthesalt]

I worked at UCT 2005-2006. I'd say it depends on your field, but if it's humanities/social sciences you'd be wise to make some positive noises about access and differentiated education, as you'll have a huge range of preparedness in your classes. Another thing to say, and I don't want to seem unhelpful here, is that South African academia in parts can be rather territorial and threatened by outsiders, especially seeming 'high flyers'. On one hand, seeming like they can play with the big boys and attract world-class talent is desirable, equally colleagues may be suspicious.  So, I'd research very carefully what other people in the department are doing, and try not to seem like you'd tread on their toes at all.

[crocdoc]

PM me if this is still of interest.