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The future of universities – Prof Burger part of DHET Expert Panel on University Fees

17 June 2025 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Supplied

Prof Philippe Burger, Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), has been appointed as a member of a team that will represent Universities South Africa (USAf) in a DHET Expert Panel on University Fees. The panel, which comprises representatives from USAf, the DHET, and NSFAS, focuses on the affordability of tuition fees and the future sustainability of the sector, looking at potential solutions for tuition fees beyond the 2025 academic year.

With more than 30 years of experience in higher education, mostly in management positions, Prof Burger understands the sector well. Combined with his expertise in macroeconomics, fiscal policy, and public sector economics and finance, he is uniquely positioned to make a significant contribution to this task team.

Universities matter

Despite the high national unemployment rate (32%), Prof Burger points out that unemployment is largely a problem of the unskilled. “The unemployment rate of people with university degrees is about 12%, much lower than the national average,” he notes. “South Africa has a large shortage of skilled labour, which it needs to grow the economy and improve lives.” He trusts that universities can fill this void, in addition to providing the thought leaders needed to take the country forward.

Although universities in South Africa are experiencing financial pressures, they continue to lift thousands of people to better lives each year. Universities make a profoundly positive contribution to the country and its population, and Prof Burger believes that once the public is fully aware of this, it will support broader discussions in favour of higher education.

The challenge

Universities face several cost pressures that are causing an increase in cost at a higher rate than consumer inflation, Prof Burger explains. “For instance, we buy equipment, software, and journal subscriptions that are all priced in US dollars. Affected by the exchange rate, these types of expenses have increased by much more than the price of consumer goods in South Africa over the past ten years.” According to Prof Burger, increased operational costs, coupled with constrained university income, necessitate a model that will provide universities with enough income to cover their costs while delivering quality education in the long run.

The solution

“There is an argument for universities to become more efficient, and there is certainly room for universities to look at their cost structures, but there is also a limit to what we can do,” Prof Burger says. “It is important to stress that we cannot talk about the sustainability of universities and not contextualise it within a framework that seeks to deliver quality learning, teaching, and research. In the absence of that quality, we will not be able to address the skills shortages and thought leadership that the country needs. And that is the sustainability we need to talk about – the sustainability of quality education and scholarship,” he concludes.

News Archive

Plant scientist, Prof Zakkie Pretorius, contributes to food security with his research

2014-08-26

Many plant pathologists spend entire careers trying to outwit microbes, in particular those that cause diseases of economically important plants. In some cases control measures are simple and successful. In others, disease management remains an ongoing battle.

Prof Zakkie Pretorius, Professor in the Department of Plant Sciences, works on a group of wheat diseases known as rusts. The name is derived from the powdery and brown appearance of these fungi.

Over the course of history wheat rusts have undergone what are notoriously known as boom and bust cycles. During boom periods the disease is controlled by means of heritable resistance in a variety, resulting in good yields. This resistance, though, is more often than not busted by the appearance of new rust strains with novel parasitic abilities. For resistance to remain durable, complex combinations of effective genes and chromosome regions have to be added in a single wheat variety.

In recent years, Prof Pretorius has focused on identifying and characterising resistance sources that have the potential to endure the onslaught of new rust races. His group has made great progress in the control of stripe rust – where several chromosome regions conditioning effective resistance have been identified.

Dr Renée Prins of CenGen and an affiliated UFS staff member, developed molecular markers for these resistance sources. These are now routinely applied in wheat breeding programmes in South Africa. In addition, Prof Pretorius collaborates with several countries to transfer newly discovered stem rust resistance genes to wheat, and in characterising effective sources of resistance in existing wheat collections.

His work is closely supported by research conducted by UFS colleagues, students and other partners on the genetics of the various wheat rust pathogens. These studies aim to answer questions about:
• the origin and relatedness of rust races,
• their highly successful parasitic ability, and
• their adaptation in different environments.

The UFS wheat rust programme adds significantly to the development of resistant varieties and thus more sustainable production of this important crop.

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