Salaries to change for higher education teachers

THE total cost of all senior university and university of technology management salaries could be capped at 6% of each institution’s total staff cost if the Department of Education’s policy framework for senior manager remuneration becomes law.

Former education minister Naledi Pandor last year promised to put an end to the exorbitant salaries earned by higher education institutions’ vice-chancellors. This came after her department released a breakdown of the salaries earned by vice-chancellors at SA’s 23 public higher education institutions, which showed they earned more than R40m in 2007.

Comment on the policy, which has been published in the Government Gazette, must reach the department by June 10.

The new policy document also states that the total cost of all staff salaries as a percentage of council controlled recurring income should be between 58% and 62%.

It also demands that institutions provide the minister — now Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande — with salary data each year, by July 31, so that the department can publish a detailed schedule containing comparative three-year data on senior managers’ remuneration at all higher education institutions.

That will sidestep the embarrassment of the 2007 revelation that Mangosuthu University of Technology vice-chancellor Aaron Ndlovu received a R3,68m package last year, making him SA’s highest- paid civil servant and completely outstripping Pandor’s R1,6m. Ndlovu has been suspended and the institution is under new administration.

Ihron Rensburg of the University of Johannesburg earned R2,77m and the University of SA ’s Barney Pityana earned R2,63m.

A survey last year by the Department of Education indicated that vice-chancellors’ salaries remained inconsistent, and unrelated to the “size, shape, academic performance or finances of an institution”.

Other research shows that some underperforming institutions, which rely heavily on state subsidies, pay more than those that rely on external funding and are top research producers.

The new policy guidelines could introduce a “complexity index” of each institution, relative to the other 22 higher education institutions, as determined by the department.

The policy also demands that the percentage difference between salary rungs not exceed 20% and that any performance-based reward not exceed 15% of the person’s annual package.

The policy, if promulgated and implemented, will be applicable to all councils and senior management at public higher education institutions.