The language of exclusion is often used in IT - "'web designers' are not real IT professionals"; "SCRUM is better than XP"; "Microsoft is better than Ubuntu"; ... This uncritical approach is not useful, intelligent or professional. Unfortunately this language of exclusion is not confined to IT, being the basis of the "ism's" - racism, etc. The problem is that it is so easy to take the language of exclusion and extrapolate its intentions arbitrarily. So that "engineering excellence" is made to become "elitism".

However, the fact that excellence is desirable is a regrettable casualty of the elliptical path required by society to navigate certain chosen "isms".

In an effort to advance the Africanisation of universities, Professor Everard Weber is reported in the Sunday Independent - (10 Jan 2010, pg 5, "Experts call for a review of research funding model", by Edwin Naidu) Weber assaults all "ageing white men" at university. While I agree with him (should his theory be so extended) questioning cottage industries churning out papers, this is more a feature of the immature National Research Foundation, being unable to determine valid research, than the "ageing white men". It is not surprising that the NRF is confused, because they have to interpret the "Africanisation" agenda.

What constitutes an accredited journal is relevant - but it seems to me that you do not want to be in the situation where South African academics create a new journal when they feel misunderstood.

It is a phenomenon that journals are becoming increasingly irrelevant - but when my supervisor once claimed that he no longer went to the library but found everything on-line, I countered that he knew where to look. It is a regrettable feature that the bulk of the on-line content is non-scientific.

I remember the joke that due to the fact that the number of journals was increasing from year to year implied that sooner or later the 'wavefront' of journals on the shelves would exceeded the speed of light is countered by the counter claim that the information content contained on these shelves decreases.

The fact that 'successful' researchers are older than 50 is significant.

The NRF and black researchers have had 15 years to make something new. Breaking what you have is surely not a solution.

From the article, research success rates and subsidies

Which brings me to the matric results. Apparently

Thus say 500 000 x 50% (say) x 70% (half way between 20% and 40 unemployment) -> 200 000 graduates get work.
998 850 students lost out - 79% failure rate. I am assuming that quality jobs are due to tertiary training - no doubt many mechanics earn more than lecturers in physics (quantum mechanics?).

Conversely, SA is one of the biggest spenders in the world on education - 5%.

Unfortunately this pass rate is part of a parlous trend

Ouch!

Something is indeed broken Mr Weber, but I do not think it is "ageing white males". Excellence is indeed needed in South Africa, but in the right way. It is a fault of our government policy that is not able to put in place meaningful checks and balances in our academic institutions. These instutions seem to be on a Good Thing, churning out lots of people with meaningless skills, but still get their subsidies.