SOUTH AFRICA - FEES MUST FALL

OPEN THE DOOR TO UNIVERSITY EDUCATION TO STUDENTS BASED ON ACADEMIC MERIT NOT INCOME

Disruptive innovation requires:

1. A separate team that has autonomy,
2. A distinctive set of talents, different knowledge bases, and
3. A willingness to take bold risks.

Integrating innovative ideas with the base business or organisation, in contrast, requires:

1. Collaboration,
2. Compromise, and
3. Most importantly detailed planning.

"It’s a bit like putting a satellite into orbit. Send it too far from the core and it will drift aimlessly into outer space, wasting money and squandering opportunity. Launch it too close to the core and gravitational forces will overwhelm it, causing it to crash and burn." - Harvard Business Review 

So mobilizing an organization to both develop and integrate innovations is challenging. But it can be done.  It takes willingness to achieve a successful outcome.

WHICH OF THE ABOVE MODELS IS LIKELY TO BEST FIT THE FEES MUST FALL MOVEMENT? 

THE DIGITAL WORLD – ONLY TWELVE YEARS OLD

The world we live in has changed and some leaders and decision makers have paid little regard to this fact.  We live in a connected world, a relatively new world.  Twitter is only ten years old and Facebook is only twelve years old, not even a teenager.  However, Facebook is one of the most successful innovations created by a twenty-year old student, Mark Zuckerberg who was studying psychology, along with fellow Harvard College students and roommates.  Facebook was launched in 2004.

CO-CREATING UNIVERSITY EDUCATION FUNDING SOLUTIONS

Some of the most successful business models in the world incorporate the following digital marketing principles as tools in their co-create customer and sales growth strategies via digital channels.  Starbucks is one such business:

1. Co-design
2. Submitting / sharing ideas
3. Collaborating
4. Tinkering

LEADERS NEED TO SIT UP AND LISTEN - STUDENTS, LECTURERS, PARENTS, THE PUBLIC, GOVERNMENT, SA BUSINESS & FINANCIAL ANALYSTS NEED TO BUILD A SUSTAINABLE UNIVERSITY EDUCATION MODEL TOGETHER

With a fixed project time-line all Proudly South African and interested parties to make written submissions for one-month once the independent online platform has been built which should be soonest.  An open platform called #MySAEducationFundingIdea like the #MyStarbucksIdea website with a submission focus on all university level student’s best interests at heart for a funding model and the funding term and conditions for each student.  The platform to be developed independently at no cost soonest, possibly created by the IBM Research community in Braamfontein or Microsoft South Africa.

The posted online ideas can be viewed, commented on and liked/voted for online. 

1. Thereafter all submissions and their related comments and likes will be assessed by a team of individuals who are impartial, have no connection to University academia or government or the students attending university.  This team will be made up of 50 South African individuals who have too, transparently motivated their participation based on their life skills, life experience, financial acumen, and own journey of university education or lack of it. 
2. This team will over a one-month period assess and assimilate all submissions, comments and likes for these financial models and motivations (of which one should be from South African Government Treasury posted online for transparency and review by all).
3. JSE Top Listed Companies and other JSE Companies as well as the top echelon of South African individuals who have accumulated extensive wealth will also be able to submit their My SA Education Funding Idea model as well as their independent pledge to sponsor ‘X’ number of university students per academic year and their qualifying terms and conditions.   
4. Thereafter the top three financial models, their student funding benefits and terms and conditions based on merit of being practical and sustainable considerations as University education models will be presented to members of Parliament for their review and consideration to take effect for and from the 2018 University year intake over riding the current proposal for universities to increase fees by nil to a maximum of 8% at each Universities discretion.
   

The South African public and students would like to know WHAT the South African government and top JSE listed businesses can contribute towards free university education with their terms and conditions for students.  We need the government to spell out exactly what their goals are for free or partially free university education.  Currently, the lines are blurred with no commitment on a ‘free education model’ just a commitment to supplementing fee increases for the missing middle in 2017?

The aim of a collaborated project is to create a transparent, shared, co-designed, tinkered and collaborated university education model that is sustainable and benefits current students and those to follow in 2018 with life benefits for themselves and generations to come with work opportunities and the related income benefits that would not be available without a degree.  A new and brighter future for many people with exceptional talent currently excluded or battling to pay for university eduction.

For more information on Marketing in a Digital World contact the University of Illinois Masters of Business Administration degree program, the iMBA.   The University offers free online courses for students who need financial aid.