Category: UCT

Placeholder: A South African economics curriculum

In some previous posts [here and here] I discussed my experience of, and thoughts about, the University of Cape Town (UCT)’s undergraduate economics curriculum. I committed to writing a final, constructive post on what I think a South African economics curriculum (not particularly limited to UCT, or undergraduates) should look like.

That intention was partly overtaken by events and time constraints, but mainly I decided that the question deserved more lengthy treatment than just a blog post. So I am drafting a paper, which I hope to present at a few, relevant conferences/workshops, and once that draft is completed I will post a summary here.

The predictable, but necessary, drama at UCT

I have been a little slow in picking-up on recent events at UCT this week regarding the economics curriculum. One of the non-permanent lecturers on the history of economic thought (HET) course, Kenneth Hughes, has had to stop teaching in person after some students took exception to a piece he wrote about aspects of the Rhodes Must Fall movement and UCT management’s response to RMF. [Subsequently an appropriately punchy response has been published from Russell Ally, Executive Director for Alumni and Development at UCT]

This is really all too predictable, and I have little sympathy for the department or university management: they are reaping the consequences of myopic and unprofessional decisions made in the past (albeit maybe not always by the same protagonists). As I noted in a footnote to a previous piece, when the core staff for the HET course were unavailable, the then-HoD (not the current one) just pulled-in whoever they could with little regard for academic status, qualifications, what they actually taught and so forth.

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The Undergraduate Economics Curriculum at the University of Cape Town: Part II

At the end of Part I of this comment on the UCT economics curriculum, I identified two further issues for immediate consideration: the nature of textbooks, and problems arising from academic incentives. The textbook issue also raises the important role of history of economic thought and economic history courses.

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