This article examines some issues of the development of higher education in South Africa in the second half of the 20th century and at the present stage; for the sake of completeness, the author briefly touches on some aspects of the development of school and vocational education in this country.

Keywords: education system, South Africa, crisis, academic standards.

During the apartheid era, South Africa had a segregated education system, providing high, world-standard training for the white population. Schools, colleges, technical institutes and universities for other racial and ethnic groups of the population lagged behind, but still developed as the economy's demand for skilled labor grew. A major role in the development of the country's education system was played by the fact that thousands of teachers from England, Canada, and Australia arrived in South Africa with the assistance of the new authorities at the beginning of the 20th century, which significantly increased the level of teaching in mission and public schools.

It is interesting to note that not only primary, but also secondary school education (up to grades 9) was compulsory for all racial and ethnic groups, although not in all districts it was possible to ensure the real implementation of this law, and the authorities spared money for the education of blacks. Whites, non-whites, and Indians were trained in the same programs, while blacks were trained in their somewhat simplified versions. At the same time, the accelerated completion of industrialization in the 1950s and 1960s and the transformation of South Africa into a developed state required the involvement of an increasingly qualified and, at least, elementary literate labor force. As V. V. Gribanova notes, " the number of African students in primary schools has been increasing since the Bantu Education Act (1953) was passed... in the early 1950s, it had more than 970,000 students, and in the mid-1960s, it had more than 1,620,000 students, but only 40% of those accepted only 20% of the students went to high school, and only 20% completed it... Of all the Africans who passed the exams in 1963, a little more than 60% received a matriculation certificate" [Gribanova, 2008, pp. 98-99]. (I note that white has much more. Despite all the costs, the education was still quite good and very widespread, the exams were strict. So the hundreds of thousands, and if you take a few years, then even millions of Africans who mastered working and secondary technical specialties in the most advanced economy of the continent, were probably closer in terms of their cultural, educational and professional level to the Negroes of the United States than to the rest of the population of Black Africa. (In the cultural sphere, the Americanization of" black identity " is particularly noticeable.)

Vocational and technical education of Africans was less developed than the corresponding training of Indians and people of color (the main emphasis was placed on mass short-term vocational training courses already in the workplace). If in the mid-1960s, only 2.4 thousand people studied in technical schools and vocational schools for Africans (2-3 years of training after six years of education).-

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a century, and in the mid-1970s-5 thousand, then only in one technical college in Durban (mainly for Indians) and its branches-5.5 thousand (2.5 thousand boys and 2 thousand girls). Moreover, if Africans were trained mainly in working and construction specialties (as well as mechanics and plumbers), then Indians and colored people were trained closer to engineering-they were taught mathematics with elements of higher education, physics and chemistry, other natural science and social disciplines, technical drawing, languages, and the like. In general, technical training for Indians and non-Indians was comparable in level and scope to the corresponding training for whites, who were trained in technical colleges of various levels in the early 1960s by about 100 thousand people [Gribanova, 2008, p. 108].

It is interesting that today's much-publicized literacy eradication actually completes the colossal work done under apartheid through the development of segregated education, but perhaps not much worse than today's desegregated and computerized education. Established in 1929, the highly professional and authoritative South African Institute for Race Relations in a recent study on African education over the past half-century gives striking figures: the number of African schoolchildren who reached the certificate increased fifty - fold (!) in 1975-1994-from 8 thousand to 400 thousand people [South Africa Survey 2009/10]. Today (2009), half a million Africans are already achieving a certificate [ibid.]. However, the results of final exams in the last decade are getting lower from year to year, and a smaller percentage of school leavers are getting a certificate. Only 60.6% of students were able to pass their matriculation exams at all in 2009, compared to 73.3% in 2003. And this is on average for all racial groups, i.e. the results of Africans are even lower than in the early 1960s [South Africa Survey 2009/10; The State of Higher Education..., 2009]. The average figures are supported by whites and Indians; among Africans (2008), only slightly more than half, 54%, pass the general certificate examinations at the minimum standard, and 13% reach the level that allows them to study at a university [South Africa Survey 2009/10]. The authors of the study ask whether students were better prepared during the years of the notorious Bantu Education Law. Experts do not give a definite answer. As noted by V. V. Gribanova, in the early 1980s, "about half of black students dropped out of school without learning to read and write well" (Gribanova, 2008, p. 100), but the other half was good at reading and writing. Today, even such effectiveness is problematic.

During the years of post-apartheid transformations, much has been done to eliminate the consequences of racial segregation in education: access to education for Africans has expanded, the percentage of illiterate South Africans has decreased from 15% in 1992 to 8% in 2007, and the proportion of black African youth continuing their education in higher education institutions has increased to 12% in the 20-24 age group (the same proportion of people of color, while whites have 61%, and Indians-54%) [www.earthzine. org]. Primary education coverage, even if sometimes formal, has increased from 60% to 80% [South Africa Survey 2009/10]. Model schools have emerged, well-equipped and providing high-level education in the traditionally backward provinces of the former bantustans. If apartheid-era South Africa was a pariah state and was boycotted by the international community, today international aid to South Africa is considered good form and enhances the image of international organizations and TNCs. For example, Microsoft has carried out a highly publicized campaign over the past decade: it has installed 100 million rand worth of free software in South African schools, while, for example, in Russia the corporation provides the same services for a lot of money, and teachers who install cheap unlicensed programs are brought to court.

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Despite the undoubted success, the state of school education in South Africa is still considered by most experts to be a crisis. Among the most acute problems are the significant knowledge gap between students in different provinces of South Africa, urban and rural schools, and the already noted overall low academic performance. The main reasons for the unsatisfactory situation in secondary education are: lack of funds necessary to provide a huge number of former black schools with modern buildings, equipment, new textbooks, insufficient teacher qualifications, lack of discipline and proper teaching culture in many schools where African students study. Moreover, in the context of criminal "lawlessness" in the African, especially youth, environment, many children and teachers are simply afraid to go to class. The problems of drug addiction and the mass spread of HIV infection were not spared from the school either. In South Africa-a huge number of rapes of minors: among Africans there is a belief that sex with a minor cures AIDS.

In the post-apartheid period, the South African education system is undergoing modernization, but increasing access to education at all levels for previously discriminated groups often comes at the expense of quality. This effect is well known to every teacher: when a large number of weak students join a strong class or university group, the overall level and quality of education inevitably decreases, and the strong suffer. The consequences of previous racial discrimination and segregation are being vigorously overcome, but profound and effective changes require not only money, but also time, some changes in culture and psychology, and just basic security. The fact that discrimination in favor of whites has actually been replaced by discrimination in favor of blacks also does not contribute to the better use of human resources.

The implanted Africanization, in this case in science and education, even financially and infrastructurally secured, is not yet transformed into the scientific results of the newly arrived black replenishment. The development of the African intelligentsia, which began under the white minority regime, requires decades of painstaking work and extremely careful treatment of old cadres, their preservation as a professional "core". The current policy of forced Africanization in South Africa and accelerated mass replacement of white personnel by blacks (the system of racial quotas) makes the degradation of science and education in the country inevitable, which is already partially happening.

The leaders in research and training of highly qualified personnel are still 5-6 leading universities (two-thirds of the scientific potential of universities), previously intended for whites, where the key role is still played by a" limited contingent " of white professors. However, even there, for the above-mentioned reason (and also because of far from the best changes in the teaching staff), as already noted, the quality of training and productivity of R & D are gradually declining. However, the integration of strong universities with weak former ethnic universities is beneficial for the latter. A positive aspect can also be considered that the previously oppressed, but now privileged majority includes, along with Africans, people of color and Indians (in practice, they are not always favored), as a rule, better prepared, creating a talent pool for science and high-tech sectors of the economy.

The progress of the Indian community is particularly remarkable. In the nineteenth century, Indians were brought virtually as slaves (with the formal abolition of slavery) to the sugar plantations of Natal, so that they were in some respects even worse off than the blacks. Even under apartheid, they managed to "occupy heights", coming close to the whites in terms of education and wealth, and one of them, Mahatma Gandhi, even managed to liberate his historical homeland (not alone, of course), but now many of them legally

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and they leave illegally (first of all-to England, where a strong Indian community ensures the transfer of"illegal immigrants").

Universities have been and still are the" blacksmiths of personnel " for science in South Africa and the most important centers of basic academic research. Generally speaking, the intellectual, cultural, social, scientific and technological progress of South African society has traditionally been based on universities with their atmosphere and traditions of free intellectual search (before the 2002-2007 reform, there were 21 universities, including the top five) and complementary technical institutes, or technical schools (15), where the research component was significantly weaker. The oldest (founded in 1829) and still one of the leading ones is the University of Cape Town, where the first heart transplants in the world were performed in 1967-1968 at the Hroote Schur clinic.

Higher education was intended primarily for the white population, but racial discrimination and segregation during the period of white minority rule was mitigated by university autonomy and was never fully implemented. And during the apartheid years, tens of thousands of blacks, people of color, and Indians (including many future figures of the liberation movement) received higher education in "white" universities. They also studied at weaker ethnic institutions for non-whites, the first of which was the college, and then the university for Africans Fort Hare was established in 1916 (it is interesting to note that in 1971 the Faculty of fine Arts was opened there, which trained many gifted black artists, and in 1988-one of the most successful black artists in the world). the continent's largest Gallery of African Art). Racial discrimination has never occurred at the continent's largest extramural university, the University of South Africa. In total, for example, in 1975 there were 170 thousand students in South Africa, of which 9 thousand were Africans, 7 thousand were Indians, 4 thousand were colored, and the rest were white. By the end of the apartheid era, the ratio of white to non-white students was roughly equal (in 1993). it was already 47% white) [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

Admission to the university requires a certificate of full secondary education ("senior certificate") with grades that allow you to continue your studies at the university. For some specialties, the university may set special admission requirements. Admission to the university is carried out without exams based on a certificate competition, with an unspoken preference now given to Africans, from a third to half of whom cannot write, read and count correctly after 12 years of school, and the quality of knowledge of school leavers who come to universities in recent years is even worse [www.fanews.co.za]. While during the white minority period, admission to university was only possible with the "enhanced" Senior Certificate with endorsement, which confirms that a number of subjects, such as mathematics and physics, have been completed and successfully passed, many universities now accept Africans with any secondary school graduation certificate.

At the same time, the academic requirements for students in the course of study are still too high for the poorly prepared part of applicants, and therefore (and also because of material problems) half of Africans do not even complete their first bachelor's degree. In order to somehow correct the situation, many universities have introduced preparatory departments for one or even two years to compensate for poor school preparation and make it as easy as possible for weak students to assimilate the university program.

As the course progresses, South African universities award Bachelor's, Master's, PhD and honorary degrees (bachelor's plus one year — something between a bachelor's and master's degree). Most universities offer courses in English, while a few offer courses in Afrikaans.

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The plan for the reorganization of higher education was adopted in June 2002, and it was formally completed by 2007 (it will still take a long time for the new structures to take root and work effectively). The program provided for the reduction of 36 existing universities, technical universities and colleges within 5 years and the creation of 23 higher educational institutions on their basis, but at the same time-an increase in the number of students by 200 thousand. Currently, there are three main types of higher education institutions: classical, complex and technological universities.

The first group includes eleven institutions focused on classical university programs: the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Stellenbosch, the University of Kwazulu-Natal, the University of the Free State, Limpopo University, Northwestern University, Rhodes University, the University of the Western Cape, and the University of Fort Hare. The first five universities were and still are the strongest in the country in terms of their scientific potential and are among the top 500 universities in the world. Each of these universities has a staff of over 100 "high-class" scientists certified by the National Research Foundation and from 500 to 1000 scientific publications a year in publications with a high international rating, and together they have concentrated almost two-thirds of the potential of university science - in terms of the number of researchers, R & D costs, the number of scientific publications, patents, etc. something like that [www.hsrpress.ac.za].

Also, 6 technological universities have been created, where training in technical specialties is conducted: Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Central University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, Technikoi Mangosutu, Tswana University of Technology, Vaal University of Technology.

Integrated universities include 6 higher education institutions where both types of study programs are combined: the University of Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela University, the University of South Africa, the University of Venda, the Walter Sisulu University of Technology and Science, and the University of Zululand. In the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) review of South Africa's education policies [Reviews of National Policies for Education, 2008], as a result of university restructuring, the worst-performing institutions are integrated universities, which "currently face huge challenges and are in a chaotic state". The authors of the review suggest that these dual universal-polytechnic universities make "a difficult but necessary choice and find their own specialized niche of knowledge" or, continuing to try to be many different institutions at the same time, "go towards collapse".

In general, it can be stated that the quality of higher education has become slightly worse in the post-apartheid period; the high level has remained with small losses in the leading former "white" universities (Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand, etc.), the quality of education has increased in the former " black "ones, and in the merged universities it is worse than in the "white" ones.", but better than in their previously "black" components. As the teacher-student ratio worsens (the number of students has doubled over the past decade, while the number of teachers has increased by 40%): the old staff of teachers is leaving, and the new ones are clearly inferior to them in the quality of training - in the near future, the greatest achievement would be to retain the best of what has been achieved. Serious damage to the quality of education is caused by the fashion for Americanizing the education system with the introduction of elements of the pipeline for the production of market-successful functionaries who have narrow professional qualifications and good "training" to turn intellectual goods into money, but are deprived of universal knowledge that forms the breadth of creative thinking. Philosophy and history don't belong in a sales manager's head. The American approach to education is approved-

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According to the principle that universities should train not so much educated people as commercially successful people.

Here are some data on the outflow of "human capital" from South Africa. During the first post - apartheid decade (1994-2003) alone, about 1 million highly qualified professionals - engineers and specialists, scientists, doctors, teachers, managers-mostly white people left South Africa, concerned about the decline in the quality of life and uncertainty about their future [Human capital flight..., 2004, p. 57-91]. The largest part of these expats with higher education, about a quarter, settled in the United States, but many of them are also in Canada (the lion's share of foreign doctors working here are immigrants from South Africa, Great Britain, and Australia). Interestingly, according to the South African Ministry of Labor, it is currently 1 million specialists - engineers, technologists, researchers and teachers, doctors, managers, and skilled workers - who are sorely lacking in the economy of South Africa itself. Russian researchers A. B. Davidson and I. I. Filatova note:

"The policy of" positive actions " (providing benefits to blacks everywhere) and reducing the requirements for hiring blacks led to a sharp deterioration in the work of all parts of the state mechanism. In the first years after coming to power, the leadership of the African National Congress (ANC) believed that there were enough black qualified professionals in South Africa and in exile to fill the places of outgoing whites, especially since universities, including white ones, began accepting black students in the mid-1980s. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and the ANC leadership is still not fully aware of the scale of the problem " [Filatova and Davidson, 2009, p. 191].

I can't resist another long quote from the same source, since it is difficult to more convincingly illustrate with a concrete example the stupid and presumptuous policy of new discrimination based on skin color, which is leading to economic decline, pursued by the political leadership of South Africa: "An important obstacle to accelerated economic development was the industry charters developed under the leadership of the Mbeki government. The Mining Charter, for example, led to an outflow of qualified personnel from state institutions, without increasing their number in industry. One of its requirements is to fill 40% of the management positions of all mining companies with blacks. Black engineers, geologists, metallurgists, and accountants with industrial experience were still lacking, but after the charter was introduced, businesses began to get rid of white specialists and offer inflated rates to qualified blacks, mostly from the public sector. As a result, the total number of specialists has decreased."

What if it hadn't? The level of training and quality of work at the black shift of engineers and managers is not the same at all. And the mining industry is very sensitive to the human factor, so we have to expect not only degradation of the industry, but also man-made and human-caused disasters.

The Mbeki administration, which was responsible for many failures (the energy crisis caused by planning mistakes, the very peculiar fight against AIDS, which was treated with beetroot instead of ARV drugs, the aforementioned charters that undermine the economy, etc.), ingloriously left the political Olympus. Despite his university degree, Mbeki proved to be a very incompetent leader. But his successor, Jacob Zuma, doesn't even have a high school education...

Despite all the shortcomings of the Mbeki administration, during the years of its activity, spending on science and education, human development (at least for the black population) grew faster than GDP growth, ambitious programs were developed, adopted and sometimes even implemented in the leading areas of scientific and technological progress, they were considered the most important national priorities. After changes in the leadership of the ANC at the end of 2007 and the subsequent change of the presidential administration-

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It seems to the ministers that these areas of activity, despite the formal preservation of the commitments made and the declaration of new ones, are no longer a priority for the country's leadership, which is losing interest in science and innovation (as evidenced by the real decline in public spending on R & D in recent years) and the ability to somehow direct their development. Well-thought-out macroeconomic and scientific and technical policies are increasingly being replaced by populist moves, such as the president's promise to create 5 million new jobs in the coming years (from nowhere). This is not surprising, given the deplorable state of the state apparatus and the almost zero educational standard of the president of the still most developed country, the "superpower" of the continent, which is slowly but steadily sliding into a state of underdevelopment.

But let's return to the main parameters of human development in South Africa.

Table 1

Key quantitative indicators of scientific and technological development in South Africa

(human potential)

2001

2005

2007

Total number of university students (ths.)

626

735

761

including at scientific and engineering faculties (%)

27.0

28.7

27.9

Total number of university graduates (ths.)

96

120

126.6

including scientific and engineering specialties (%)

26.2

27.8

27.7

Number of postgraduate students in these specialties

437

561

Number of secondary school graduates (thousands)

277

347

368

including those who passed the math exam (%)

7.0

7.6

6.9

Source: [South African Science..., 2008].

Less than 1,200 doctoral theses are defended per year (1182-in 2008) [University World News. Africa Edition. 13.10.2010], less than half of them are in the most valuable, scientific, engineering and technological category SET (science, engineering, technology), which confirms the necessary qualifications for working in the research field, more precisely, its non-humanitarian part (you can also add 2.9 thousand masters in this category).

By 2018, these indicators are planned to be increased 5-fold (6 thousand dissertations per year, half in the SET category), for which, in particular, 450 new research departments should be created in universities and university research institutes (i.e., there should be 500 of them against 60 in 2006) [Innovation Towards..., 2007]. It should be noted that the experience of the first years of implementation of the above-mentioned plans shows that they had a lot of what the British call "wishful thinking" (when wishful thinking is taken for real), and things are going, as they say, with a big creak. New research departments, for example, are being created significantly less (72 instead of the planned 210 by 2010)than the planned reform schedule, and there is, in fact, no one to fill them, except for university graduates from among the previously discriminated majority, whose scientific qualifications are often insufficient, and not the best. The best choose to go into business (as do the best white graduates) or take a low-cost, high-paying job in the ever-bloating state apparatus, where the average salary is one and a half times higher than in the private sector, not to mention science and education [www.politicsweb.co.za]. And the best ones leave the country. No great scientific results can be expected in this situation.

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The system of higher education and training of highly qualified personnel is a key link in the formation of scientific and technical potential in its human form, which includes not only the educational and qualification level, but also the mentality, culture and traditions. In general, the South African state spends a lot on education - about 20% of budget expenditures, or 5.7% of GDP in the middle of this decade (in Brazil-4.0%, in Russia - 3.1%), and spending grew by 8-9% per year, outstripping GDP growth [www.politicsweb.co.za] (in recent years, this share has been falling, as well as share of spending on science). At the same time, most of the funds go to eliminate hotbeds of illiteracy, a tenth of the population is illiterate, almost exclusively Africans, another 7-8 million people (and according to strict criteria - much more) are functionally illiterate, and for the widespread introduction of compulsory universal secondary education. Like science, less than 1% of GDP is spent on higher education itself. The main part of university budgets (40-45%) is made up of state subsidies, 25-30% - tuition fees (partially subsidized) [The State of Higher Education..., 2009]. In addition to public schools, there are also private schools and universities in the country, but their role, especially in higher education, is minimal.

By 2018, it is planned to increase the output of personnel for science and high-tech sectors of the economy fivefold, expanding the training of mainly black students, who will be stimulated and are already being stimulated by special grants (in 1993, only 11% of engineering graduates were black, in 2004-already 40%) [Kahn, 2008]. Since 2004, special grants have been established for black South African graduate students (50 thousand rand) simply for their consent to go to science. But this does not help much - out of 1,100 theses defended in 2006, 618 (56%) were white, only 331 (30%) were African [The State of Higher Education..., 2009], and a quarter of black graduate students in the country's universities come from neighboring countries, in particular, fairly well-educated Zimbabweans people who fled their country in economic distress. In total, in South Africa, about 14% of young people of student age studied at universities in 2002, 16% - in 2008 (20% according to plans for 2018).) against 5% in sub-Saharan Africa, but already 31% even in Latin America, while in highly developed countries, as well as among the white and Indian youth of South Africa itself, such a majority [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

During the first 12 years of post-apartheid democracy (1993-2005), the rapidly growing student body underwent significant racial and ethnic shifts. The total number of students in South Africa doubled to 735,000, while the proportion of whites decreased from 47 to 25%, and Africans increased from 40 to 61% (the proportion of Indians and people of color changed little - from 13 to 14%). However, more than half of Africans drop out during their studies (although 110,000 African students received special state assistance for "poor students" in 2005), this is more than representatives of other racial and ethnic groups (whites-a quarter). Among 126.6 thousand university graduates in 2007, 57% were African and 30% were white (the ratio is already reversed among doctoral students). At the same time, only Indians were really close to Whites in terms of education. In 2007, 54% of white school leavers enrolled in higher education, 43% of Indians, 13% of people of color, and only 12% of Africans [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

The number of students from the total number of representatives of this racial group aged 20-24 is as follows: Africans - 477 thousand out of 4 million, whites — 180 thousand out of 334 thousand, Indians - 53 thousand out of 122 thousand, and people of color - 49 thousand. of the 416,000, i.e. non-white youth of student age (416,000) in South Africa, there are already more than white (334,000). The white population is rapidly "decreasing in youth". Foreigners - mainly from other African countries, primarily from the South African Development Community (SADC), but also from Europe-account for 7-8% of South African students [Human Resource..., 2008; The State of Higher Education..., 2009]. Among university teachers, whites still predominate (63% in 2005) [Mail&Guardian, 15.05.2007].

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According to the recent practice, as already mentioned, the country's universities accept Africans on any high school graduation certificate (Senior Certificate), regardless of academic performance, and the quality of graduates with higher education diplomas changes accordingly. More and more semi-literate students are being accepted and graduated (teachers are horrified: "more than half of 1st-year students cannot write, read and count correctly - only 47% are fully literate, and only 7% are prepared to accept university mathematics" [The State of Higher Education..., 2009; www.sairr.org.za]. In her study on education in South Africa, V. V. Gribanova gives examples of reducing the level of requirements for admitting black students to still better universities and still mild "ethnic cleansing" of students and teaching staff: "For example, the former white University of Natal was merged with the former Indian University of Durban-Westville and the University of Zululand. The requirements for admission to this new university are now lower than they were at the University of Natal... Such well-known "white" universities as Stellenbosch, Witwatersrand and Bloemfontein were not affected by the merger, but they were obliged to make adjustments to the lists of students and teachers taking into account the demographic situation" [Gribanova, 2008, p.159].

And university degrees don't count either, when companies are forced to comply at all costs with the rules for hiring blacks that are lowered from above in order to get government orders, keep licenses, etc. As one of the now numerous articles on the fruits of the "affirmative action" policy of actively favoring blacks puts it, "job ads already feel free to write 'black only', whites and Indians with university degrees and work experience are rejected in favor of blacks often with no more than a high school education, and the quality of the job offers is very low." literacy and responsibility in work have become a distant memory from the apartheid era. No country or company can operate effectively if its employees do not meet the necessary qualifications. Technology is no longer keeping up with global standards, brain drain applies not only to highly qualified specialists, but also to skilled workers, and we have to put up with poor work, because it is almost impossible to find a specialist who would do everything properly. " [www.fllvoices.com].

Table 2

Teaching staff of South African universities in 2006

The Africans

White

Colored

The Indians

Other

Total

Professors and associate professors

476

3552

94

232

25

4379

Senior teachers

875

3282

173

396

38

4764

Teachers

5490

8813

1205

1621

1072

18201

Total

6841

15647

1472

2259

1135

27344

Source: [Human Resource..., 2008].

In 2006, whites accounted for 57% of university teaching staff, or just under two-thirds, and Africans accounted for exactly a quarter, or 25.0%. The proportion of Africans among senior teaching staff (professors, associate professors, senior lecturers) is growing more slowly - from 17% to 20% in 2004-2007. In the very top class of the 1.6 thousand South African university scientists included in the National Research Foundation's ranking as internationally recognized for their achievements, whites still almost completely dominate: in 2007, blacks were only 13%, a very small proportion, but still it has grown from 9% in 2003 [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

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In 1994-2001, 17,000, or about half of the scientific and engineering workers employed in R & D, left the country. In total, more than 1 million South Africans have emigrated since 1994 (the South African Institute of Race Relations, SAIRR, which is very cautious in its estimates, gives a figure of 800 thousand white emigrants only and only in the first post-apartheid decade); they moved, with rare exceptions, to England, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand [Problems of South African development..., 2007]. The reason for emigration was not so much higher earnings and career opportunities in richer and more developed countries, but rather the growing insecurity of living in South Africa and the unwillingness of the new authorities to seriously fight crime. Not only white residents of South Africa were outraged by the words of the Minister of Security and Law and Order Charles Nqakula in parliament (2006) that "everyone who whines about crime should leave the country" [Gribanova, 2008, p.157].

It is clear that young scientists left and are leaving first of all, but mostly those who were too late to start a new life remained. If in 1990 only 14% of scientific publications in South Africa were published by researchers over 50 years of age, now it is already two-thirds [Business day, 17.09.2010].

In recent years, for the first time, there has been a decrease not only in the proportion, but also in the absolute number of white students: from 189 thousand to 184 thousand in 2004-2007. The Council on Higher Education's 2009 report notes that these figures are worrisome and contradict the promise made in 2001 in the National Plan for Higher Education that increasing the number of black students will not come at the expense of whites. It seems that this is not only a matter of discrimination, but also of the mass departure of white youth. After all, as already shown above, the number of colored youth of student age has now exceeded the number of white people for the first time. With the overall increase in the number of graduates, the shortage of qualified personnel in a number of key specialties is becoming more acute. In the 2000s. the output of programmers, computer engineers and representatives of a number of other engineering specialties decreased by 5% annually, pharmacists-by 8%, physicists - by 2%, etc. If the proportion of students in the humanities and social sciences (40%) set out in the 2001 plan has been maintained over the past decade, then the proportion of students in the category of social sciences (40%) has been maintained over the past decade.SET-natural sciences and engineering-technical specialties-was always 2-3% lower than the planned 30% share, although the absolute number of students and graduates grew (graduates - from about 25 to 35 thousand) [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

Recently, serious doubts have emerged not only about the quality, but also about the reality of the quantitative indicators outlined in the innovation ten-year plan for 2018 in terms of highly qualified personnel, "human capital" for science and high technologies, due to the ongoing significant decline in growth rates and even a reduction in budget allocations for R & D development. Thus, a recent (October 2010) University World News review on the problems of training South African researchers notes that "despite the planned targets for achieving the annual figure of 6 thousand defended dissertations, including 3000 in the SET (science and technology) category, provided for by 2018. According to the National Research Foundation and the Ministry of Science and Technology, real data on the defense of dissertations show even a slight decrease in their number in the last few years. " [www.universityworldnews.com]. At the same time, only 40% of the approximately 41 thousand people are registered. university teachers and researchers in South Africa currently hold doctorates (16%) or master's degrees, i.e. bachelors with "shortened" higher education predominate, among which the largest percentage of Africans [The State of Higher Education..., 2009].

If we talk about highly qualified personnel for the management of the national economy as a whole, then there are rapid racial shifts (despite the fact that the majority of senior management personnel still remains white): the share of blacks among the population of the Russian Federation is growing.

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The share of top managers in 2000-2008 increased from 12.7% to 24.2%, i.e. from one-eighth to a quarter, and among senior managers - from 18.5% to 32.6%, i.e. up to a third of the total number of employees in all spheres. This is-on average, in the state apparatus, for example, it is several times higher [www.thepresidensy.gov.za]. All this would be welcome if it were not for the top-driven nature of such Africanization, which leads to a significant reduction in professional criteria for hiring and a corresponding decline in the quality of management activities in almost all sectors. A great number of black bosses and influential people (with access to finance) have been introduced in recent years into the scientific and university environment using administrative resources. Scientific infertility of many of them is intensively "treated" in a well-known way-by voluntary and compulsory co-authorship with those who can really create.

In conclusion, even a small fraction of the hundreds of billions of rand that South Africa spends on "artificially nurturing the black capitalist class" through programs to strengthen the economic power of blacks [Filatova and Davidson, 2009] would be enough to make higher education in the country free and truly accessible (the cost of education is rising, at a good university, which causes constant student protests throughout the country), and the abolition of racial quotas in education and other fields of activity, which, after all, were abandoned in the apartheid era and returned to in the era of black majority rule, would allow much more effective use of intellectual potential. more countries than are currently doing this. It is not necessary to bring the proportion of whites and Indians among scientists and professors (as the authorities are now doing) to their share in the total population (from two-thirds to about 9% and from 9 to 2%, respectively), regardless of how well they do their job. Opportunities can and should be equalized, but not abilities. This path does not lead to the knowledge economy.

list of literature

Gribanova V. V. Three centuries of education development in South Africa, Moscow, 2008.
Problems of development of South Africa and Zimbabwe, Moscow, 2007.
Filatova I. I., Davidson A. B. What color is the "South African miracle"? The National Democratic Revolution and national relations in South Africa at the end of the XX-beginning of the XXI century / / Pax Africana. Continent and Diaspora in Search of themselves, Moscow, 2009.
Business day.

Cape Argus.

Human capital flight: stratification, globalization and the challenges to tertiary education in Africa / Ed. by Bcnno J. Ndulu // JHEA/RESA. 2004. Vol. 2. № 1.

Human Resource Development Strategy of South Africa. Pretoria, 2008.

Innovation Towards a Knowledge-based Economy. Ten-year Plan for South Africa. Pretoria, 2007.

Kahn M. Science and Technology Policy // South African Human Resources Review. Cape Town, 2008.

Mail & Guardian.

Reviews of National Policies for Education-South Africa / Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). P., 2008.

South Africa Survey 2009 /10. South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR). Johannesburg, 2010.

South African Science and Technology Indicators 2008. National Advisory Council on Innovation. Pretoria, 2008.

The State of Higher Education in South Africa. Pretoria, 2009.

University World News. Africa Edition. 13.10.2010.

www.earthzinc.org

www.fancws.co.za

www.fllvoiccs.com

www.hsrpress.ac.za

www.politicswcb.co.za

www.theprcsidensy.gov.za

www.universityworIdncws.com

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