Young academics need mentorship from universities

South Africa's universities are failing to implement the "social component" of their missions effectively, says Lihle Ngcobozi, a former student activist in the nationwide #FeesMustFall (#FMF) protests of 2015 and now a lecturer in the Wits School of Governance at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). The failure is creating disillusion among emerging young academics, such as herself, who are "left to sink or swim" amid an institutional environment that appears to prize careerism and managerialism over engaged research and the core teaching and learning mission of universities.