University of Fort Hare graduation ceremony, East London
4 May 2007
Derrick Swartz
Parents and graduands
It is a great honour to speak at this institution in the 90th year of its
existence.
No one can deny that in a full assessment of Fort Hare's place in higher
education (HE), in the world and in Africa, the university can claim a proud
history.
The university has been through the turbulent and disruptive era of
apartheid as well as the anti-colonial response that influenced its
establishment.
In the year 2001, there were voices who defined this university as an
apartheid creation.
I entered the debate to point out that, in fact, the university had been
created before the advent of apartheid. It was established through an African
desire to build a true university open to all, promoting academic excellence
and providing the African people with real opportunity for university
study.
The university owes its beginning to community builders such as Dr James
Stewart, also known as Somgxada, Pixley Ka Izaka Seme, Sol Plaatjie, Enoch
Mamba, John Sishuba, Thomas Mapikela, Joel Goronyana, John Tengo Jabavu and
others.
You will all agree that no amount of revisionist history could convince us
that these leaders were creatures of apartheid.
Why the apartheid imprint then?
First, I believe this definition came about because apartheid could not
tolerate the existence of a truly liberating higher education institution (HEI)
which had the reputation of producing talented and activist intellectuals and
professionals.
Second, the State then wanted to replace academic practitioners and
excellent academic content with acquiescent enslaved apologists who would
perpetuate the apartheid myth of black inferiority.
Third, the government then could not permit the existence of a non-racial
institution that allowed students of all colours and origins.
It is interesting to note that the State was vicious in its interactions
with historically black institutions, especially with this one.
It feared high levels of political consciousness. It feared the uncanny
ability of this university to infuse in young people the understanding that
their opportunity to study and qualify could never be divorced from their
responsibility to attach themselves to the larger agenda of achieving the full
and total liberation of the people of South Africa and of Africa.
I trust that today's graduates have a similar understanding of their
national duty.
Fort Hare graduates are outstanding people. They are heirs to a great
tradition of leaders who saw achievement as paving the way for freedom, leaders
who asserted that their success was a precursor to nation building.
You inherit that legacy today.
Professor ZK Matthews comments at length about the university and student
life in his autobiography. He writes of a deep admiration and appreciation of
the university academic programme and its political and community orientation.
He clearly suggests that the university was much more than a place in which you
earned a degree.
Professor Matthews' views echo WEB du Bois in his essay on the "Talented
Tenth" where he states:
"Whether you like it or not the millions are here and here they will remain.
If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down. Education and work are the
levers to uplift a people. Work alone will not do it unless inspired by the
right ideals and guided by intelligence. Education must not simply teach work,
it must teach life. The 'Talented Tenth' of the Negro race must be made leaders
of thought and missionaries of culture among their people. No others can do
this work and Negro colleges must train men for it. The Negro race, like all
other races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men."
This hope expressed by Du Bois is an important challenge to you as you
graduate today. Are you exceptional men and women? Has Fort Hare prepared you
to be leaders of thought and of society?
To answer that question it is useful to reflect on our HE policies and
practice in our 13 years of freedom.
As you are aware South Africa is a country that faces the challenge of
balancing the demands of world competitiveness with that of community and
nation building.
The enterprise of this nation is to create a better life for its entire
people, to build a nation that promotes and respects diversity, human dignity
of all, non-racism, non-sexism and democracy.
We seek to eradicate poverty and to create lasting conditions for all to
live a decent life. These objectives form the core underpinnings of our project
of nation building.
Given the newness of our democratic state the achievement of these
objectives will depend in large measure on state action. This university and
others have to respond by working hard to develop the human resources necessary
to act on such a mandate.
We are pleased to learn that the university has developed much of its
teaching and research programme around these objectives.
The Agricultural and Rural Development Research Institute and the Nelson
Mandela Institute for Rural Education and Development support direct university
/ community interaction and collaboration.
The university attention to rural development is very welcome as many of our
intellectual efforts tend to have an urban bias. The university has the
potential to give real meaning to our efforts to expand, modernise and dynamise
the second economy into a sector of growth and opportunity that is
symbiotically linked to the first economy.
Your task as nation builders is to give life to these aspirations.
Our efforts in the Department also focus on nation building and the success
of a future South Africa.
We are guided by the programme outlined in 'Education White Paper 3 - A
Programme for the Transformation of the HE system'.
The programme includes the creation of a single co-coordinated HE system,
equity, access and quality, democratisation, effectiveness, efficiency,
development and academic freedom and public accountability.
All our institutions should focus on these objectives. You as graduates and
students should scrupulously monitor the sector to ensure it is meeting these
objectives. We are gradually meeting these goals but much remains to be
done.
With regard to a single co-ordinated system we have developed policies and
practices that are supporting achievement of this.
On equity and access, in 2005 there were 734 000 students enrolled nearly
50% more than in 1994.
We have successful National Financial Aid Scheme (NFAS) assisting students
with loans and bursaries. The scheme invested over R1,3 billion in students in
2006/07. Nearly three in four students in HE were black in 2005, indicating
positive progress in transformation.
Our challenge continues to be that of ensuring that success in access is
matched by equity in outcomes.
The recent cohort studies of the 2000 and 2001 first time entering students
conducted by the Department of Education showed that too few of these students
(approximately one in five) graduated after five years at university. This is a
challenge to all our institutions. Perhaps the first nation-building project
the graduates could take on is that of ensuring that Fort Hare becomes a
university for success.
A further challenge is educating for intellectual growth and for economic
participation. Universities need to do much more in their effort to link work
and HE. Not to be universities of technology but to understand the changing
educational imperatives of a modern economy.
Of course, to build our nation successfully we should adopt ethical
practices and values of service honesty and transparency. Universities may have
to consider whether they should not offer a compulsory elective on ethics for
all students.
In conclusion, a nation requires its people to be healthy and to live long
lives. The spread of HIV must be defeated in our research and in our lives.
Also our nation will have little meaning if we do not work with our continent
to build a new proud prosperous Africa. Our nation building must include the
broader African agenda.
These are tough assignments for new graduates, the glorious history of Fort
Hare suggests that nothing is too tough for a graduate of this great
university.
Thank you!
Issued by: Department of Education
4 May 2007
