Director of ceremony
Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Mbati
The Premier of Limpopo Province, Mr Mathale
Vice-Chancellors from other universities
Chairperson of Council, Ms Mabusela
President of Convocation, Mr Ravhuanzwo
Deputy ministers
Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education in Zimbabwe, Professor Mushowe
Thovhele Gole Mphaphuli
Thovhele Mphephu Ramabulana
SAFA President, Mr Nematendani
SRA President, Mr Machabapala
MEC for Education, Mr Masemola
Vhembe District Executive Mayor, Mr Mdaka
Students, academics and other members of the university community
Business partners and strategic leaders of various institutions
Your Excellencies high commissioners and ambassadors
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Avuxeni! Ndi Matsheroni! Thobela! Good morning!
It is a great honour for me to be invited to serve as the Chancellor of the University of Venda (Univen). I deem it a rare privilege to become part of this illustrious institution that enjoys 28 years of existence since it was established in 1982. In its long and unique history, Univen has enjoyed a status of being a rural-based university that serves as a resource pool for the regional community.
One is thus seized with a deep sense of ambivalence, elated at this great prospect but equally overcome with trepidation at the enormous responsibility that comes with being chancellor of the institution like this, given the fact that my able predecessors will be a hard act to follow.
So please allow me to thank my predecessor, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa, for holding the ship on even keel for two successive terms. I also wish to pay my respects to the Chairperson of Council, the retired Constitutional Court Judge, Justice Yvonne Mokgoro, for her noble counsel throughout the years.
Together with other members of the council, they both played a central part in guiding and piloting this institution through tempestuous and difficult waters. I trust that both Mr Ramaphosa and Justice Mokgoro have agreed to continue their association with Univen as special ambassadors so that we leverage available resources from the local and international donor community for the benefit of Univen.
We commend them and similarly invite other stakeholders in the private sector and civil society to be our partners in offering specialised grassroots-based training that is driving our country’s sustainable development.
One of the major tasks we face is the sourcing of funds to boost this university’s dual obligations in agricultural research and rural development that benefits the poor and attends to the needs of economic advancement while in addition positioning South Africa as a globally competitive country.
Every willing ambassador therefore, should be mobilised in order to form a formidable force of social capital that enhance prospects for this institution.
Programme director
I was asked to share my views on the topic,
“Towards developing a quality rural-based university that contributes to the programme of action of government and the eminent American political activist and scholar, W.E.B. Du Bois, cast the role of the university in bold relief when he said, “A university is a human invention for the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation, through the training of quick minds and pure hearts,” (from The Talented Tenth, 1903). While the purpose of universities is the transmission of knowledge and culture from generation to generation this happens in the ever changing context of time and space.
I think, therefore, that such a thematic focus, by necessity, ought to say something about the generic role of tertiary institutions as principal hubs for knowledge production and dissemination. To talk on the developmental role of universities is not only a matter of focusing on offering students accessible and quality-based qualifications but also hinges upon seeing education as directly linked to national development which improves people’s lives for the better.
Conceptually, the developmental role of a university touches upon the university’s aspirations in playing a central and determining role to transmit knowledge and skills that have a sustainable socio-economical value, translating in palpable improvement in people’s lives. It also reflects on our country’s capacity to compete globally in, for instance, scientific innovation and agronomy in order to teach our people better farming techniques and to raise food productivity that can feed the population.
As you would surely know, the success of any nation is largely reliant upon how effective its tertiary education institutions are in producing a skilled, professional, creative and innovative labour force and society in general.
Modern nations enhance the quality of life of their citizenry by dint of a substantial amount of investment in education with the aim that the returns would generate entrepreneurs and communal wealth generators.
Programme director,
Universities are defined by the conditions in which they operate.
Being South Africans, we will know that the socio-political character that occasioned the need for the University of Venda and other universities in the then Bantustans was odious, designed to achieve objectives inconsonant with the vision of a free, non-racial, non-sexist, just and democratic society that we are currently building. Modern day South Africa is premised on completely different political ethos.
The transmission of knowledge and culture today is not to serve the apartheid purpose of political oppression, social discrimination and economic exploitation. In this post-apartheid context therefore, the University of Venda will at once reflect and be driven by imperatives of growth and development, building a better society for all South Africans on account of our shared vision.
As one people with an indivisible future and common destiny, we have a duty to build institutions, whether state, civic or educational, which must, necessarily, reflect this intricate reality.
Accordingly, to contribute to government’s programme of action, which is ongoing and incremental, this university will have to, among others, respond to the challenges of producing graduates who are both responsive and sensitive to the needs of our society, defined by, among others, conditions of poverty and marginalisation. Universities therefore serve as critical catalyst in propelling nations to levels of irreversible development.
They are centres of functional learning, places to acquire a skill and qualification while at the same time, they comprise centres for a search for scientific truth and research and innovation. Society expects no less from the University of Venda. Universities embody the (tsait guiste) zeitgeist spirit of the time culture, ethos and values that serve to drive societal progress.
In this regard, education is one of government’s apex priorities. This would explain why our government, since 1994, has consistently spent more and more of its succeeding annual budgets on education. However, funding, important as it is, is a necessary but not sufficient condition to see to our developmental needs as a nation. All of us stakeholders in the future of our country, consistent with our shared vision, are called upon to do our bid from our different vantage points in this construction and development process.
Ladies and gentlemen,
By functionally working with tertiary institutions like Univen, we are all winners to the extent that we expand the pool of knowledge creators that will go on to be change catalysts and empowerment agents. It is thus noteworthy that the Limpopo government, resonating with the national government, has declared 2010 as a year of intensive learning. I lend my complete support to the education summit they will host to find lasting remedies for our education sector.
I am confident that, working together with Univen and other tertiary institutions in this province, we are bound to make a breakthrough in improving the education of our children.
In this connection, there is room for arguing that universities can and should work in tandem with the provincial government to meet the developmental challenges such as:
* Promotion of labour-absorbing industrial sectors with an emphasis on services that catalyse productive employment creation
* Lack of targeted interventions to broaden and diversify the provincial base
* Lack of productive capacities to move out of the poverty trap of high unemployment; and low levels of income, gross fixed capital formation
* The continued exclusion and marginalisation of women, youth and disabled entrepreneurs from the mainstream economy.
These core issues are more pronounced in South Africa where we are all involved as government, business, academia and civil society in fashioning a participatory democracy and in creating a society which privileges a pursuit of social justice, fights poverty and under-development.
As an example of what I am referring to, the partnerships between government, surrounding community and universities is successfully at work here in Giyani with the national pilot project led by the Ministry of Rural Development and Land Reform to mobilise the Muyexe community in projects geared for youth skilling, community food security initiatives and in infrastructure improvement.
As a university community, let us also join in partnership with the Limpopo Provincial Employment Growth and Development Plan (LEGDP) in order to make real and practical developing a quality rural-based university.
In our best efforts as government-university partners and other stakeholders, we would thereby be able to come up with viable action programmes for strategic growth and development in areas such as:
* Integrated industrial development programme
* Enterprise development in SMMEs and cooperatives
* water, healthcare and agricultural programmes
* In building the capacity of the state to deliver.
Programme director
By definition, universities are supposed to spread and promote knowledge and expertise they possess throughout society. Earlier on we said universities should reflect the concrete societal conditions in which they are rooted. On this account, in addition to its current efforts in this region, what else can this university do in assisting local communities with practical ideas around cooperatives and helping local farmers on a range of matters of concern? A developmental role of a university such as UniVen, guided by contemporary crop of leading-lights, should replicate the role of leading lights that shaped the past complex societies of Mapungubwe, Dzata and Thulamela that existed in this region. This is at the heart of what we in Africa mean when we talk of Vhuthu or Botho!
At the same time I am fully committed to lend a hand in realising a developmental mandate of transforming UniVen into a comprehensive university that offers career-focused programmes…with emphasis on science and technology. Most essentially, I am heartened that the university finally adopted the five-year (2009 to 2013) Strategic Plan which has, amongst others, these objectives:
* Integration of community engagement in the core business of the university
* Financial sustainability
* Advancing the research and innovation mandate
* Integrated human resource management and development
* Enhancing the quality of student life.
Such a road map as tabulated in this strategic plan needs to be supported by all stakeholders since it spells out clear targets and deliverables.
What are these deliverables and targets in simple words? The 283 permanent or research academic staff has to operate and function in an environment that removes all hurdles in the way.
The commitment of executive management is encouraged to provide financial incentives for rated researchers and moreover I support the work-study programme for students studying towards honours, masters and doctoral degrees.
I learn that the university has made plans to invest R23 million for improving teaching and research development in this academic year for it to subsequently translate into improved student learning and graduate outputs.
I am sure we all recognise the fact that the pressing matter of the UniVen’s financial sustainability is uppermost. I am further in accord with Principal Professor Mbati when he states that a good financial position guarantees reserves to improve not only the learning conditions for our students, but also improve the infrastructure and living conditions for both staff and students.
Once more, these are issues where I presume there is consensus between the student community, management and academic staff and council.
I say this as in the final analysis “block grants from government and students fees” is not sustainable in the long-term. The third stream of university income generation is urgently essential.
We can be able to effect and do this through the strengthening of the alumni association, ambassadorial role of Mr Ramaphosa, Justice Mokgoro and many others in the university’s Business Enterprise initiative.
Programme director,
The role of UniVen in developing curricula and programmes that boost rural development is not inconsiderable, especially at a time in our country when we are going through trying times brought about by the global economic downturn.
These challenges which have impacted upon our developmental goals of employment creation, fighting poverty and inequality have resulted in placing pressure on all of us, as government, the private sector and the academy, to pull our resources together as we transform our country.
The knowledge-based world economy we live in calls for that and we cannot hope to realise our developmental goals any other way.
This is also the only way to ultimately root out despair amongst our youth and despondency in the unemployed graduates who have qualifications inconsistent with the market.
As we strive to produce quality knowledge where, as Du Bois puts it, we transmit knowledge and culture, we do this aware that education is the greatest equalizer.
Given our current reality of poverty and unemployment, the most obvious role of higher education is that it helps individuals to meet their immediate needs of securing decent jobs a role which also intersects with the country’s need to reverse its huge skills deficit.
It is therefore not out of place to argue that government’s huge investment in higher education is driven in part by the need to make our young people to become competitive in today’s job market. What this ordinarily means is that tertiary institutions must ensure that there is a fit between what is taught and learned in the classroom and the actual skills gaps in our growing and modernising economy.
Yet, we also do know that the philosophy, practice and quality of tertiary education cannot be so narrow. Higher education must make it possible for graduates to not simply fit into existing or potential opportunities in the private, public and non-governmental sectors.
It must make them trail-blazers in their own right, so that they in turn become talents that help South Africa to become competitive in the global knowledge economy.
It is when the significance of higher education is imagined in this way that every academic discipline and program clearly apprehends the imperative and urgency of self-renewal.
We intend to achieve this, conscious that empowerment speaks of the imperative of producing highly skilled graduates and luminaries produced by UniVen like Chief Mbangiseni Masiya, the South African Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Advocate Mashabane, Chris Hlekane who is the General Manager of O.R. Tambo Airport and thousands more who today play leading roles in private and public sectors.
Programme director
It is encouraging to see the numbers of students seeking education growing at UniVen.
As administrators and the executive, we are thus impelled to upgrade infrastructure and facilities that can accommodate the more than eleven thousand students registered with UniVen.
Even more importantly and given the recent clamour over a review of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS), it is proper that there is dialogue and broad consultation so that eventually we are able to address the issue of access and affordability of university education. After all, UniVen was established 28 years ago to accommodate only 5 000 students, but now has more than 11 000 learners.
Nevertheless, I am of the view that working together with all stakeholders and social partners, we can turn challenges to opportunities. At the same time and directing the following comments to students and their parents, we should all be mindful of the fact that, to quote the pragmatist and educationist John Dewey, “Education is a social process; education is growth; education is not a preparation for life but is life itself,” (My Pedagogic Creed, 1897).
Given that education is life itself, one of the critical demands from universities today is to put their expertise at the service of society, and in this way enable societies to survive. For instance, one of the practical ways to play this important role could be for this university to recommend some of its students to be posted as representatives of South Africa in the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
FAO leads efforts to eradicate hunger and is a source of knowledge and information in terms of modernisation of agricultural economies, forestry, fisheries, and so on. It is an ideal mainstay of modern agricultural ideas into which we can tap and thus harvest immense benefits. This can also help with ways and means of preserving the environment and adhering to the precepts of the green economy.
Importantly, this exercise can be done in conjunction with all relevant government departments, including the Department of Agriculture.
Distinguished guests
In conclusion, as we prepare for the work that lies ahead of the 2010 academic year and beyond, allow me to wish well our Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Mbhenyane, in her arduous responsibility as the project coordinator of the Higher Education Quality Committee audit.
We need to be thoroughly prepared for this audit since it entails the implementation of quality assurance strategies at all levels, the improvement of continuous monitoring and evaluation systems and national and intentional benchmarking.
Ladies and gentlemen
Education, as Horace Mann memorably put it, "Beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery." I am humbled to join the University of Venda and to be part of an inestimable team that seeks to empower young men and young women who are suitably trained with quick minds and pure hearts in order to bring about conditions of progress and equality in our society
Ndaa! Inkomu! Ke a leboga! I thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
9 March 2010
Source: The Presidency (http://www.thepresidency.gov.za/)
