Programme director
The Circuit Manager, Mrs Zwane
Teachers and Members of Staff attached to the White Hazy Circuit
All the scholars present
Ladies and gentlemen
Last week I was called to a school in a nearby community to sort out a few boys who are mis-behaving. I told them that they will end up in jail if they continue as they are. But today, I am happy to be called to this occasion to speak to students, who are the pride and joy of their parents. In fact, you are the role models of your communities and you carry the hopes and dreams of your different communities. Your families look at you in order to provide for them once you grow up. You will only be able to provide for them if you have a successful career and a successful career starts with education.
But I am also here to speak to teachers. I want to encourage teachers to guide students into the career fields of agriculture. Currently only 2% of all professionals are working in the agricultural industry. And I am aware that most of the students, who study towards degrees and diplomas in agriculture, do so because they were not accepted in other fields such as engineering studies, medical studies, and other science related careers. But I would like to assure that South Africa and Africa need specialists in the agri-sciences.
Programme director, the biggest challenge facing the Province is unemployment. At 28.7%, Mpumalanga has the highest unemployment rate in the country and it therefore comes as no surprise that President Zuma announced that job creation will be the focus of his administration. Education is key to job creation but currently we are doing poorly in educating our people. Only 7% of the people in our province have a degree or a diploma, while more than 14% of our people have no schooling at all. We therefore need to ask ourselves how our communities will benefit from job creation if only 7% of our people have the required skills in order to take up those job opportunities that government will be creating.
The department is therefore adding extra burdens to your capable shoulders because we need you to support these students in finishing their studies. We need these students to continue to colleges and universities in order to be employed. And in the agriculture industry, we need economists, extension officers, laboratory technicians for animal health, we need agric advisors to supervise farms, we need vets, grain graders and managers of pack houses.
These jobs do not require very clever people, but it needs people who are committed and even stubborn, in completing their diplomas and degrees. I therefore call on teachers to stop using agriculture as a form of punishment, because agriculture feeds the nation, it dresses the nation and agriculture preserves our land, water and other natural resources.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to encourage you to visit the Lowveld College of Agriculture on its annual open days, so that the scholars can interact and learn from students who are currently studying towards diplomas in agriculture. I also hope that you could encourage scholars to continue their studies at the Lowveld College of Agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Administration awards bursaries annually to students studying agriculture and for the 2010/11 financial year, 30 bursaries were awarded to first year students at the Lowveld College of Agriculture. Last year more than R28 000 were awarded to each of the first year recipients of the bursaries; while more than R26 000 were awarded to each of the recipients completing their second year of studies. The development of a bachelor’s degree programme, the B. Agric is also underway and subjects in forestry and livestock will be included in the curriculum from 2012.
Ladies and gentlemen, this year marks 35 years since the Soweto uprising, when students showed their anger at the apartheid government. Through their determination, those students led this country to freedom. But at the heart of their protests was their sincere interest in wanting to learn. Those students were so determined to study, that they were even willing to die.
But even today we know that being able to study, does not come easy. We know that it is still only the determined few, who will endure the hardships of growing up poor and isolated. It is only a few who will be tough enough to resist all the temptations of joining gangs of criminals or who will not fall pregnant at an early age. It is only a few who will complete matric and who will go on to eventually study towards a diploma and a degree.
You are the role models of your communities and today we celebrate you, in the same way that we celebrate Hector Pietersen who died on 16 June 1976, simply because he wanted to free to study in his own language. As role models I want you to encourage the teachers and scholars who are not doing so well. Let’s us work together to become a province known for excellence in education. After all, ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’.
Congratulations to all the winners of the 2010 Academic Awards in the White Hazy Circuit.
Ngiyabonga.
Source: Mpumalanga Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Administration
