WeeklySA_AdminFOOTPRINT: Address by Higher Education Minister Nzimande on the occasion of Unisa’s 150th Anniversary celebration on Tuesday…
By Dr Blade Nzimande
It gives me great pleasure to make these opening remarks at UNISA’s 150th birthday celebrations, a significant milestone in the history of South African higher education. Founded in 1873, UNISA occupies a unique place in the annals of higher education history as the oldest university in our country. Not only that, Unisa gave birth to the university system in South Africa.
Since its inception, this university has spawned into existence and supported the establishment and development of an illustrious list of other higher education institutions such as UCT, Stellenbosch, Fort Hare and many more.
With an incredible enrolment projected 370 000 plus students across 130 countries, UNISA is one the truly mega-universities in the world today. This is quite remarkable, given the relatively small population size of our country.
UNISA’s history of course reflects the broader history of the times in which it was moulded from its roots in the colonial period, the long period under the Union of South Africa from 1910 till 1960, the 45 years of apartheid (‘white republicanism’), and the last 27 years into the democratic era. Its major development took place in the post-war period, notably, from 1946 when it pioneered tertiary distance education across SA and the wider African continent, to and in 2004 after it incorporated Vista University and merged with Technikon SA.
Over time UNISA grew to enrol a staggering third of all higher education students in South Africa. Its motto “Pro Gentibus Sapienta” – in service of humanity – began to be reflected in an impressive array of academic programmes brought into reach of far-flung communities.
Stalwarts of the struggle against oppression, ZK Matthews and John Langalibalele Dube, were amongst the first Africans to receive degrees from Unisa, following in the footsteps of Simon-Peter Mihlali, the first black student to matriculate under the Unisa examinations in 1879.
UNISA boasts amongst its million and more alumni community, the likes Youth League President Anton Lembede, Former President Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Emeritus Demond Tutu, Anti-apartheid activists and Rivonia Trialists Ahmed Kathrada and Denis Goldberg, former Chief Justice of South Africa Pius Langa and Moegoeng Moegoeng, former Deputy Chief Justice, Dikgang Moseneke, Justice Raymond Zondo, former Judge of the Constitutional Court Edwin Cameron, Dr Neville Alexandra, Dr Gill Marcus, Ms Agnes Allen Lewis, Dr Mamphela Ramphela, Dr Mosibudi Mangena and Professor Eskia Mphahlele and former President Jean Betrand Aristide of Haiti. UNISA is also the alma mater of our very own President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In the 1940s, notable figures such as Oliver Tambo, Getrude Nhlabati, Sir Seretse Khama and Robert Mugabe, amongst others, received their degrees from the University of Fort Hare, registered as external Unisa students. This Conference is celebrating UNISA’s 150th anniversary under the theme ‘Reclaiming Africa’s Intellectual Futures’.
I note with interest that you are assuming potentially multiple futures as we are of course not homogenous, with different social forces and interests competing to define what it means to be African in the 21st century. Taking the same assumption, I will argue the case for an African agenda committed to the creation of a socially-just, equal, inclusive and sustainable Africa and global humanity.
CHALLENGES OF A CHANGING WORLD
To speak meaningfully about a radical imagination for Africa, we have to contextualise the historical moment in which UNISA wants to carve out a distinctive role. The world is witnessing a major war in eastern Europe (Russia-Ukraine), major economic and geopolitical rivalries between principally the US and China, re-polarisation of many parts of the world along new Cold War lines, weakening of post-Second World War multilateral institutions and emergence of new regional and trans-national blocs and alliances. Today we are facing at least three converging crisis points creating unprecedented instability across the world – fracturing of the neo-liberal model of growth and globalisation, a major climate and ecological crisis, and widening levels of social inequality.
RENEWAL OF THE NEW AFRICA AGENDA
Our continent is still held back from its full potential by Africa’s subordinate place in the global political and economic system (itself now in crisis).
We have seen renewed energy and efforts by AU (African Union) leaders to create stronger internal conditions for greater unity to tackle the major existential and developmental challenges such as climate change, economic marginalisation, technological development, food security and so-forth.
The AU Africa 2063 Agenda lays out a number of strategic priorities around which future intellectual work in African higher education, science and innovation should focus. Equally important, tackling these challenges will of course require societal-wide mobilisation of all our indigenous resources and capacities – governments, civil society, labour, industry and the African diaspora.
Post-school education and training have a particularly distinctive role to play to provide Africa with home-grown, contextually-relevant and practical solutions to its own problems. After the 2017-18 #Feesmustfall movement we saw a more recent resurgence of promoting a more radical extension of our universities into society to strive for a more inclusive and equal society.
The development of indigenous Afrocentric epistemologies, methods of research, teaching and learning are of course key to the sustained development of finding African solutions to African problems. In this regard, I see UNISA, with its vast network of campuses and satellite facilities, the bulk of which is on the continent, as an immense source of innovation to drive the renewal of the African agenda. This role includes but goes beyond the training of professionals such as teachers and nurses, but also involves forging STI partnerships in health management, pandemics, food security, economic and business development, legal treaties and migration dynamics. For this to happen, UNISA itself must get its house in order.
THE RENEWAL CHALLENGES OF UNISA
Colleagues, government has been deeply concerned about many aspects to do with the strategic direction, governance and leadership problems which had been facing UNISA over the past decade. In 2021, and in response to many complaints at UNISA, I appointed a Ministerial Task Team led by Professor Vincent Mphai to look into the sources of crises at UNISA. Its report was tabled, followed in 2022 by the appointment of an assessor, Professor Temba Mosiua, to further probe into specific matters raised by the MTT. This report has been completed and we will be announcing further steps in the near future. One of the key challenges identified by the DHET and also reflected in the MTT Report concerns that of the business model and growth strategy for UNISA.
In recent years, we have seen UNISA creeping into the domain of ‘contact education’ provision which, as you know, is at variance with its foundational mandate as a ‘distance learning’ education provider. It is precisely the strength of its foundational model as a distance education provider that has made UNISA able to provide educational access to citizens in many different settings. This trend must be checked and UNISA must restore its foundational mandate. UNISA furthermore, must accelerate the modernisation of its technology platforms to fully manage and apply for good use new innovations to assist it to carry out its operations efficiently across vast geographical distances. The revolution in massive online technology providers – many offering free online courses – pose serious challenges to our universities and UNISA has to successfully compete in this unpredictable, innovation-intensive space.
Let me make the wish that future generations of UNISA leaders celebrating its next 150 years in the year 2173, will be able to look back at the 21st century and find in the digital records of a future significant evidence of UNISA in having made a pioneering contribution to final emancipation of the African continent from its colonial legacies and marking the onset of the much-promised African Century. I urge Unisa to take advantage of its added leverage of having as your Chancellor, former President Thabo Mbeki, an inspirational leader who has distinguished himself as a philosopher and leading thinker, known for his ground-breaking revitalisation of the African Renaissance.
PROF LUMUMBA’S GAY RIGHTS SENTIMENTS BEGGARS BELIEF
BEWILDERED: His position on this sensitive issue undermines everything he has said in the past…
Professor PLO Lumumba is a brilliant mind. He is in my view one of the most brilliant minds to have come out of Africa and the entire diaspora.
I follow him religiously about his views on a variety of subjects including religion especially Christianity; corruption among African leaders and how our people can remove such leaders and usher in a leadership that is people centred.
Since I started following him just a few years ago, I have not once had any cause to disagree with him on any issue. This was until recently. His support for the laws which were recently passed by the Ugandan government has left me totally bewildered.
These are the laws which not only prohibits homosexuality in Uganda but also threaten gay people with some of the harshest penalties imaginable. A gay person can be sentenced to 20 years in prison, and, in some instances, capital punishment can be imposed. How can an esteemed lawyer such as Lumumba support such laws is, to me, shocking to say the least.
I believe Lumumba’s position on this sensitive issue undermines everything he has said in the past; and will no doubt say in the future about African despots, megalomaniacs and kleptocrats. To support such a patently evil piece of legislation aimed at a very tiny and vulnerable segment of the Ugandan population defies any logic from someone I truly believed is a voice of reason, sobriety and above all a true champion of democracy in a continent where such individuals are a threatened species.
And Lumumba to even share anything in common with that tyrannical anti democrat called Yoweri Museveni beggars belief. Museveni is a tyrant who came to power through a military coup and has held power for 37 seven years through sheer brute force. The circumstances which led to Museveni and others forming an army which toppled another dictator in the form of Milton Obote is not my beef.
My quarrel is how he has exercised that power over the years. It is true elections have been held in Uganda but these have never been free and fair. The word sham comes to mind. He imprisons political opponents willy-nilly.
Museveni is an unashamed dictator who locks political opponents. One of his perennial victims is Pop musician Bobi Wine. His sin is wanting to run for president of the country.
Human rights observers talk of political opponents disappearing never to be seen again; how the army seems to have total carte blanche in ill-treating Ugandans. The list of atrocities committed by soldiers is endless.
Millions of black people have died in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The DRC president Etienne Tshisekedi has blamed Museveni and Rwanda’s dictator Paul Paul Kagame for many of those deaths. He has accused the pair of using military violence to plunder his country’s resources.It is against this background of well documented atrocities committed in Uganda and the DRC that I am compelled to ask: How can Lumumba associate himself with such a government even if it is about one issue – homosexually?
If someone is gay frankly this is no skin ofF my nose. Lumumba rightly points out the hypocrisy of some church people who, when it was convenient for them during the colonial era, to quote the bible decrying same sex relations but today champion homosexuality in the name of human rights. To me it is beside the point what church leaders said in the past and what they are saying today.
This is not what informs my position on this subject. I consider myself agnostic when it comes to Christianity or religious matters of any stripe.
P/ s If this is necessary. I am not gay. I do not know of anyone in my family who is gay. None of my friends are gay. But as a South African I have been revolted by the rapes and. C murders of homosexuals in this country.
