Students from the Faculty of Management Sciences at the Durban University of Technology graduated at 17h00 yesterday (September 03, 2013) where Dr Dumisani Ngcobo, Macro Policy
Development and Coordination Unit Senior Manager in the KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Premier urged the graduands to use their acquired skills for the betterment of South Africa.
Dr Ngcobo was the guest speaker at this year’s last graduation ceremony at DUT. A total of 1036 students graduated during the University’s Spring Graduation ceremonies, where 695
Students received their National Diplomas, 293 received their Bachelor of Technology degrees, 5 received their Bachelor’s Degrees, 37 received their Master of Technology degrees and 6
received their Doctor of Technology degrees.
A total of 587 male students graduated and 449 female students graduated, with three students with disabilities graduating. This year, DUT held 20 graduation ceremonies.
Dr Ngcobo told graduands that their leadership is required in finding genuine and lasting solutions to the country’s triple challenges of unemployment, poverty and inequality. He cautioned them against accepting current solutions offered by “powerful people” as the only solutions to Africa’s challenges, urging them to forge their own paths in helping Africa rise above its limitations.
“If the old generation was correct (in their solutions to problems confronting SA, Africa and the world) we would not be confronted with these challenges in this magnitude. In order for you to occupy this important and urgent role, you must imbibe the values of selflessness, sacrifice, service, transparency and public accountability which were nourished by the generation leaders such as Anton Lembede, Robert Sobukwe, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Ahmad Kathrada, Joe Slovo and many more. As these qualifications confer upon you upward mobility, you must not leave our people behind but join with them in the necessary struggles by offering your valuable skills to change the course of the transformation of our country into an inclusive, just and egalitarian society. Don’t impose your views on them, but learn from each other and come to consensually agreed upon positions about the course to take,” he said.
Dr Ngcobo urged graduands to look at the current leaders and ask themselves whether these are leaders that South Africa, Africa and the world deserve as well as what each one of us can do to remedy the world’s challenges.
“I want to specify the kind of leadership that is necessary if you, as our future leaders, are to transform this society for the better. It is collective leadership. In other words, we must imbibe the notion that each and every one of us is a potential leader in his or her own right. As true leaders, resist the temptation to think of only your interests when your brothers and sisters are unemployed with diminishing prospects of finding employment, when others are faced with job insecurity through casualisation, restructuring and labour brokering. Others have absolutely no access to a social safety-net and are consequently leaving in abject squalor and poverty,” he said.
He said he trusted that the graduands would make correct choices as a result of their education, leaving them with a quote from African revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, “It is up to us as African people to build a new future for humankind.”
– Sinegugu Ndlovu
Pictured: Dr Dumisani Ngcobo delivers his address during the Spring Graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Management Sciences at DUT yesterday (September 3, 2013). This was the University’s last graduation ceremony for 2013.
