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16 September 2020 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Supplied
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Prof Mongane Wally Serote will present the Heritage Day webinar on 23 September 2020.

September is dedicated to heritage celebrations, with the nation celebrating Heritage Day on 24 September. The Centre for Gender and Africa Studies (CGAS) will collaborate with the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and the University of the Western Cape to present a national Heritage Day webinar with Prof Mongane Wally Serote as keynote speaker.

Date: 23 September 2020
Time:12:00
Platform: Webinarjam

Registration is required prior to webinar: 

Prof Serote is widely recognised as the ‘Father of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)’ in South Africa, where he  pioneered research and debate on IKS at national level. Prof Serote is also the National Poet Laureate. Dr Stephanie Cawood, director of CGAS said that Prof Serote is one of South Africa’s struggle and intellectual stalwarts and that his lecture promises “to be insightful and hopeful in a time when we need to reflect on our position as a nation carefully.”

The topic of the webinar is Going to Basics: The Reconstruction and Development Programme of the Source.  “Heritage Day is important to help us reflect on who we are and what we have in common as a people, to focus on what binds us together and not what divides us,” said Dr Cawood

Due to the limitations imposed by government on events as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the CGAS had to reinvent what would have been the Africa Day Memorial Lecture. 



About our speaker:

Professor Mongane Wally Serote is the third National Poet Laureate of South Africa inaugurated on November 6, 2018. He is a celebrated poet, author, struggle stalwart, member of the Black Consciousness Movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe commander, pioneer of IKS in South Africa, former MP, and Ngaka (healer). Serote has been awarded national and international accolades, amongst others the Ingrid Jonker Poetry Prize (1973); the Noma Award (1993); the English Academy of Southern Africa Medal (2003); the Pablo Neruda Award (2004); the Order of Ikhamanga in Silver awarded by President Thabo Mbeki (2007); the prestigious Golden Wreath Award for Poetry (2012), and the Arts and Culture Trust Lifetime Achievement Award (2016). 

Read more about Prof Mongane Wally Serote

 

News Archive

“Deploy your education and not connections,” Chancellor tells graduates
2012-05-16

 

Qwaqwa Autumn Graduation
Photo: Thabo Kessah
16 May 2012

Our Qwaqwa Campus conferred 424 degrees, diplomas and certificates at this year’s autumn graduation ceremony held on 12 May 2012.

Amongst the degrees conferred were two doctorates in Polymer Science, two Master’s of Arts in Geography and African Languages, respectively, five Master’s of Science degrees in Physics (3) and Polymer Science (2) and 37 honours degrees in Education, Zoology, Physics, Botany and Polymer Science.

In their congratulatory messages, both the Vice-Rector: Institutional Affairs, Prof. Teuns Verschoor, and the Chancellor, Dr Khotso Mokhele, challenged the graduates to start focusing their attention beyond their graduation on what they both referred to as “the real world”.

“Graduation ceremonies are a fantastic event, but you must never lose sight of appreciating the support given by those around you,” said Dr Mokhele.

“This hall was full of shouting and yes, you must bask in that glory, knowing that you have achieved part of your goals. Yes, this is your moment, so shine. You deserve it. You have earned it.”

“However, this noise also means you must go out there and face the real world. You are graduating in a model country on how people can reconcile, despite their painful and divided past. You deserve all the accolades, but that model country is disappearing before your eyes. How can you mess up what Mandela, Biko, Sobukwe, Nardine Gordimer lived and fought for? How can you mess up such a good thing?” Dr Mokhele asked of an attentive audience that included proud parents and siblings, as well as educators and learners from the Thabo Mofutsanyana District.

“Go out there and deploy your education and not your connections, as these are embedded in corruption. Go out there and help get rid of the patronage system where hard-workers are more likely to be constructively dismissed as they stand in the way of those with corrupt tendencies. Save this country from becoming another Zimbabwe. Let us do whatever it takes to save this country. Let these matriculants who are here today want to walk that red carpet with pride in the next few years,”,said Dr Mokhele.

Dignitaries in attendance included the former Chief Minister of the former Qwaqwa homeland, Dr T K Mopeli; the Executive Mayor of the Dihlabeng Local Municipality, Councillor Tjhetane Mofokeng; Dr SWF Moloi (Thabo Mofutsanyana Education District) and representatives from various government departments.
 

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