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Roots of wisdom: Dr TK Mopeli’s legacy unites scholarship and community

10 October 2025 | Story Precious Shamase | Photo MAFF (Music Art, Food and Fashion) Photography

History was made at the University of the Free State (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus with the groundbreaking convergence of the Dr TK Mopeli Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) Memorial Lecture and Symposium. This joint inaugural event, held under the compelling theme, Roots of Wisdom: Integrating Indigenous Knowledge in Science and Education: The Legacy of Dr TK Mopeli, served as a powerful platform to bridge the academic sphere with the lived wisdom of local communities.

Core vision: From commemoration to critical engagement

The planning team’s core vision was clear: to create a unifying platform where the scholarship of IKS could meaningfully intersect with the lived experience. Held on 19 September 2025, the combined memorial lecture and symposium moved beyond a mere commemoration of Dr Mopeli's enduring legacy. It aimed to be a critical engagement that actively pushed the boundaries of contemporary discourse.

The theme itself was a call to action. It sought to highlight the resilience, innovation, and relevance of IKS in solving modern problems, ensuring that indigenous perspectives not only survive but actively shape scientific research, educational curricula, and community development. This focus linked the region’s heritage to future possibilities, echoing Dr Mopeli’s own dedication to education and self-reliance.

Wisdom beyond the lecture hall: Inclusive participation

Recognising that indigenous knowledge is deeply rooted in lived experience – as highlighted by keynote speaker Prof Lerato Seleteng-Kose’s presentation on the role of IKS in scientific innovation in Lesotho – the planning team prioritised authentic and inclusive participation. Their strategy deliberately mixed celebrated academics with vital community voices. This involved engaging traditional leaders, community elders, and local IKS practitioners alongside university faculty.

To bridge the gap between abstract discourse and grassroots practice, the event created a space where storytelling, rituals, and oral traditions were given value equal to formal scholarly papers, including the message from Princess Shoeshoe ‘Tsiame’ Mopeli on cultivating self-reliance. Sessions utilised local languages, most notably Sesotho, to ensure that the knowledge holders felt fully represented and heard.

Dr Elias Nyefolo Malete described Dr Mopeli as a humble leader, passionate about the advancement of his people and the preservation of the Basotho nation. in his address on An Ideational Analysis and Integration of African Folktales in Science, Technology, and Education, he further emphasised the need to treat indigenous narratives not as relics, but as dynamic sources of knowledge for education.

The road ahead: Actionable outcomes

The symposium was not designed to be an echo chamber. The planning team identified several specific, measurable deliverables aimed at tracking the long-term impact of the discussions:

Policy Influence: Generating recommendations to be shared with local and national structures to positively influence cultural heritage and education policies.

Curriculum Development: Actively informing the integration of IKS into university curricula across various disciplines, ensuring that future students engage with both the theoretical and applied dimensions of indigenous knowledge.

Community Initiatives: Establishing partnerships to support grassroots-level, community-led projects in areas vital to Dr Mopeli's vision, such as sustainable agriculture, health practices, and cultural preservation.

To ensure that these discussions translate into tangible action, a monitoring framework is being put in place. This includes creating a public repository of all presentations and community contributions and establishing follow-up meetings between the university and community stakeholders.

One of the members of the planning team, Prof Puseletso Mofokeng, concluded, “The 2025 Symposium was a historic moment, transforming the late Dr TK Mopeli's Memorial Lecture into a living, dynamic platform. It reaffirmed that indigenous knowledge is not merely a preserved artefact of the past, but a vital, evolving resource capable of guiding sustainable development and shaping a self-reliant future for the region. The event laid the groundwork for Dr Mopeli’s dream to continue living, not just in memory, but in action, policy, and education.”

News Archive

UFS boasts with most advanced chemical research apparatus in Africa

2005-11-23

Celebrating the inauguration of the NMR were from the left Prof Frederick Fourie (Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS), Dr Detlef Müller (Development Scientist and Manager: Africa and Asia of Bruker in Germany, the supplier of the NMR), Prof Jannie Swarts (head of the head of the Division Physical Chemistry at the UFS) and Prof Herman van Schalkwyk (Dean: Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the UFS). Photo: Lacea Loader

UFS boasts with most advanced chemical research apparatus in Africa

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Chemistry now boasts with some of the most advanced chemical research apparatus in Africa after the latest addition, a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, was inaugurated today by the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Frederick Fourie. The NMR is used to analyse molecular structures.

Last month the Department of Chemistry celebrated the installation of the most advanced single crystal X-ray diffractometer in Africa. The diffractometer provides an indispensable technique to investigate among others the solid state of compounds for medicinal application.

“Three years ago the UFS executive management realised that, if we want to build a university of excellence, we should invest in research. We started to think strategically about chemistry and decided to bring the apparatus at the Department of Chemistry on a more competitive standard. Strategic partnerships were therefore secured with companies like Sasol,” said Prof Fourie during the inauguration ceremony.

“The installation of the NMR symbolises the ability of the UFS to turn academic areas around. I hope that this is the beginning of a decade of excellence for chemistry at the UFS,” said Prof Fourie.

”The catalogue value of the Bruker 600 MHz NMR is approximately R11 million. With such an advanced apparatus we are now able to train much more post-graduate students,“ said Prof Jannie Swarts, head of the Division Physical Chemistry at the UFS.

”The NMR is the flagship apparatus of the UFS Department of Chemistry that enables chemists to look at compounds more easily at a molecular level. Research in chemistry is critically dependent on NMR, which is a technique that can determine the composition of reactants and products in complicated chemical reactions, with direct application is most focus areas in chemistry,“ said Prof Swarts.

”Parts of the spectrometer consists of non-commercial items that were specifically designed for the UFS Department of Chemistry to allow the study of unique interactions in e.g. rhodium and platinum compounds,” said Prof Swarts.

According to Prof Swarts the NMR enables chemists to conduct investigations on the following:

To evaluate for example the complex behaviour of DNA in proteins as well as the analysis of illegal drugs sometimes used by athletes.
It provides an indispensable technique to investigate compounds for medicinal application for example in breast, prostate and related bone cancer identification and therapy, which are currently synthesised in the Department of Chemistry.
It can also be applied to the area of homogeneous catalysis where new and improved compounds for industrial application are synthesized and characterised, whereby Sasol and even the international petrochemical industry could benefit. This analytical capacity is highly rated, especially in the current climate of increased oil prices.
The NMR can detect and identify small concentrations of impurities in feed streams in the petrochemical industry, e.g. at Sasol and also the international petrochemical industry. These minute amounts of impurities can result in metal catalyst deactivation or decomposition and can cause million of rands worth in product losses.
It is indispensable for studying the complexity of samples that is non-crystalline. These materials represent the vast majority of chemical compounds such as solvents, gasoline, cooking oil, cleaning agents and colorants as examples.

According to Prof Swarts the general medical technique of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) in use at larger hospitals, is based on NMR technology.

”The NMR apparatus enabled the Department of Chemistry to characterise complex molecules that were synthesised for the multi-national company, FARMOFS-PAREXEL, and to negotiate research agreements with overseas universities,” said Prof Swarts.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
22 November 2005

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