The newly appointed vice-chancellor and principal of the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State, Prof. Pamela Dube, has called on the institute to pursue its ambition to produce a self-reliant generation of graduates.
She made the clarion call when delivering her inauguration speech at a ceremony held in the Boet Troskie Hall at the CUT’s Bloemfontein campus on 17 February.
Striving for such calibre of graduates is one of four educational priorities Dube has identified and sees them as essential for a university of technology.
“My plea for this university’s educational vision is that it pursues an ambition to lead our students to a position of self-sufficiency.
“While we will endeavour to build entrepreneurial skills, we should be careful that such skills are not simply one to enhance markets.
“Rather, we should also work towards building technological resources and advanced qualifications (for instance, in professional Master of Arts and doctoral degrees) that will help expand other fields of knowledge, especially in the areas of health, infrastructure development, service delivery, agriculture and manufacturing, and economic sustainability.
“For this we need a capable, committed, and visible professoriate to contribute effectively towards this university’s educational vision and the renewal of our academic, research and innovation endeavours,” said Dube.
The other priorities identified by Dube and that will be approached with the greatest fervor, are the following responsibilities:
- The first responsibility as a university is to undertake a reappraisal of the meaning of technology in the broader population, to demystify its force while bending its potential to the ideal of post-apartheid freedom.
- The second responsibility is to offer the best teaching and impart the greatest lessons for students in the arts of design and invention.
- The third responsibility is to steer clear of an idea of technology as delivering a static world, one where civil war is an order of the day.
Dube’s tenure started on 1 January following her appointment in October last year, and became the university’s first woman vice-chancellor in the process.
She succeeds Prof. Henk de Jager, who resigned in September 2021, having succeeded Prof. Thandwa Mthembu, who remains the only vice-chancellor and principal to have served two terms from 2007 until the end of September 2016.
The CUT status quo to appoint women to influential positions was first adapted when Judge Mahube Molemela was appointed as chancellor in 2016.
Dube will serve as the second-in-command at the university, alongside Judge Molemela.
Both women are vastly experienced and academically well-equipped in their own right, with numerous qualifications obtained at various universities shared between them.
Their work experience includes serving in both the public and private sector.
- Meanwhile, CUT announced that the official opening ceremony for the Welkom campus for the current academic year will be held Friday (03/03), followed by the Bloemfontein campus’ ceremony on 10 March.
The institution has the capacity to enrol 21 000 students at both campuses: With 4 881 first-year students at the Bloemfontein campus, and 1 402 in Welkom.
According to the university, there was huge interest among prospective students in the following qualifications: Bachelor of Education in Foundation Phase Teaching, Bachelor of Education (Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching) in Language Education, and Bachelor of Education (Senior Phase and Further Education and Training Teaching) in Computer Science.
