Cape Town - Twelve years ago a government task team declared the University of the Western Cape (UWC) heavily in debt and unable to manage itself – but today it was rated the seventh-best university in Africa, retiring rector Brian O’Connell said on Thursday.
Addressing staff and students during a day of festivities and lectures in his honour, O’Connell said: “Twelve years ago the state said we couldn’t do it on our own. We said we could and we did.”
O’Connell said the university had almost lost its name and its history.
“We argued against it, referred to its greatness in the struggle and promised it would be great in the struggle for knowledge as well. We needed to hold on to that name and history. And we proved them wrong.”
But it was a tough few years. O’Connell paid tribute to the staff who had taken salary cuts to help the university claw its way out of debt.
“They made big sacrifices and walked the road with us to get us out of debt because we couldn’t afford to pay salaries.”
Speaking afterwards O’Connell said the university was lucky to have friends from the struggle time, particularly in Scandinavia and Belgium, who had given the university “very big grants” that helped rebuild the university’s academic competency.
“We had access to all those universities. The University of Missouri was also a staunch friend and more than 500 staff and students went on exchange visits. What all this says is that if you are determined to make good, even if you don’t have the resources that others have, your own commitment, with the help of friends, can achieve great things."
When he had taken up the post of rector in 2001, there had been a sense of hopelessness at UWC, and large numbers of students had been lost in the ’90s.
“They didn’t care, the place was full of litter. That was one of the first challenges, to get people to respect their space, so they will be proud of it.”
That was a start, as was his strict time-keeping and lack of tolerance for tardiness on campus. The next thing was to develop the university’s academic competency.
“You can’t believe the quality of the teaching staff here – and they are prepared to stay here, when they could earn more at other universities. UWC should be a metaphor for South Africa and the developing world as to what is possible to achieve – even though you are poor – if you are committed, you develop your competency, and take ownership of your space. You cannot build a nation if you don’t have competency. Whatever ideology you subscribe to, you’ve got to have knowledge. There is no magic formula to go from poverty to wealth: you need knowledge, commitment and competency.”
Cape Times