South African History Online

Speech at the launch of Edupark, the Turfloop foundation and the chancellor's fund

Johannesburg, 15 April 1998

Mr. Vice Chancellor;
Excellencies;
Ladies and Gentlemen,

To address so many leaders of distinction in so many fields, along with the
representatives of so many governments, would be an honour at any time. But when
such a gathering has been drawn together to jointly address a challenge of great
importance, then the event is a truly remarkable one. And I am deeply honoured
to be a part of it.

When South Africa set out on the path of reconstruction and development, we
faced many tasks, all of them difficult and none that were to be lightly or
quickly achieved.

That applies with particular force to the daunting challenges in education.
Apartheid created a crisis in education and training of immense proportions.

We can say with pride, after four years of freedom, that we have as a nation
laid the foundation for the education system which our people deserve, and that
the building has begun. We now have a unified school system open to all
learners. The framework for the transformation of the higher education system
has been created.

This is, of course, only a start and the greatest challenges still lie ahead,
whether it be in making good the backlogs and imbalances; in building capacity
to manage our educational system; or, above all, in shaping curricula that will
produce the skills and knowledge for development and sustained growth in a
competitive world.

The legacy of neglect and discrimination is only too apparent in the Northern
Province. In a pattern repeated over and over again in our country, it is an
area of high unemployment that has to import skilled labour from other areas.

It is an area where children eager to acquire skills are packed into
make-shift classrooms or gather for classes in the shade of trees.

It is an area whose university has about 50 per cent more students than it
was built for and which in 1996 had to turn away 70 000 applicants.

And yet tonight is also an occasion for celebration, a celebration of the
capacity to transform adverse conditions into the means for achieving our goals.

Although the University of the North was intended by its founders to entrench
the enforced social divisions of apartheid, it came instead to nurture national
leaders in the struggle for freedom. Today its graduates are found in
government, in academic life, in business, and in the professions as leaders of
the even more difficult struggle for reconstruction and development.

And today true to that tradition, it gives us further cause for celebration.
Amidst the travails of changing times, transformation, and limited resources it
has developed an educational facility with the potential to set a new benchmark
for our country's tertiary institutions into the next millennium.

That vision is embodied in Edupark.

Apartheid bequeathed us a higher education system that was fragmented, rife
with disparities and replete with duplication: between historically black and
white universities; private and state institutions, country and urban seats of
learning; national and international accreditation; between Technikons,
Technical Colleges and Universities. Each facility has its campus, its own
costly infrastructure, its competing programmes. And yet all of them together
are unable meet all our diverse language, labour and intellectual needs.

Edupark is intended to cut across the duplication. It builds on our academic
relations with other countries.

By facilitating partnerships where institutions can pool resources, it offers
students an array of courses available both nationally and internationally;
courses ranging from a two week computer course to a Masters Degree in
Development.

Such sharing of facilities promotes cost effective operation and competitive
fees to students in a project that should overall be self financing.

Since the first stage Edupark is already operating, we should highlight those
who have made this possible; Investec Bank whose funding got the Business School
underway, so that more than 70 Masters students could enrol when the doors
opened last month; the Irish Government whose sponsorship allowed the country's
first Development Facilitation and Training Institute to open; and the Dutch and
Australian Governments, respectively, who have supported the Language Centre and
the centre of vocational and technical skills.

It is heart-warming to know that we have so many friends who are deeply
interested in our growth as a nation. Among these is, a New York lawyer, Ms
Vandanna Chak, who voluntarily helped establish the University of the North
Foundation in the United States. Welcome, and thank you for your support.

Such partnerships, within our society and reaching out across the oceans, are
critical to achieving all our goals, and in particular to realising the bold
conception of Edupark.

May the example of those who have given this project its start give
particular inspiration to the representatives of business who are here tonight
and those across our country who could not be with us.

By investing in our people through Edupark, you will be investing in your own
companies future through helping to provide the high quality graduates you would
want to employ. By investing in education you will not only ensure good returns
for your investments, but also help to address the imbalances of the past and to
speed the journey to a better life for all.

The fund that we are starting here tonight will ease the University's
inherited backlog. That in turn will allow it to devote itself fully to the
formidable task of producing professionals to empower this province, our county
and the Southern African region.

May I, in closing, congratulate all those who have worked to get this
contribution to our country's education system underway.

Ladies and Gentlemen;

It now gives me great pleasure to formally launch the Turfloop Foundation and
the Chancellor's Fund. May they be effective instruments of your support for the
University of the North and for Edupark, to which I now formally pledge my
support.

Issued by: Office of the President