Good evening ladies and gentlemen
As the vice-chancellor and the principle of the University of Pretoria (UP), it is my sincere privilege to welcome each and every one of you to this auspicious event.
I am especially pleased to welcome your excellecies, ambassadors and high commissioner, the Premier of Gauteng, Mr David Makhura, our distinguished speaker Mr Bill Gates, Ms Graça Machel, chairperson of the Nelson Mandela Foundation Professor Njabulo Ndebele and members of the Foundation.
The Chancellor of the University of Pretoria, Professor Wiseman Nkuhlu, chairperson of the University of Pretoria Council Dr Futhi Mtoba and members of the UP Council, members of the Mamelodi community, all distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
At the outset I wish to express our sincere appreciation to the Nelson Mandela Foundation for the opportunity, for the University of Pretoria to host this annual lecture, especially since its on the eve of our great leader’s birthday, Mr Nelson Mandela.
Tomorrow, together with the rest of the world, many of our staff and students will be making an extra ordinary effort through community service to demonstrate their commitment to the vision of our beloved founding president of South African democracy in 1994.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is often said that the most significant contribution a university makes to society is through its graduates and, indeed, I am very pleased to share with you on this occasion that this university is making an extraordinary contribution. For example, one in every 10 university degrees awarded in South Africa is a degree awarded by the University of Pretoria.
Last year, 15 % of all doctoral degrees were awarded by this university and close to 30% of all professional engineers in South Africa have graduated from the University of Pretoria. So, measured in terms of graduate output alone, I am proud to say we are making a significant contribution to the high-level skills development for our country.
But in a highly unequal society such as ours, where we continue to work to overcome the long history of systematic racial discrimination and oppression, we believe that as a public university we have an extraordinary responsibility to fulfil in relation to our national development goals. Therefore producing graduates is significant but not sufficient for us as a public university.
We seek to exercise our broader social responsibilities by integrating community engagement in our academic programmes and in our research, as well as in our cooperation and the way in which we conduct our everyday activities.
The practical outcome of this policy is that approximately one-third of University of Pretoria’s 61 000 students every day undertake some form of community service and we support over 4 000 community projects across the geographic reach of the Metropolitan of Tshwane.
We do this above all to ensure that we produce graduates who are likely to contribute to the ideal which shape the life of our former president Nelson Mandela.
As we reflect on the theme of this year’s annual lecture, “Living Together”, let us remind ourselves of Madiba’s commitment to the ideal of a democratic, free society in which all persons, live together in harmony with equal opportunities. It’s an ideal to which he devoted his life and it’s an ideal to which we must continue to strive.
Tonight we are hosting this event at the University of Pretoria Mamelodi campus. The people of Mamelodi, in our local communities, have paid a heavy price for liberation and many, like Solomon Mahlangu, paid the ultimate price for our freedom which we celebrate.
Are we doing enough in our country? Are we doing enough as the University of Pretoria? I believe as much as we are doing today, we owe it to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, we owe it to Madiba and, moreover, we owe it to future generations to do far more than we are currently doing. I urge all of us for the sake of future generations to do more to make sure that we realise the ideal of living together.
Through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation our speaker tonight has channelled significant resources to improve the lives of the poor across the world.
Indeed, here at the university we have been the beneficiaries of grants of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and through these grants we have been able to exercise our social responsibility to our local communities through improving health outcomes and food security.
As an innovator and philanthropist, I am confident that our distinguished speaker this evening will inspire us to be creative, to be innovative, to ensure that we do more and contribute to the future where we all live in peace, in a world committed to sustainable development.
Thank you very much for joining us this evening and I am sure we are going to leave inspired by the message shared to us. Welcome to the University of Pretoria, ladies and gentlemen.
Prof Cheryl de la Rey