Limpopo Leader - Spring 2005 - University of Limpopo

SETTING THE AFRICAN SCENE AT LIMPOPO UNIVERSITY
SOUTHERN AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES
JOIN FORCES
FORTY-SIX SADC UNIVERSITIES HAVE JOINED
FORCES TO ADVANCE THE DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
OF AFRICAN HIGHER EDUCATION. A new association
– the Southern African Regional Universities
Association (SARUA) – was launched at a function in
Cape Town earlier this year.
The publicity material at the time claimed it was the
first association of its kind in Africa to do two crucially
important things simultaneously. Both are in line with
the ideals of the SADC protocol and of Nepad ideals.
• The first is to address the capacity and research
needs of SADC higher education institutions
• The second is to address the social, cultural and
economic development priorities of the region.
SARUA is the product of an intensive research and
consultation exercise that took longer than a year. The
exercise was driven by the South African Universities
Vice-Chancellors Association (SAUVCA) after receiving
a mandate at a meeting of the Vice-Chancellors of the
46 SADC universities in October 2003. SAUVCA
(which has now been superseded by HESA – Higher
Education South Africa – and incorporates the old
technikons with the old universities under a single
umbrella) has now been given the task of managing
the new southern African organisation.
Professor Njabulo Ndebele, who was Vice-
Chancellor of the University of the North (at Turfloop)
before moving to the University of Cape Town, was
elected first chairperson of SARUA.
The new organisation, under the direct leadership
of SAUVCA’s CEO Piyushi Kotecha, is already working
in four programme areas: information technology
preparedness; institutional governance and leadership;
science and technology; HIV/AIDS.
At the SARUA launch, chairman of the Nepad
steering committee Wiseman Nkuhlu said that the
time was ripe for this kind of regional collaboration.
‘The strengthening of the structures within the African
Union and the growing support for the continent from
the G8 countries means that Africa has a window of
P A G E 1 0
Njabulo Ndebele
opportunity that we must not miss,’ he said. ‘African
higher education has a crucially important role in
creating the capacity that is able to use the opportunity
currently being presented.’
‘The development of leaders for trade and industry,
government, and public sectors such as the judiciary,
security, science and technology, education and
health, is critical for Africa if it is to break out of its
cycles of poverty, war and chronic under-development,’
Kotecha said. ‘And regional collaborations between
universities are the surest way of rising to this
challenge.’