LIMPOPO LEADER NUMBER 25: Spring 2011
Dispatches From The University Of Limpopo
UNCOUPLING UL: the facts, the challenges, the potential
THE GENOMICS BREAKTHROUGH: an exciting road ahead
FOUNDATION EDUCATION: Are we building on rock or sand?
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Letters to the Editor NOTHING LIKE IT BEFORE Dear Colleagues The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) offices came to a standstill from 14h15 to 15h15 on Thursday 2nd June 2011, when the official submission for the University of Limpopo SAICA accreditation arrived in the form of the self-evaluation book, CDs, memory stick, and seven boxes of annexures containing 33 files. Senior SAICA officials attest that the institute has never in its history received an application of such quality. The officials agree that the University of Limpopo has set a new benchmark to be emulated even by the established SAICA-accredited universities. Professor Cosmas Ambe Director of the School of Accountancy on the Turfloop campus
EXTREMELY PROUD Dear Cosmas As I sit here today I will never be able to verbalise how extremely proud I am (of the quality of your application for SAICA accreditation). Thank you, and may your School and the University of Limpopo go from strength to strength. Chantyl Mulder SAICA Executive Director, Transformation and Growth
CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TEAM Hi Cosmas I’d also like to say, well done! Your drive and dedication has made this (the quality of the University of Limpopo application for SAICA accreditation) possible. The care that you took with your submission is just a small reflection of your entire approach. Please pass on my congratulations to your team. Under your guidance I am sure that they will continue to flourish. Tonia Jackson SAICA Director, Transformation and Growth
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Preference will be given to short letters. Aim for a maximum of 100 to 150 words, otherwise expect your epistle to be edited. Please give contact details when writing to us. No pseudonyms or anonymous letters will be published. Address your letters to The Editor, Limpopo Leader PO Box 2756, Pinegowrie, 2123, South Africa. E-mail: dgrwrite@iafrica.com Fax: +27 11-791 2390 Tel: +27 11-792 9951
Professor Cosmas Ambe
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EDITORIAL TWO BIG NEWS items compete for top spot in this issue of Limpopo Leader. The first is the most recent developments regarding the University of Limpopo’s deepening involvement with state-of-the-art interpretation of human genome sequencing; the second is the saga of the great uncoupling of the two institutions which six years ago were merged to form the University of Limpopo.
Limpopo Leader is published by the Marketing and Communications Department, University of Limpopo PO Box X1106 Sovenga 0727 Limpopo South Africa HYPERLINK “http://www.ul.ac.za” www.ul.ac.za Editor: David Robbins Tel: (011) 792 9951 or 082 787 8099 or dgrwrite@iafrica.com Advertising: Clare-Rose Julius Tel: (011) 791 4561 or 072 545 2366 or info@porcupinepress.co.za Editorial committee: DK Mohuba (chairman) Daphney Kgwebane David Robbins Gail Robbins PHOTOGRAPHS: David Robbins: pages 4 (left), 5 (top), 6 (bottom), 8, 22 (right), 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 34, 36 (2 on right) and 38 Gail Robbins: page 35, 36 (3 on left), 37 (all 5) Liam Lynch: cover photo, pages 12, 17, 19, 20, 22 (left) and 24 (all 3) Padi Matlala: page 22 (middle) and 25 Robbie Sandrock: page 7 Sue Charlton: pages 5 (bottom left) and 11 Tyrone Arthur: pages 4 (right), 5 (bottom left), 9 and 10 Supplied by the UL School of Accountancy: page 1 Supplied by Professor Vanessa Hayes: page 16 Supplied by The Bigger Picture/Reuters: page 18 Supplied by Aka Capital: page 32 Supplied by Medunsa campus: page 40 Design and layout: Nolene Krüger Ronél Lock LOVE OF DESIGN Printing: Colorpress (pty) Ltd Production Management: Gail Robbins DGR Writing & Research +27 11-792 9951 082 572 1682 or dgrwrite@iafrica.com www.porcupinepress.co.za
Articles may be reprinted with acknowledgement. ISSN: 1812-5468
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The uncoupling is without doubt the most important for anyone closely involved with the institution’s administrative affairs and modus operandi. Our comprehensive coverage of this momentous new development includes details of how it happened and why. The key passage in the joint statement of the two national Ministers involved – higher education and health – is reproduced. Most important, perhaps, are the opinions of key players from the Minister of Health, the Vice Chancellor, the acting Deputy Vice Chancellor, and the project manager overseeing the establishment of the new medical training platform in Polokwane. None of these important people express any negativity concerning the uncoupling. On the contrary, new opportunities are opening up for both universities. All that remains is for the ministries involved, as someone has said, to put their money where their mouths are. The genome sequencing news is hugely encouraging – and significant for a university with its roots in rural African conditions. A high-powered international workshop on the subject was held at Turfloop earlier this year, and a memorandum of understanding has been signed between the university and the influential J Craig Venter Institute in America. This latter development, in particular, augurs well for the future involvement of the University of Limpopo in the exciting world of genome sequencing as it pertains to the expected rapid advances in the unravelling of the mysteries of ethnic-based susceptibilities to various diseases, and the beginnings of genome-based personalised medicine and health services. There’s a lot more in the magazine besides. Turfloop’s multi-million rand infrastructure investments – the multipurpose centre and the new laboratories – are given prominence. More money is currently being spent on establishing a home for the new hi-tech Centre for Spatial Analysis and Modelling, which will incorporate the regional Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Centre, and which will link the Turfloop-based Faculty of Science and Agriculture to some of the largest climate-change and related databases in the world. Not surprisingly, with all this scientific research activity taking place, the university has re-staffed its Division of Research Development and Innovation. Look out for the new research services being offered to staff and postgraduate students, and the people involved in providing these services. They’re all there under the generic heading of ‘new brooms in research’.
NEXT ISSUE As has become normal practice in recent years, our last publication for this year will be On the Move 2011, a 40-page magazine devoted to alumni affairs. Looming large in the coverage will be the alumnus website (including facebook and twitter facilities) currently being developed. This special alumnus annual will also examine the implications for alumni affairs of the uncoupling of the two universities that were merged in 2005. Limpopo Leader will appear again early in 2012.
IN THIS ISSUE cover picture: Professor Philip Venter: a major player in the genomics breakthrough at Turfloop
page 4: Uncoupling UL: THE FACTS, THE CHALLENGES, THE POTENTIAL. And listen as people close to the de-merger air their opinions
page 12: The genomics breakthrough: AN EXCITING ROAD AHEAD – for the University of Limpopo and health care in the SADC region
page 16: The genomics breakthrough: WHO IS PROFESSOR VANESSA HAYES?
page 17: The genomics breakthrough: WHAT THE DEAN OF HEALTH SCIENCES THINKS
page 18: Foundation education: ARE WE BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND? Disturbing gaps in foundation phase education, and how they’re being filled
page 22: Research focus: NEW VITALITY IN THE RESEARCH ARENA. New services and staff for researchers in the Division of Research Development and Innovation
page 25: Research focus: NEW BROOMS IN RESEARCH
page 30: Hi-tech Turfloop: WELCOME TO THE CENTRE FOR SPATIAL ANALYSIS AND MODELLING
page 32: Book preview: CHANCELLOR ADDS ANOTHER TITLE TO HIS LIST. Read about Reuel Khoza’s new book, Attuned Leadership
page 34: TUFLOOP’S NEW FACILITIES. Have a look around the Multipurpose Centre and the new science laboratories
page 38: HAVING A (WELL-CONTROLLED) FLUTTER. Profile of Serobi Maja, the Limpopo man who is President of the International Association of Gaming Regulators
page 40: International achievement: PRESTIGIOUS ‘ROYAL’ AWARD FOR MEDUNSA DIRECTOR
Uncoupling UL
THE FACTS, THE CHALLENGES – AND THE POTENTIAL In the pages that follow, read what the national Minister of Health, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Limpopo, the acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Medunsa, and the consultant handling the development of the new medical training platform in Limpopo, have to say about the uncoupling.
FROM THE START it was controversial – this merger between the Medical School of Southern Africa (Medunsa) on the northern edges of Gauteng and the University of the North 300 kilometres away in another province entirely. As far back as June 2002, a Government Gazette notice stated that ‘the Ministry of Education should, in consultation with the new institution, assess, investigate and make decisions on the relocation (over the medium to long term) of Medunsa’s programmes and infrastructure to the Northern Province’ (which is now Limpopo). However unlikely the idea of physical relocation was, it took root. By the time the actual merger happened, on 1 January 2005, opposition to the idea was widespread. The merger therefore foundered from the start. Even when it was decided that relocation was definitely not an option, the two institutions simply did not gel. Something was wrong with the chemistry of the marriage. Nevertheless, the new university struggled with the manifold tasks of harmonising academic courses that overlapped between the two campuses, of harmonising staff conditions of service and salary scales, of merging administrative and financial systems, and particularly of finding a common vision and mission that might draw the two old institutions towards a shared future. For five years, the University of Limpopo tried hard to invent itself. In the process, the new institution went through financial difficulties that brought in an external assessor and an externally guided institutional operating plan. So serious was the situation by 2007/8 that the university was obliged to uncouple itself from its vision and mission and concentrate on the short-term goal of basic survival. In this endeavour, the university succeeded. The vision and mission were reinstated. Institutional finances were brought under control. Nevertheless, the results of the Institutional Audit conducted in 2010 by the quality committee of the Council for Higher Education indicated, while acknowledging
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Dr Aaron Motsoaledi
Professor Mahlo Mokgalong
the excellence of many elements of the university’s performance, that the merger, now in its sixth year, had not resulted in a single institutional identity. Later that year, in an apparently unrelated development, the Minister of Higher Education and Training unexpectedly announced in the media that he would appoint a task team to examine the state of the merger with a view to recommending whether it should remain in place or now be reversed. This was a surprise to the University Council and Executive Committee who immediately contacted the Ministry, requesting that Council be consulted on the matter. A delegation from the University of Limpopo travelled to Cape Town for precisely such a consultation. It was then agreed that a task team comprising two senior academics from universities in Cape Town and KwaZulu-Natal be appointed to examine the situation and make recommendations by early March 2011. The result of these events, as is now well known, is that an announcement was made in May 2011 to the effect that the original constituents of the University of Limpopo would be uncoupled to become separate institutions once again. It was also announced that a decision had been made to grow Medunsa into an expanded health sciences training university, while at the same time a new medical training platform in Polokwane would be established as part of the Turfloopbased University of Limpopo. It should be noted, however, that the uncoupling has not yet been announced in the Government Gazette, no doubt because an actual uncoupling timetable has not yet been agreed.
The uneasy marriage is coming to an end. What’s in the pipeline now?
Professor Herman Joubert
Professor Dan Ncayiyana
It has been reported in the media that well over a billion rand has been spent on trying to make this merger work. That’s a lot of money to pour into an experimental relationship that will now revert to the pre-2005 status quo. Does this mean that the merger was ill-conceived in the first place? Not necessarily. The climate in South Africa’s higher education sector after 1994 and well into the new century was dominated by the so-called ‘size and shape’ debate. Education authorities were wrestling with the racially-based duplication and fragmentation of the sector inherited from the apartheid regime, which comprised 21 universities, 15 technikons, and 27 teacher-training colleges, making a total of 63 tertiary institutions. For better or worse, these were merged into 23 new institutions, whether straight universities, universities of technology, or comprehensive universities which were combinations of the two. So mergers were occurring all over the country, obviating unnecessary duplication, achieving considerable economies of scale in some quarters, and providing a more logical spread of higher education services to the country as a whole.
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Uncoupling UL
THE FACTS, THE CHALLENGES – AND THE POTENTIAL There was also the matter of bringing medical training facilities to regions hitherto deprived of them. This was certainly a factor in the decision to merge Medunsa with the University of the North in the first place. A medical school for South Africa’s most northerly province was certainly a desirable aim – and it could be achieved, it was thought at first, by the highly unlikely idea of a Medunsa relocation, and then by the plan to establish a second medical training platform, also under the control of the new merged university. But the logicality of the merger appeared to take little account of the emotional and motivational elements among staff whose attachments to the institutions where they worked appear to have been seriously under-estimated. Not surprising then that the uncoupling, announced in May 2011, was so widely welcomed – and not only on the Medunsa campus. The practical positives of uncoupling, as we have seen, are an enlarged Medunsa operation and a new medical training platform under the auspices of the University of Limpopo – provided of course the considerable amounts of money can be found for these various establishments and enlargements. The deeper benefits, however, will be derived from that surge of renewed motivation on both campuses that will follow the restoration of old identities – and, as importantly perhaps, the realisation that in a democracy the aspirations of ordinary people can often sway and even reverse the decisions of those in power. In the pages that follow, four important voices – those of the national Minister of Health, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Limpopo, senior management at Medunsa, and the consultant handling the development of the new medical training platform in Limpopo – speak about the challenges and the potential of the great Turfloop/Medunsa uncoupling. ‘The implications of this (the de-merger) are that the Medunsa campus of the University of Limpopo will be established as a new institution at a time to be determined … The Polokwane campus will continue to admit first year students in the medical programme as per current arrangements.’ (These arrangements are that 50 first-year medical students will be admitted to Turfloop at the beginning of 2012.) – From the joint media statement by Minister Blade Nzimande (Higher Education and Training), Minister Aaron Motsoaledi (Health), and the University of Limpopo.
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ELATION AT MEDUNSA THE TASK TEAM appointed to make recommendations regarding the future of the University of Limpopo presented the responsible Ministers (of Higher Education & Training and of Health) with three options: firstly, that Medunsa remain a campus of the University of Limpopo; secondly, that Medunsa merge with the Tshwane University of Technology, or the University of Pretoria, or North West University; and thirdly that Medunsa be established as a stand-alone university. When Vice-Chancellor Professor Mahlo Mokgalong announced to the Medunsa community at an Imbizo held on 31 May this year that option three had been agreed upon, the packed auditorium cheered and overwhelmingly accepted the decision. The main implication of the decision is that Medunsa will need to grow – from the current 4 158 students to around 10 000 for the stand-alone university to become economically sustainable. Professor Monie Naidoo, an Exco member of Senate, told the Imbizo: ‘We have to show absolute commitment to ensure that this new university becomes a success.’ A representative of the National Health and Allied Workers Union said that in the process of building a
flagship medical university, as envisaged, labour would make its positive contribution. However, he warned that the union would challenge any move by persons who have leadership ambitions and were interested in serving their own interests at the expense of the new-look Medunsa. The president of the Student Representative Council, Tiisetso Ntsie, called on all stakeholders at Medunsa to work together to build the new university. Mokgalong told the Medunsa community that new and appropriate academic programmes would need to be introduced to attract more students. At the same time, plans were being drawn up to develop the Dr George Mukhari Hospital into a state-of-theart teaching hospital. A task team is soon to be appointed by the Minister of Higher Education and Training to steer the process of developing the new enlarged university on the foundations of what already exists on the Medunsa campus. Professor Sam Monokwane, Head of Gynaecology, appealed to Medunsa students to turn their attention to their own working culture. ‘This new university will not be successful if we do not change our attitudes to work,’ he said. ‘The enthusiasm shown by students in this hall today should now be transferred to their studies.’
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Uncoupling UL
The move makes a lot of sense medical training platform in Limpopo province are developed to their full potential, are enormous. The cynics say we don’t have the money. But I say to the cynics, we’ll find it. We’ll be putting together a package comprising contributions from the national treasury, from the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Industrial Development Corporation, as well as from the private banking sector and international donors. It’s not a matter of whether we can find the necessary resources. We have to find them.
DR AARON MOTSOALEDI, national Minister of Health, speaks
SOUTH AFRICA FACES
a serious shortage of doctors and other health professionals. The national population is increasing, and so is the incidence of many diseases. Yet our production of doctors has remained static at around 1 200 a year for more than a decade. Against this background, the uncoupling of Medunsa and Turfloop makes a lot of sense. It has given us the opportunity to increase the size of the former and introduce a brand new medical training platform that will be attached to the latter.
We need to look at this development from a national perspective. Many of our eight tertiary teaching hospitals are in an advanced state of dilapidation, and we know we have to do something about this. The decision has already been made to put money into the following hospitals: Chris Hani Baragwanath in Soweto, King Edward VIII in Durban, and Umtata Hospital in the Eastern Cape. But by far the largest inputs will be in a replacement hospital to take the place of the George Mukhari Hospital adjacent to Medunsa’s medical school, and a brand new hospital and medical school (South Africa’s ninth) next door to the Edupark campus of the University of Limpopo in Polokwane. The financial requirements to effect these national improvements, and to ensure that Medunsa and the new
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No, I can say categorically that the de-merger is not intended to punish any one. The merger didn’t fail. But it was a very difficult thing, not least taking into account the distance between the two main campuses, and it was attempted before the difficulties with regard to the production of home-grown health care professionals was fully realised. Now we have managed to turn these difficulties into a win-win situation – for both the individual universities that are now being uncoupled, and for the whole country. I need to say a word about motivational levels at Medunsa. I believe that the staff felt disowned when the merger occurred, particularly when people started talking about relocation. They felt they had been thrown away. But they haven’t been: Medunsa is an extremely valuable resource. Yes, there are difficulties. We are well aware, for example, of the challenges involved in growing the student population to a level where the Medical School no longer needs such heavy subsidies to survive. That is why we will be appointing a task team to guide Medunsa through the necessary developments that lie ahead. Only by supporting the potential inherent in the de-merging of the University of Limpopo can medical training be brought more into line with national and provincial needs in terms both of the training of medical professionals and the provision of top-class and affordable services across a broader profile of South Africans. The two institutions have a unique opportunity to align their various medical training platforms – and the improved health care it provides – with the finest in the country. We have managed to turn these difficulties (of the merger) into a win-win situation – for both the individual universities that are now being uncoupled, and for the whole country.
Uncoupling UL
We are recognised as key players IT IS IMPORTANT that we understand the psychological impact of the merger, as it was planned throughout the first half of the first decade of our current century and finally executed in 2005. Only with this insight can we fully comprehend the psychological response – the jubilation and relief – to the uncoupling of the two previously autonomous institutions. I stress the importance of these psychological processes because they hold the key to the future of both institutions as they take on their expanded roles. The logic of merging the two institutions in the first place cannot be faulted. The post-1994 regime was focussed on cleaning up the considerable untidiness in the higher education sector that had resulted from the insatiable appetite of apartheid and separate development for duplication. These considerations tended to override the broader concerns of ensuring an adequate supply of health professionals in a country where disparities in health care services between the races were endemic. I think it is appropriate that we should view the de-merger, or rather the proposed uncoupling of the two institutions currently contained within the University of Limpopo, as the restoration of a balance between the need to rationalise and the need to improve health care services for all. Even though it will take time and money, and although the uncoupling has not yet been gazetted, the reasoning is sound. Not only will a ninth medical training platform be added to the national tally, the existing platform at Medunsa is to be substantially enlarged. Best of all, though, is the fact that these additions and enlargements are to be tackled by two staffing complements that appear to be revitalised by what has happened on both our campuses. The cynical may find this rejuvenation to be based on purely selfish motives, on the removal of threats to our self-esteem and of in-house competition antagonisms. My personal contention is that its basis has much deeper roots. To begin with, a great many complexities have arisen during the merging process, not least those complexities and inconveniences arising from the sheer geographical distances between the two main campuses of the merged university. Far more important than these practical concerns, though, is the level of trust that has been placed in all of us at the University of Limpopo.
PROFESSOR MAHLO MOKGALONG, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Limpopo , speaks This alone must have boosted morale considerably – and justifiably so. Allow me to unpack this contention a little. The long-term plan underlying the uncoupling is to spend billions on both campuses to improve the national medical training capacity. Indeed, our two campuses together will receive the lion’s share of the extra funding that needs to be found to improve the national situation. We have not been sidelined. Indeed, we are recognised as key players on the national stage. It’s enough to swell with pride even the most sceptical chest. But with such prestige comes a huge responsibility, especially as we go through the costly and lengthy process of uncoupling. It is a responsibility that we all share. Of course, the responsibility will rest heaviest on existing university management – on the University Council and Executive Committee – as we guide our constituent institutions towards the fulfilment of their individual potentials, not only as uncoupled universities but also as guardians of the national good. The long-term plan is to spend billions on both campuses to improve the national medical training capacity. We have not been sidelined. Indeed, we are recognised as key players on the national stage.
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Uncoupling UL
We have the plans and the vision Nevertheless, a vision has developed at Medunsa which takes into account the need to expand. There has been talk of reintroducing veterinary science at Medunsa, but the costs involved would be astronomical. Our thinking has been influenced by the need to be cost effective, and for this reason our vision has coalesced around the expansion of our existing basic BSc programmes. There are three directions in particular in which this expansion could be steered.
PROFESSOR HERMAN JOUBERT, acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Medunsa, speaks
MANY OF US
here at Medunsa believe that to uncouple Medunsa and Turfloop is a very good idea. We are aware that in some quarters we have been blamed for the difficulties encountered in trying to make the merger work. Certainly, the talk of relocation antagonised many people. Now that relocation is no longer an option, and now that a new medical training platform is definitely to be established up north, we say to our colleagues at Turfloop: if our help is required, we will gladly assist. We have in fact planned to do so – not least by the installation at the Polokwane medical campus of sophisticated electronic facilities that will enable Turfloop students to participate directly in lectures at Medunsa. To focus more directly on Medunsa’s future, the idea has been mooted that our student numbers should be grown from the current 4 158 to around 10 000 to achieve economic sustainability. Obviously, the hope has been that we should expand our health sciences and allied health sciences activities. There has been some growth recently, thanks to the clinical training grants from government, but not to the levels now required. The limitations relate to infrastructure in some cases – for example, our dentistry intake is limited by the number of training stations or chairs – and to the limits on doctor training imposed, or at least preferred, by the Health Professions Council, which limits most South African medical schools to an annual intake of around 200 graduates. We’re already at that level.
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The country is in long-term need of schoolteachers with BSc degrees in mathematics and the basic sciences. So it would make sense to add to Medunsa’s spread an education department offering BEd degrees in maths and science. We could also think of an agricultural department. We still have an animal production centre on campus. We keep horses for therapeutic horse riding, a therapeutic modality used for autistic and spastic children. It would be a relatively straightforward matter to reintroduce the production of cattle and sheep and chickens and pigs. We operate in a peri-urban area that is full of plots and small -holdings, and a natural adjunct to small-scale animal production would be an agriculture department specialising in subsistence farming. Finally, our basic science programmes could be directed specifically towards the training of medical scientists specialising for example in microbiology, virology and biochemistry. In fact, Honours courses already exist at Medunsa in these scarce scientific skills.
People have asked us: Where will you accommodate everyone as your student cohort grows? The answer is quite simple. We already have a number of offers from private companies anxious to build and manage student residences on our land, at no cost to the university as part of private-public-partnerships. But let us be very clear: the extensions to our portfolio, particularly into the sciences as envisaged, will require considerable amounts of funding for new infrastructure: new laboratories, new lecture halls, new accommodation for new departments of agriculture and education. We have the plans, we have the vision; now the government must put its money where its mouth is. Our vision has coalesced around the expansion of our existing basic BSc programmes.
Uncoupling UL
A ninth medical school for South Africa THE DE-MERGING OF the University of Limpopo into its original institutions, as announced earlier this year, will not in any way retard the progress being made towards the establishment of an independent medical training platform in Polokwane. A great deal of the groundwork necessary to launch the platform had been completed before the decision to uncouple was made public in May. Indeed, as the vicissitudes of the merger have unfolded and the ideas surrounding a medical school for Limpopo province have evolved, the need for just such a facility, and particularly for it to be sited in the country’s most northerly province, has remained constant. The critical situation with regard to the production of doctors and other health professionals for South Africa is well known; and a ninth medical school adjacent to a fully-fledged tertiary teaching hospital in Polokwane remains a top priority for the country. And there is definitely no change in our intention to admit 50 first year medical students at the beginning of the 2012 academic year. There are, however, certain elements of our planning that it has been necessary to modify. The original idea was to use Medunsa’s existing standing with the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) to begin to operate as a second medical training platform within a single Health Sciences Faculty at the merged University of Limpopo. The registration of the Pietersburg/Mankweng hospital complex as venues for medical undergraduate and postgraduate training was achieved in this way. But now the proposed uncoupling means that direct dealings with the HPCSA have become necessary. In many ways, this makes the process of registration, and particularly the registration of our proposed doctor-training syllabus, slightly less complicated. I would like to say a few words about our syllabus. It will be based squarely on a standard international curriculum, and will be aimed at producing genuine generalists geared to working in remote rural areas. This is the obvious need for Limpopo province, and for South Africa as a whole. We have been influenced by training practices that have evolved in countries like Canada and Australia, which also have farflung rural areas where doctors must work independently of constant back-up services. The Australian system has been particularly illuminating. Last year (in 2010) I took a delegation of senior medical academics to Australia where we saw the rural training facilities that had been established for the training of doctors who will have to cope with the peculiarities of the rural environment. We are
PROFESSOR DAN NCAYIYANA, the consultant responsible for the establishment of the new medical training platform in Polokwane, speaks also working closely with the Medical School at Walter Sisulu University in Umtata, which is the most progressive In the country when it comes to using a solid medical curriculum in the specific training of generalists who will work in often very isolated rural environments. With these factors influencing the design of our curriculum as well as the specific teaching methodologies to be used, I know that we will have no problem in getting accreditation from the HPCSA. We are consulting with them on a regular and ongoing basis. Although the uncoupling process will eventually place a certain distance between Medunsa and the new medical training platform being established in Polokwane, it is important that the two institutions continue to work together. The new platform will be indebted to Medunsa for its early beginnings. As eventual equals, continued collaboration will be essential to ensure that the teaching and service-provision contributions from both institutions achieve the highest possible standards.
Our doctor-training syllabus will be based on a standard international curriculum, and will be geared to producing genuine generalists working in remote rural areas.
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The genomics breakthrough
An exciting road ahead IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO overestimate the significance of what’s been happening at Turfloop recently. We’re talking here about the University of Limpopo’s involvement in the cutting-edge world of human genomics. The university finds itself on the international stage as genetic science moves inescapably towards the beginnings of genome-based personalised medicine and health services. More importantly, the university is being seen as the key to making the galloping new technologies accessible to many millions of people living in the SADC region of our continent, and beyond. But for all this to be satisfactorily elucidated, we need to start at the beginning. Francis Crick and James Watson uncovered the DNA double helix in the 1950s, thus launching the science of genetics into its modern phase. Genetics is now essentially the study of the DNA chain and how the molecules that it contains not only provide important information on the structure and maintenance of living organisms, but also a picture of the process of inheritance from generation to generation. By the early 2000s, advances in this field had made it possible for the first time to read the complete genetic blueprint (called the genome) of individual human beings. It was a complex and expensive process, and Watson himself survived to become one of the first to undergo a complete genome sequencing procedure. Others have followed. And in 2008/9, a small group of San hunter-gatherers and Archbishop Desmond Tutu became the first Africans to be thus sequenced. This groundbreaking event, which was scientifically recorded in the prestigious scientific journal Nature on18 February 2010, also marked the entry of the University of Limpopo into the human-genomic arena.1 The university is being seen as the key to making the galloping new technologies (of human genome sequencing and interpretation) accessible to many millions of people living in the SADC region of our continent, and beyond.
Professor Phillip Venter
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1 See the extensive coverage of 'Turfloop's genetic connection' beginning on page 19 of Limpopo Leader 21, Autumn 2010.
Influenza Hemagglutinin Protein It is worth noting that an important finding to emerge from this first southern African genome sequencing exercise was that the small differences between the San and Bantu sequences (a million genome-wide DNA differences out of a total of three billion, and 27 000 amino-acid differences were discovered) would greatly assist in tailoring medical research and ultimately improved health care to all the indigenous peoples in the region. The university’s Professor Phillip Venter, former director of Turfloop’s health sciences departments, and one of the first persons to obtain a postgraduate qualification in human genetics to be trained in South Africa, had done useful research on congenital/genetic defects in babies in poor rural communities in Limpopo. His work in this field led to invitations to at least ten international conferences at which his startling findings were presented. Meanwhile, Venter had become involved in a comprehensive genetic
research project (in partnership with scientists from the University of Pretoria) dealing with the incidence of prostate cancer across four different population groups, not least the deep rural communities living in Limpopo. But one of the difficulties encountered by Venter and the other researchers related to the detailed identification of genetic mutations that indicated susceptibility to cancer. Fortuitously, at one of the conferences to which he was invited he met a fellow South African, the molecular biologist Professor Vanessa Hayes, then working in Australia, who was able to apply modern genome sequencing techniques to provide the necessary mutation details. It was through Hayes that Venter and the University of Limpopo later became involved with the international researchers concerned with the genome sequencing of Archbishop Tutu and the San hunter-gatherers. But this initial contact led steadily to other things.
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The genomics breakthrough
An exciting road ahead
Aligned sequences in interactive viewer The prostate cancer research has now been completed and will soon be published. Through Hayes, a relationship has been established between the University of Limpopo and the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in the United States. A high-powered workshop, jointly organised by the JCVI, the USA’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the University of Limpopo, was held at Turfloop from 30 May to 1 June 2011. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has also been signed between the university and the JCVI, with several important collaborations in the pipeline. And the chances of a topflight human genomics unit, with an emphasis on interpretative skills, being established within the new Medical School planned for Polokwane, are extremely high. In fact, the odds are even more favourable than that. Professor Dan Ncayiyana, the project manager driving the establishment of the new medical training platform in Polokwane, says candidly: ‘Once the new medical school is operational here, the establishment of a genomics interpretative centre is definitely on the cards. It will be essential for the production of new Africa-centred knowledge. We’ll find the funding, and I’m certain we’ll attract matching funding from the National Research Foundation. It’s a unique opportunity for the University of Limpopo; and there can be no doubt that such a centre would put the university’s new medical school immediately and very firmly on the international map.’
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In anticipation of these hugely significant developments, the University of Limpopo has chosen Genomics as one of the Chairs for which to submit a proposal to the Department of Science and Technology. The DST has recently made funding available for the creation of nearly 60 new research Chairs across the country, and the university is hopeful of receiving several. The three-day workshop held at Turfloop at the end of May 2011 was entitled Genomics and Infectious Disease: Applications and Needs for Southern Africa. Six of the speakers were from the JCVI, five from the University of Limpopo, and one each from the University of Venda, the American National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the Kruger National Park Veterinary Research Unit, and the National Food Technology Research Centre in Botswana.
Once the new medical school is operational here, the establishment of a genomics interpretative centre is definitely on the cards. It will be essential for the production of new Africa-centred knowledge.
budding relationship with the JCVI will lead to finer research into differences in the human genome as these will inevitably appear between the different ethnic groupings that occur in Limpopo province, research that will lead to deeper understandings of disease vulnerability and disease treatment. This is exciting stuff – and profoundly challenging for medical scientists not only in Africa but around the world.
SFVT's mapped into NSI protein structure After a series of institutional perspectives from the three main institutions involved (the University of Limpopo’s position was presented by Professor Philip Venter) the workshop focussed on the ‘complete infectious human’ in terms of ‘bacterial genomics, from pathogen to host’ as well as viral genomics. The final day was given over to laboratory sessions when genome sequencing results were presented as increasing amounts of data requiring storage for comparison and ultimate interpretation. This is a process that would open the door between genetics and disease susceptibility, and lead from there to individualised disease treatment, first in terms of ethnic groupings, and finally for individual patients. Of particular interest were the contributions from scientists on the staff of the University of Limpopo. Tibello Maguga, PhD student and senior lecturer in Medical Microbiology at Turfloop, spoke on the genotyping of multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis in Limpopo Province. Professor Susan Dippenaar of Turfloop’s School of Biodiversity dealt with her ‘molecular work on symbiotic siphonostomatoida’. Professor Jeffrey Mphahlele from the Medunsa campus explained the University of Limpopo’s role in rotavirus research in Africa; and Professor Marianne Alberts provided an overview of the Dikgale Health and Surveillance system run by the university for the past 16 years. What’s in the pipeline now? Clearly, the MOU signed with the J Craig Venter Institute will lead the university directly into the international mainstream, but with its deepest scientific attention focussed on Africa in general and the SADC countries in particular. It seems likely that the
In the words of Professor Errol Holland, Dean of Health Sciences at the University of Limpopo: ‘We could not have done better than this linkage with JCVI, the premier genome sequencing institute in the world.’ The implication inherent in this comment is that the university has the opportunity to make its mark on the world stage. Professor Ncayiyana elaborates: ‘The proximity of the new Medical School to our SADC neighbours, and to its own deeply rural setting, places it in a unique position to influence regional and continental thinking on rural-specific health challenges. I am thinking in particular of the general rise of diseases of lifestyle among rural populations, and also the genetic work already done at Turfloop on ruralbased birth defects and peculiarities. The latter field offers tremendous scope for research; and the memorandum of understanding signed recently with the prestigious J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego provides an inkling of what kind of future we should be working for at Turfloop, and particularly at the new medical facilities being established in Polokwane.’
Effector domain with positions 94-115 (alpha-helix) hightlighted in yellow
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The genomics breakthrough
Who is Professor Vanessa Hayes?
extinct populations that represent global human diversity) and human disease. The JCVI’s Genomic Medicine Group has a particular focus on the under-studied populations of southern Africa. In particular, observations in human disease disparities (for example, the high incidence and mortality rates for prostate cancer observed in men of African descent) form the foundation of the group’s research into the genetic basis of disease risk and of response to therapies.
Professor Vanessa Hayes
SHE’S A WORLDCLASS
molecular geneticist, and a world leader in the field of genomic medicine and bio-informatics. She was born in Cape Town and began her university studies at the University of Stellenbosch. She graduated with a BSc degree in genetics, biochemistry, microbiology and aquaculture in 1992. Honours and Masters degrees in human genetics followed. She then gained her doctorate in medical genetics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, before returning to Stellenbosch for a brief spell as a Postdoctoral Fellow in medical virology. Hayes holds several prestigious academic positions, including Conjoint Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Australia; and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the Pennsylvania State University in the United States. Her current day job, however, is with the J Craig Venter Institute in San Diego where she holds the position of Professor of Genomic Medicine and heads up the JCVI’s Genomic Medicine Group. The objective of this group is to define the extremes of genomic diversity, and the amount and type of diversity that is tolerated by an organism before it becomes susceptible to a disease. A major focus is to explore the extremes of genomic diversity and phenotype correlations that define modern humans (using both modern day and
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Hayes is also hectically busy on the conferencing circuit. In the past 30 months alone, she has been invited as plenary, keynote and/or guest speaker at 48 different events around the world, including in South Africa. She has also published, over the past 15 years, no fewer than 49 refereed journal articles in such publications as Nature, Science, Genetic Epidemiology and Clinical Cancer Research. As early as 2006 a research partnership was initiated between Hayes and Professor Philip Venter at Turfloop. The pair collaborated, and worked closely with other South African researchers, to produce the scientific paper on Genetic Factors of Prostate Cancer Risk in Indigenous African Population Groups, which is the result of five years of research at four major hospitals, including the hospital in Polokwane, where nearly 500 patients and controls from four different population groups are studied. More recently, Hayes established and co-founded (with Venter) the University of Limpopo – JCVI Genomic Network early in 2011, a development that paved the way for the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the two institutions. All this considered, it is hardly surprising that the University of Limpopo is now preparing a proposal to bring Professor Hayes on board at the university, certainly via connections with the new Medical School being established in Polokwane, as an honorary professor.
The University of Limpopo is currently preparing a proposal to bring Professor Hayes on board as an honorary professor – with immediate effect.
The genomics breakthrough
What the Dean of medical sciences thinks
SEVERAL KEY ELEMENTS
have combined to bring the University of Limpopo to where it is today – on the brink of making its mark internationally in the field of human genomics. And let me be clear about one thing. The sequencing and interpretation of this detailed genetic material is the most powerful technology in the health world today, with huge implications for southern Africa and other developing areas around the globe. The key elements are, first, the presence of Professor Phillip Venter on the Turfloop campus. His early work on genetic defects in rural babies was seen in some quarters as controversial, but it opened the door to a new way of thinking about the accessibility of hi-tech medical science to the rural poor. This did not mean ‘talking down’ to anyone, but simply making the benefits of deepening scientific understanding and new technologies accessible to the end user. The second key element was the research partnership that has developed between Venter and Professor Vanessa Hayes, now the Professor of Genomic Medicine at the J Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) in San Diego. This relationship has resulted, among other things, in a memorandum of understanding between the JCVI and the University of Limpopo. This MOU will soon result in several highly significant projects that will cement the relationship of the university with an institute at the forefront of international scientific endeavour in genomics, and especially in the linkages between genomics and improving health care for all.
environment which impacts both on the nature of the host and of the pathogen. Genomics can prise open the hidden structures of the human host AND of the pathogen, thus creating a blueprint upon which effective treatment in a given environment or in a given population can be based. Think of the implications for the high prevalence of tuberculosis in the Western Cape, or the susceptibility to gastro related diseases, not least among children across subSaharan Africa and beyond, that emanates from the rotavirus. Radical improvements in such situations are within our grasp. But as we build up our scientific and technological power, so we must build up our determination to seek, not self-glorification so much as genuine improvement in the lot of our less fortunate fellow human beings. That is why the third key element responsible for what is happening at Turfloop is the University of Limpopo itself. It has been quick to understand the importance and potential of recent developments, and to support these developments. Most of all, however, the institution has grasped the significance of genomics in terms of its avowed mission of finding world class solutions to some of Africa’s most intractable problems.
This aspect of this relationship – the practical application of genomics in health care – must be of vital concern to all of us involved in medical science and the provision of equitable health care in South Africa. When one looks at our performance in terms of so many of the Millennium Goals set by the World Health Organisation, it is clear, for example, that our infant and under-five mortality rates are in drastic need of improvement. Can the science of genomics help to improve the situation? Yes it can, if there is a real and sustained will to reduce the inequities and uplift the poor. The way in which genomics can help is best understood by looking at the triangle that illustrates the relationship between the disease host, the disease pathogen and the
Professor Errol Holland
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Foundational education
ARE WE BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND?
Photograph supplied by the Bigger Picture Reuters
THE BIBLICAL PARABLE tells us what happens to the house that is built on the sand, and to the house where the builder digs deeper and lays his foundations on solid rock. The former is swept away in the storm; the latter survives the vicissitudes of the weather. This parable comes immediately to mind when we think carefully about the educational edifice that has been built in South Africa since the advent of democracy in 1994. A great deal has been made of the importance of tertiary education, and the linkages between highly educated people (at doctoral level and above) and the successful development of the so-called knowledge economies upon which survival in the global economy apparently depends. We have no reason to disbelieve these realities. Indeed, in a recent Limpopo Leader the state of PhD programmes in SADC is examined.2 Not much food for comfort there.
Nevertheless, the trend (by international funders and by local interests) is to look to the top end of the educational ladder for our economic well-being and development, and to pay insufficient attention to the foundational material upon which our education house is built. Rock or sand? Until very recently, the answer would have to have been the latter. As long ago as early 2006, Limpopo Leader was reporting a national shortage of school teachers and, at provincial level in Limpopo, the disturbing fact that not a single new foundation phase teacher had been trained in the province since the closure of the 14 Colleges of Education in the year 2000.3 Even more disturbing is the realisation that in 2011, five years down the track, the situation remains unchanged.
2 Limpopo Leader 24, Autumn 2011, page 34 3 Limpopo Leader 7, Autumn 2006, page 5, 'What's happening to our supply of new teachers?'
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Is there no good news at all from these foundations of sand? Yes, there is. In a nutshell, the authorities are learning to distrust the nature of the material upon which they’ve been building. In her foreword to a new Department of Basic Education publication, Annual National Assessments of 2011, Minister Angelina Motshekga writes that ‘the improvement of the quality and levels of educational outcomes in the schooling system is a top priority of both government and the department; (and) the extent to which these outcomes are achieved will be monitored through the administration of the Annual National Assessment (ANA).’ The Minister then goes on to establish some achievement targets for basic literacy and numeracy. In general terms, by 2014 a 60 percent achievement rate is expected to coincide with an educational master plan entitled Towards the Realisation of Schooling 2025. Actually, 60 percent seems like quite a low target – until it is compared to the current reality. According to figures published in the Annual National Assessments of 2011, here’s a picture of the status quo. Given fairly broad bands of statistical levels of confidence in the data, the national picture (Limpopo’s provincial figures in brackets) is: • Grade 3 literacy: 53 (61) percent of learners have not achieved acceptable standards; 20 (16) percent have achieved acceptable standards. • Grade 3 numeracy: 66 (81) percent have not achieved; 12 (5) percent have. • Grade 6 language: 70 (85) percent have not achieved; 12 (5) percent have. • Grade 6 arithmetic/mathematics: 69 (80) percent have not achieved; 9 (5) percent have. As can be seen, the provincial picture in Limpopo is seriously depressing. When this is coupled with the drought of new foundation phase teachers in the province – the grade 6 performances are as bad as they are because the grade 3 results are so abysmally low – the situation seems incomprehensible. ‘It often appears to us,’ says Dr Makgwana Rampedi, director of the School of Education at Turfloop, and currently acting Executive Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, ‘that there has simply been a lack of any deep understanding of the situation. There’s been a serious lack of planning. Education has been prioritised of course, but in word rather than deed. There’s been insufficient action; and in our education thinking generally
Dr Makgwana Rampedi
too much attention is going to the secondary and tertiary levels, and too little to the foundations. As a result – it should be obvious – our students here at university struggle to find their feet. There are too many gaps. ‘Why has the situation been allowed to degenerate to this level?’ Rampedi asks, and then answers his own question. ‘There’s been too much experimentation in the sector. For example, why were the colleges of education (there were 14 such colleges in Limpopo alone) allowed to close before universities were adequately prepared (with funding and staff) to cope? So within a couple of years our national production of teachers fell from around 20 000 a year to around 7 000. Admittedly, the argument that the colleges provided inferior teacher education does hold some water. But the response to the crisis in quality has engendered a crisis in quantity. In addition, there’ve been too many ministers, too many policies. For example, is outcomes based education (OBE) in out?
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Foundational education
ARE WE BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND? It’s time now to settle down and face the facts; and the central fact for Limpopo is that we have among the worst figures in the country (see the table headed ‘Performance in SA’s Primary Schools’ on page 21) and no training for foundation phase teachers. At least, not yet.’ This suggestion – ‘at least, not yet’ – that the situation will change is well founded. In 2010, a dozen national priorities were announced, the first of which was to improve the quality of basic education. This has manifested itself in various ways. One manifestation has been the introduction of a standardised assessment procedure that has given rise to the ANAs for 2011. Another has been the issue of standardised national workbooks for grades 1 to 6, aimed at improving and making more uniform classroom practices in primary schools across the country. But even before 2010, the Department of Basic Education invited proposals from universities designed to strengthen the foundation phase of education (from grade R to grade 3). Along with most other universities, the University of Limpopo submitted a proposal to develop a foundation phase BEd degree specifically tailored for deep rural application and the
use of mother-tongue tuition. A team of staff members from the School of Education at Turfloop was assembled for the purpose. Then the Department of Basic Education suggested it would be a good idea for universities to partner in their endeavours. This is how the partnership between the University of Limpopo and The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) came into being. Since Wits already taught a foundation phase BEd, and since Wits had proposed a programme of foundation phase research in rural areas, the partnership would clearly benefit both institutions. An amount of nearly R4-million was obtained from the European Union, and the collaboration began. The Turfloop-based School of Education sent four junior staff members (actually, they were originally teachers from local schools) to Wits to undertake their postgraduate studies in foundation phase education. Once qualified, these staffers will return to Turfloop to form the core of a foundation phase teaching cohort. At the same time, an internal four-member team in the School of Education is developing the course curriculum and materials, which are then tested through regular workshops with practising Limpopo teachers and senior education academics from Wits.
Dr Darlene De Marie with children at the WL's Child Development Centre at Turfloop
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‘We’re hoping to start training our foundation phase BEd in 2013,’ says Rampedi. ‘But there are further difficulties. At the moment, qualified foundation phase teachers are mostly white. Black attitudes to teaching as a career have changed quite dramatically since 1994 when there was an explosion of other opportunities. So teaching is no longer so sought after, and for some reason foundation phase teaching, in other words teaching five to nine year olds, is the least popular among young black people choosing a career. However, a system of sponsorship and bursaries in favour of foundation phase teaching will persuade more young students to consider this hopelessly neglected phase more carefully.’
But isn’t all this merely a case of ‘too little too late’? With around two million school children in the province (and at least a third of them in the foundation phase) it certainly seems like it. Rampedi is slightly more positive. ‘We’ve got to start somewhere,’ he says, ‘and at least when we do we’ll have a quality curriculum to work with.’ The bottom line is inescapable, though. The quality of basic education is still well below what it should be. Even the best provincial numeracy and literacy figures quoted in this article are well below what can be considered acceptable.‘These figures,’ say the authors of the Annual National Assessments of 2011, ‘reflect the magnitude of the challenge still facing the sector. However, they also reflect the high standards that we have set for ourselves.’
He added that the plan was to begin with 100 BEd (foundation phase) students in 2013, adding 50 new students at the beginning of each subsequent year. Because the BEd degree is a four-year course, the first qualified foundation phase teachers will emerge from Turfloop only at the end of 2016, he said.
It is to be hoped, and not least for the sake of South Africa’s ability to produce more highly qualified people and thus to build a viable knowledge economy, that higher standards will rapidly be achieved. The country needs some solid foundational rock amid all the current sand.
PERFORMANCE IN SA’s PRIMARY SCHOOLS This table shows the percentage scores achieved per grade and subject, across South Africa’s nine provinces. Limpopo’s performance is highlighted in red. Highlighted in blue are the country’s most urbanised provinces, showing the marked differences in educational achievement between urban and rural.
Province
Grade 3
Grade 3
Grade 6
Grade 6
Literacy
Numeracy
Languages
Mathematics
Eastern Cape
39
35
29
29
Free State
37
26
23
28
Gauteng
35
30
35
37
KZN
39
31
29
32
Limpopo
30
20
21
25
Mpumalanga
27
19
20
25
Northern Cape
28
21
27
28
North West
30
21
22
26
Western Cape
43
36
40
41
South Africa
35
28
28
30
Source: Annual National Assessments of 2011 (Department of Basic Education) Note: The margin of error is around 6% at provincial level and 2% at national level
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Research focus
NEW VITALITY IN THE RESEARCH ARENA RESEARCH ACTIVITY IS
about to get into top gear at the University of Limpopo. More research funding is becoming available than ever before; and more postgraduate students are enrolled in the various categories than ever before. For the first time, as the illustration on page 23 indicates, a special Research Annual Report (for 2010) has been produced. In the words of Vice-Chancellor Professor Mahlo Mokgalong: ‘A genuine culture of learning is beginning to flower at our university. 'We should elaborate with a little more detail here. First, with regard to research finances, the flow of funding from the National Research Foundation more than doubled from 2009 to 2010, and our number of research publications rose by at least 65 percent. When this output is converted into units (the actual figure will only be verified during the second half of 2011) I am confident that our 2009 ranking of 17th (out of 23 universities) will be improved. Second, with regard to postgraduate activities, the university produced 17 doctoral graduates in 2010. Significantly, however, the intake of postgraduate students rose by 33 percent over 2009.' 'All this is extremely good news. It’s also essential news. Quite apart from repairing the damage that the
Professor Rachmond Howard
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Dr Prem Govender
old apartheid expectations had inflicted – the old separate development universities weren’t expected to do much research – there is a definite economic and nation-building incentive in improving the research record of the University of Limpopo. Such a statement needs some explanation. 'A great deal is being said these days about the concept of ‘knowledge-based economies’. What this means is that the old concept – that successful economies can be built simply on the exploitation of raw materials – no longer applies. The principles implicit in the Global Economy have very rapidly superseded those of the Industrial Revolution. In any case, the world’s treasure trove of raw materials has been severely depleted. That is why the new socio-economic currency is knowledge, the production of knowledge, and the high degree of innovation required to turn new knowledge into hard cash. 'If there should be any doubt about the rationale underlying the increasing emphasis on research at the University of Limpopo, this is the argument that supports it. In fact, I should rephrase the emphasis. It should not only be on research per se, but simultaneously on the production of highly qualified people.'
Dr Jesika Singh
It is sobering to accept the linkages between the production of PhD graduates and original research against a backdrop of the current facts. South African universities produce a PhD output of around 1 300 a year, or something less than 30 doctoral graduates per million of our population. Compared to the rest of the SADC, where hardly one doctoral graduate is produced per million, we are doing quite well. But our South African figure is ten times less per capita than most of the developed nations of the world. According to a 2010 report by the Academy of Sciences of South Africa, to achieve serious global competitiveness we should be producing 6 000 doctoral graduates each year in technology and the sciences alone.4 Small wonder, therefore, that there’s a fresh new research breeze beginning to blow through the campuses and lecture halls of the University of Limpopo. As Professor Mokgalong has stated in his message to the 2010 Annual Research Report: ‘It is true that 2010 saw a surge in the university’s material support of research. Now I would remind readers of the mission and vision of the University of Limpopo, particularly in relation to the university’s geographical position in a deeply rural part of South Africa.
4 For more detail on this subject, see 'The State of Doctoral Programmes
Cover of Research Annual Report
in SADC' on page 34 of Limpopo Leader 24, Autumn 2011.
Ronel Hattingh
Ramakgolo Lekalakala
Victor Netshidzivhani
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focus ResearchResearch focus
NEW VITALITY IN THE RESEARCH ARENA 'But how can we hope to be “world-class” and “globally competitive” when “addressing the needs of rural (African) communities through innovative ideas” without a cohort of academics and postgraduate students capable of being enthused by such a vision?’ We can add to these two essentials – money and people – a third component: that of support structures geared to respond to the anticipated rapid growth in research activity in the years ahead This also has received attention. Earlier this year, posters appeared all over both campuses that advertised the services of the new Division of Research Development and Innovation. ‘Advancing a 21st Century Africa-Relevant Research and Innovation Agenda’ said the tagline. The posters listed the division’s core activities, displayed photographs of the staff and listed the division’s core values as ‘efficiency, effectiveness, friendly services, excellence in our service and work, impartiality, accountability, honesty, integrity and respect’. The staff is of special interest. Many of them have been recently recruited, and together they make up a powerful team providing an array of services not available before. The team is led by Professor Rachmond Howard;5 and in the pages that follow, the five key players and the roles they perform in the Turfloop and Medunsa research offices are profiled.
5 A profile of Professor Howard, appointed to the position of Director of Research in 2009, appeared on page 10 of Limpopo Leader 20, Summer 2010.
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Research focus
New brooms in Research provided they were taking subjects not available to them at the black universities! So Govender was obliged to major in Entomology and Botany instead of following his heart into the health sciences. He followed his undergraduate degree with an Honours before leaving the university to work briefly at the Plant Protection Research Institute and then, as the first black researcher, for the Institute of Commercial Forestry Research in Pietermaritzburg. During this time he completed his Masters in Forest Entomology and was promoted up the ranks to senior researcher. In 1999, he was head hunted by the University of Pretoria, where he invested his former years in establishing a programme in Forest Entomology, and also found the time to do his PhD while being progressively appointed as a senior lecturer. He joined the University of Limpopo in his current position in October 2010. Govender (now 50) has begun the task of establishing a fully functional research office at Medunsa to support the research effort in health sciences. Dr Prem Govender, Deputy Director
THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR of the division of Research Development and Innovation at the university is responsible for the strategic management of research in the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Medunsa campus. Although stationed permanently on the Medunsa campus, the faculty – and the responsibility – reaches all the way to Turfloop as well. It’s a big job, not least since this faculty consistently produces more than 50 percent of the research output of the entire university. Dr Prem Govender seems perfectly suited to the job. He worked in research even before embarking on his undergraduate BSc, and had it not been for the constraints of apartheid he might have worked in medical research for all that time. Govender began work as a laboratory assistant in the Agriculture Faculty on the Pietermaritzburg campus of the then University of Natal, while at the same time studying part-time. Under apartheid in the 1980s, it was possible for black students to study at the white universities,
‘By the strategic management of health sciences research, I mean that we need to tailor the services we offer to the core business of the institution, which is a combination of teaching/learning, research, and community engagement,’ he explains. ‘It means keeping university and faculty management apprised of the general position of research in relation to our other main core-business pillars. We need to encourage avenues of research that provide support especially for postgraduate teaching and learning, and for community engagement, and that close any gaps in our current research portfolio. What we must strive for is an integrated research plan that interfaces with the other pillars, yet enhances in practical terms our efforts towards the concept of institutional social accountability.’ It’s a dynamic combination: Govender’s practical experience (at an international level) and understanding of serious scientific research now released into a health sciences environment. The combination augurs well for the future of relevant health sciences not only at Medunsa but also at the new medical teaching platform currently being constructed for Limpopo.
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Research focus
New brooms in Research tendency is for existing supervisors to take on too many students. The result is low throughput rates and low incentive levels. So we want to train more supervisors and limit the maximum number of students per supervisor to five or six.’ The percentage of PhDs among academic staff needs to be raised. Staff often complain that pressure to supervise, research and publish, together with high teaching loads, tends to preclude improving personal qualifications. Singh: ‘But we need to encourage staff to pursue their own careers. In fact we’re planning to initiate a special PhD project which will include 20 staff over the next three years.’ The 2011 plan has also included workshops on ‘writing and publishing your first accredited article’. Over 50 staff applied to attend the first workshop held in April, where the practicalities of writing, presentation, matching articles to specific publications, and generally becoming streetwise with regard to academic publishing, were addressed. Dr Jesika Singh, Research Developer
THE FIRST THING that Dr Jesika Singh did when she took up the position of research developer in the Division of Research Development and Innovation last year in August was to hold a series of workshops and consultations with directors of schools and faculty deans to establish just what sort of developing was most urgently needed. The results of these interactions not only confirmed the fundamental purpose of her job – to develop research-preparedness among staff and postgraduate students – but provided her with valuable details that found their way into the mix as she assembled her plan of action for 2011. Here are some of the most important elements of the plan. Specialised training for supervisors should be introduced. A three-day course was in fact held at the end of May 2011, attended by 60 new supervisors. The curriculum included practical training, the tools required to be a successful supervisor, and monitoring and evaluation procedures. ‘We have to break the cycle of low publication performance, and supervisors have an important role to play,’ Singh says. ‘The current
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Another element of the 2011 research development plan is to encourage University of Limpopo academics to apply for NRF rating as researchers. There are well over 2 250 NRF-rated researchers in the country, but only six come from the University of Limpopo. ‘So we’re planning to meet with our rated researchers to encourage them to act as mentors for our existing staff who want to apply for rating,’ says Singh. ‘We are particularly targeting twenty people. ‘The whole culture of research needs to evolve here,’ she continues, ‘and my job is to nurture that evolution. The strengthening of expert supervision, building the ability to publish, and encouraging our academics to step onto the national stage through NRF-rating are just some of the building blocks through which our research culture can be stimulated.’ Singh was originally trained in education, graduating with a BEd (Hons) from the University of Durban-Westville. She taught for 15 years on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast, rising from school teacher to head of department to deputy and then principal.
She achieved her Masters and Doctorate in education through the then Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) while holding senior positions in the School of Education at Turfloop, before taking up the challenge of research development for the University of Limpopo as a whole. Three other Singh-inspired activities are beginning to change the research mindset across both main campuses of the university. The first is the introduction of a one-year course for postgraduate students which introduces them to the basics of research. Modules include proposal writing, academic writing skills, writing for publication, reviewing literature, and understanding the various research methodologies. The second is a special focus on women in research. ‘The figures show that publishing output among women academics is low,’ Singh explains. ‘We want to counteract this. In July we held a special workshop for our women staff. Over a hundred attended. They were addressed by Professor Driekie Hay, DVC Academic at the University of the Free State, and an expert on the nurturing of female academics.’
Hattingh explained some of the detail pertaining to the flow of postgraduate funding from the NRF, which jumped dramatically from under R7-million in 2009 to over R20million in 2010. Increased block funding for Honours bursaries enabled the number of students chosen by the university to increase from 68 in 2010 to 110 in 2011. A further R2,4-million, a doubling from the previous year, was allocated for the same purpose at the beginning of 2011. The increase in postgraduate activity at Masters level was as impressive. Doctoral students apply for funding directly from the NRF, but all grants are administered by Hattingh. Apart from rapidly increasing grants for postgraduate funding, there are significant flows of money from the NRF for grant holders doing specific and ongoing research. Earmarked NRF funding has also been flowing into the university for the purchase of new research equipment. ‘The hope,’ Hattingh says, ‘is that I will become busier and busier.’
The third activity is a weekly lunch hour seminar held every Thursday on the Turfloop campus. The intention is to build the university’s culture of research and scholarship. Such topics as ‘Why bother to read?’ and ‘How to read’ are drawing small but steadily increasing audiences each week. ‘Building the culture of research and scholarship,’ concludes Singh. ‘That is what lies behind everything that I do. And it’s thrilling to see the activities beginning to yield results.’
WITH THE DRAMATIC
upturn in research and postgraduate activity experienced at the University of Limpopo between 2009 and 2010, and because the most important funder of these activities is the National Research Foundation, the special post of NRF Administration Officer was established in the Division of Research Development and Innovation. Ronel Hattingh was appointed as early as July 2009. She joined the university with a higher diploma in South African and International Taxation (from Rand Afrikaans University, now University of Johannesburg) and 20 years experience with the South African Revenue Services. ‘Right from the start,’ Hattingh says, ‘we put in a lot of effort, holding workshops and generally encouraging students to apply for postgraduate study.’
Ronel Hattingh, NRF Administrative Officer
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Research focus
New brooms in Research does more than this. It captures essential information on most aspects related to research and innovation, such as research performance, researcher CV data, human resources for research, expenditure on research development and innovation, as well as ethical issues and clinical trial approval systems. Clearly, RIMS will only be as good as the people who feed the information into it from the universities. That’s where Lekalakala comes in. He’s a Limpopo man, born in Tzaneen and raised in Seshego (outside Polokwane). He completed a BEd degree at the then University of the North in 1992, and then lectured at several Colleges of Education during that period in the 1990s when these colleges were being phased out. After several precarious years he returned to full-time study, this time concentrating on computer programming and information technology. After working in IT training for some time, Lekalakala (now 40) joined the University of Limpopo in April 2010.
Ramakgolo Lekalakala, Research Co-ordinator
IN PRACTICAL TERMS, Ramakgolo Lekalakala is actually the RIMS manager for the University of Limpopo. He has an office in the Division of Research Development on the Turfloop campus. Most importantly, perhaps, he has a very good computer. This last attribute is essential for anyone associated with RIMS. So, what is RIMS? It’s the acronym for Research Information Management System, which is a web-based tool launched in February 2008 by the Minister of Science and Technology to capture statistical information on research and development activities by South African universities, science councils and other government funding agencies. RIMS is managed by the National Research Foundation (NRF), and is designed, according to its own website, ‘to provide government with information on human resources for science, engineering and technology, research and development capacity and technology improvement and innovation’. In fact, RIMS
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‘My arrival coincided with the university’s initial involvement with RIMS,’ Lekalakala explained, ‘which was being rolled out to all universities at the time. RIMS is actually a huge database with nine separate modules. We’re working on the first three – before moving on to the next two.’ Lekalakala described the first three modules as follows: • Research outputs database, which contains details of all research outputs conducted in South Africa, which is stored in a classification system comprising 20 main categories. The data can also be sorted into faculties and/or authors. All research outputs generated at Turfloop and Medunsa campuses are now being entered onto RIMS. • The SPIN database (sponsored programme informa tion network) provides a complete list of all funding sources available for research projects in the various disciplines and research areas. • The Genius database deals with researcher CVs. The value is twofold: very quickly RIMS users can find out the details of who is doing what in any given research field; the Genius database can also be used for young researchers to advertise their qualifications and special interests.
Lekalakala said that he was also involved in training University of Limpopo academics on the policy on the measurement of research outputs and practical working of RIMS, and especially of the SPIN and Genius databases. The next two RIMS modules to be introduced at the university will be a special research awards database and another devoted to research proposals. The value to researchers is obvious: they can take advantage of any awards that might be available for research in which they are engaged; and they can keep abreast of what research is being proposed in their given fields of expertise. Lekalakala is also responsible for the maintenance of a register (database) in which the details of all available research equipment across both campuses are recorded.
After working as a statistics consultant for a few years, Netshidzivhani moved to the University of Zululand where he lectured in mathematics, statistics and ‘mathematics in education’ between 2003 and 2010. Netshidzivhani explained the various key elements of his job. • He provides a consultation service for postgraduate students and researchers, particularly in the design of questionnaires that can translate into data on the computer, and in data analysis. • He teaches courses in basic research statistics to the same audiences across both main campuses of the university. • He also conducts special software training workshops so that postgraduate and staff researchers can familiarise themselves with the basic programmes available at the university. These include Excel, the well-known spread sheet which can be widely used for statistical purposes; a specially designed statistics package for the social sciences (SPSS/PASW) for which the university pays an annual licence fee of approximately R150 000; and STATISICA, a Statistical Analysis Software package (SAS/STAT). Netshidzivhani (37) is being kept increasingly busy with requests from University of Limpopo researchers. ‘People here are researching more,’ he says. ‘Here, in my first three months, I had helped with 15 Masters research projects and three at PhD level. My days are now full, and I am learning a great deal. I am helping with researches in the humanities, in accounting, as well as agriculture and public health.’
Victor Netshidzivhani, Statistician
IT’S DIFFICULT TO
imagine any sort of research project that would not be enhanced by the expert use of statistics. This is particularly so when we consider quantitative research. But qualitative research, too, can benefit. That’s why the idea of establishing a post for a full-time research statistician within the Division of Research Development and Innovation is in itself such a sensible innovation. Victor Netshidzivhani was appointed to this position at the University of Limpopo on 1 November 2010. He was born in Venda in 1974 and graduated from the University of Venda with a BSc (Hons) in statistics 25 years later.
The services offered by the research statistician are also available to people and institutions outside the university. ‘I am in consequence extremely busy,’ he says, ‘but I willingly admit that I find everything I am doing to be worthwhile. I am, as people say, highly motivated.’ Since his arrival at Turfloop, Netshidzivhani has also embarked on further study for himself by registering for a Masters degree in the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences.
I am extremely busy, but I willingly admit that I find everything I am doing to be worthwhile. I am, as people say, highly motivated.
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Hi-tech Turfloop
WELCOME TO THE CENTRE FOR SPATIAL ANALYSIS AND MODELLING She joined the university in 1999, when model aeroplanes – a technique pioneered by now retired Professor Paul Fouche – were used in remote sensing exercises to establish agricultural potential of various areas. ‘We’ve come a long way since then,’ Shaker says. ‘To put it simply, our basic information systems are now being linked to national and international databases to form much broader views, and we are now able to overlay predictions of change (in rainfall and temperature and population pressure, for example) to see what will happen to the original potential as time passes and climate change unfolds.’
Dr Parvin Shaker, and students Asnath Dolo and Johanna Raphala
THEY’RE A FAMILIAR sight for regular visitors to Turfloop – those modest structures labelled ‘A Block’, ‘B Block’, ‘C Block’ on the left of the road as one drives from the main gate to the administrative heart of the University of Limpopo. Compared to some of the newer buildings on campus, they’re quite modest. Understandably so, since they were among the first to be erected when the university came into being as an apartheid college in 1959. But a lot of history has left its marks on the campus, and indeed the whole country, since then. So it seems appropriate that one of these first structures is currently being revamped to house what symbolically can be seen as the university’s deepest claim to a place in the hi-tech world of the 21st century. Welcome to C Block. Welcome, according to a handwritten note on one of the alteration plans, to the home of C-Sam/RVAC. The best way of elucidating all this is to introduce the woman in charge. She’s Dr Parvin Shaker, a senior lecturer in the Department of Soil Science and an expert in remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS).
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Shaker’s office is in a state of disruption – understandably, considering the extensive revamp that is transforming C Block. In one corner is a heap of unpacked computers and computer equipment waiting to be installed. They’ll connect Turfloop to the world in a way that would astonish Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, the politician who actually chose the site for this ‘Bantu college’ in the north of the country. ‘These state-of-the-art computers,’ she explains, indicating the heap of boxes, ‘have come to us via the VLIR-UOS programme.’ And this seems a good place to start as we unravel the origins of the exciting new future for C Block. The VLIR-UOS programme is a partnership between the University of Limpopo and universities in Belgium. The programme consists of five distinct projects, including public health, food security, water, ensuring viable communities in the context of global change. At the heart of the programme is a ‘data management and analysis project’, which draws together ICT services, data mining and production, data management, GIS remote sensing services, spatial analysis and modelling, as well as statistical analysis, to deepen the effectiveness of and integrate the individual projects in the VLIR-UOS programme. Onto this basic VLIR-UOS requirement, thanks to some creative thinking at Turfloop, was grafted the CSIR’s network of regional centres for Spatial Analysis and Modelling (C-Sam).
In the light of VLIR-UOS support, and the willingness of the university to contribute R2-million, the CSIR collaborated to establish a C-Sam at Turfloop, as one of several such centres being set up and linked around the country.6 That’s why the old C Block is getting its makeover. But there’s more. There’s RVAC, which is the acronym for regional Risk and Vulnerability Assessment Centre, of which there will be five around the country: at Northwest University, Fort Hare, the universities of KwaZulu-Natal and Venda, and on the Turfloop campus of the University of Limpopo. The basic function of these centres is to establish and quantify the various climatic, ecological and demographic challenges and to feed this information to a central point where a national Atlas of Risk and Vulnerability is maintained. The RVAC at Turfloop is being jointly funded by the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation to the tune of R5-million over three years. When the VLIR-UOS and university contributions are compounded by the C-Sam and RVAC opportunities, an immensely powerful hi-tech facility with huge research and teaching capabilities looms on the horizon. Above all, though, the opportunities for service provision – and for third-stream income generation – are considerable. ‘We’ll be visiting the local authorities throughout our province,’ Shaker explains, ‘and inviting them to be trained in the use of the RVAC atlas. We’ll then be in a position to assist them to make informed decisions based on a huge compendium of available data.’
Geospatial Analysis Framework (GAP-3); and the CSIR’s ‘Working for Water’ project that monitors environmental impacts, especially regarding water quality, in the areas of Limpopo province experiencing rapid mining and industrial development. ‘The opportunities for postgraduate training and research are perhaps the most exciting thing,’ Shaker says. ‘In fact, something like a quarter of the RVAC budget and substantial amounts of our other budgetary components have been earmarked for bursaries for Masters, doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships. In short, C Block will become a hive of postgraduate activity.’ A manager for the hi-tech centre is currently being sought. Shaker smiles. ‘No, it won’t be me. I’ll be more than content to continue as the resident expert. For me, my students are the most important thing.’ Iranian-born Shaker came to South Africa with her family more than 30 years ago. ‘I never think of myself as anything but South African. And of course, a human being.’ On the wall of her office hangs a quotation from Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Baha’i faith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom. ‘I really do wish to give back to this institution what I have gained from it,’ she added. Thanks to the developments now transforming C Block, she is in a powerful position to do just that.
Channelled into the C Block centre will be a wide variety of data support from various sources: The Applied Centre for Climate and Earth System Studies (ACCESS); the South African Department of Science and Technology’s Global Change Grand Challenge Research Plan (GCGCRP); a great deal of geographical and meteorological data from EUMET in western Europe and GEONET in the Americas; the SAEON platform which hosts data from the South African Risk and Vulnerability Atlas, the South African Earth Observation system, and a prototype World Data Centre for Biodiversity and Human Health in Africa (WDCBHH); the CSIR Built Environment and 6 For a fuller discription of the potential of the Turfloop-based C-Sam, see the article on page 28 of Limpopo Leader 24.
Dedicated to Professor Paul Fouché for the establishment of the Remote Sensing, Unit in the University of Limpopo
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Book preview
CHANCELLOR ADDS ANOTHER TITLE TO HIS LIST They are born, then made; and sometimes unmade by their own actions. A leader who is not in tune with the followership (the people who follow him/her) will become a leader in limbo.’
Dr Reuel Khoza
COUPLED WITH HIS
many achievements in the world of business, Dr Reuel Khoza is an author with a growing reputation. Readers will remember his The African in my Dreams; The Power of Governance (co-authored with Mohamed Adam); and Let Africa Lead. Now he’s added a fourth, Attuned Leadership, which is to be published by Penguin next month. This latest offering will undoubtedly add to his reputation as a distinguished Africanist thinker, and an innovator in bringing the ideas of African humanism (Ubuntu) to the centre of the leadership debate. Let Africa Lead was subtitled African transformational leadership for 21st century business. Khoza’s new work extends his argument beyond the realms of business to include leadership in families on the one side and nations on the other. He is talking about the notion of leadership per se. At the core, however, is his extensive discourse of governance as leadership in practice and moral authority as sine qua non. What lies at the heart of this notion? Khoza’s opening paragraph answers the question. He writes: ‘Leaders are not just born to the role.
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It is this interaction between leader and led that preoccupies Khoza as he works towards his definition of attuned leadership – in other words a conviction on the part of leaders that their relationship with the followers is paramount. ‘Connectedness, probity, compassion, empathy, integrity, humility, reasonableness and a determination to be effective – these are the keys to attuned leadership.’ Reading further into a general description of the book, one learns that the leader who engenders deep and sustainable reciprocal relationships within the community can step boldly into an uncertain future with the certainty that followers will lend their support. The leader cannot stand alone but must stand with the followers, interpret for them, strive to fulfil their hopes, and be their champion in the struggles of life. The leader's moral authority is fashioned in the encounter with the community. The power to lead is the product of support for an individual whose actions bespeak solidarity with the needs and aspirations of the many. This is attuned leadership. In short, it becomes abundantly clear that Khoza’s credo maintains that there’s more responsibility embedded in the idea of attuned leadership than there is power and/or privilege. It's impossible to overstate how desperately such a message – which lies at the heart of Ubuntu – is needed in certain places in the world today. Africa itself comes under scrutiny in Khoza’s introductory chapter. ‘To invoke the philosophy of African humanism as a special contribution to the universal paradigm of leadership is not to excuse the many shortcomings of leadership in Africa itself. It is a source of great pain to acknowledge Africa’s miserable governance in many countries (but not everywhere). Both corporate governance and political leadership are undermined by the exploitative behaviour of foreign companies, as also by the practices of neopatrimonialism. This refers to the corruption of traditional patrimonial values by politicians and business people who use their resources to secure loyalty and enrich themselves, soaking up millions and spreading vice wherever they lay their hands.’
Africa remains the biggest exporter of human capital, most of its skilled and professional class choosing to work and raise their families elsewhere because of instability and poor governance on the continent. Africa’s lack of progress has been laid at the door of colonialism. No doubt, colonialism stunted our minds and scarred our psyche. But that’s only part of the answer. Most of Asia also suffered under the yoke of colonialism. But they seem to have done well since independence. They picked themselves up, and got on with it.’ Mthombothi observes that not a few African countries – but not only African countries – have suffered instability, wars and famine because of ‘misleadership’. On the other hand ‘progress has taken place in the few African countries where true leadership has taken root’. For ‘true leadership’ we can read ‘attuned leadership’. Indeed, Mthombothi considers Khoza’s book ‘a valuable addition to an impressive body of work on the study of leadership’. ‘What strikes one on reading the book,’ Mthombothi continues, ‘is the passion which leaps out on every page. As a scholar and lecturer, Khoza does not only have an intellectual interest in the subject; being a successful businessman and entrepreneur, he has been a practitioner of the art of leadership. He lives it.’
The book will be available in good bookshops from 1 October 2011 at the recommended retail price of R270. Writing recently in a Leadership Excellence publication, Khoza further defines attunded leadership by citing the example of Nelson Mandela and isolating the five supporting pillars upon which his now legendary leadership style rested. • Being self-attuned and emotionally intelligent as a leader • Being attuned to the situation, knowledgeable, capable and astute • Being attuned to the needs and aspirations of followers • Being attuned to the moral imperatives of integrity, efficacy and humility • Being attuned to history, the present and destiny In a lengthy foreword to Attuned Leadership, Barney Mthombothi7 suggests that it is in Africa that the book’s message should be heard the loudest. ‘Africa lags behind the rest of the world in all human development indices – health, education, literacy, food security. Most of the continent has in fact regressed since independence from colonial rule more than half a century ago. Many countries are ravaged by wars and famine, leaving millions displaced. 7 Mthombothi is a well known South African media personality, and is currently the editor of the Financial Mail.
Can any thinking South African afford to ignore the challenges and insights that this book provides? The answer must be that the book will be ignored at our collective peril. Khoza’s voice – and indeed Mthombothi’s – will provide us with invaluable insights as South Africa faces its own uncertain future.
FREE COPIES FOR THREE READERS Why do you want to read Dr Reuel Khoza’s new book, Attuned Leadership? Answer this question in no more than a sentence and you could win a free copy. The publishers, Penguin, have made three copies available to be given away to Limpopo Leader readers. All you have to do is e-mail your answer to the Editor, not forgetting to add your cell phone number and your POSTAL address, so that the book can be posted to you. How will the three winners be judged? They won’t be. The winners will be the first, fifth and last entrants to dispatch their e-mails. The date and time sent is automatically recorded on all e-mail messages. Only one entry per reader, please. The cut-off date for entries is 30 September 2011. Now make a dash for your laptop to secure your own copy of a thought-provoking read.
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Turfloop’s new facilities
Multi-purpose Centre
A YOUNG STUDENT walking in the shiny passageways of the recently completed Multipurpose Sports Centre on the Turfloop campus smiled broadly as he said: ‘This is a very nice place. We are all very proud. Yes, sometimes I play basketball. But my real sport is karate.’
this could lead to the production of champions in various disciplines. It will certainly lead to improving fitness levels – and the centre will be an added incentive for potential students to choose the University of Limpopo, as well as an added attraction helping to entice top quality staff to the institution.
It’s all here in the new centre. The main 3 000-seat auditorium will cater for the following sports at ground level: badminton, tennis, wrestling, boxing, karate, judo, trampoline, basketball and table tennis. First and second floor facilities will include offices, storerooms, toilets and change rooms, as well as space for darts, chess and snooker.
The Multipurpose Centre was built at a cost of R45million, of which R20-million has been donated by Rustenburg Platinum Mines Limited, the balance coming from the Department of Higher Education and Training.
An important secondary use for the centre will be graduation ceremonies. The size of the centre will enable the university to reduce the number of ceremonies held each year. But the real focus is sport. With such modern facilities, a surge of interest is expected from staff and students alike. Perhaps
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Turfloop’s impressive new science laboratory building, which also opened for business in July, cost R31-million. It’ll be used for the teaching of physics and chemistry, and Turfloop’s 50 first year medical students will make use of the new laboratories. Here, too, in the well-equipped and well-designed spaces, the concept of pride of ownership comes readily to the fore.
Turfloop’s new facilities
Science Laboratories
‘This building makes us proud,’ said Selaelo Modubi, Director of Facilities, Logistics and Transport at Turfloop. ‘It’s beautiful, and it’s as good as anything in the country.’
and safety equipment, and outside even the implications of substituting gardens with paving. We just have to keep on learning new things.’
The modern-looking science laboratory building comprises two floors of laboratory space housing 200 laboratory stations on each floor. Facilities include strong-rooms and storerooms, and of course ample toilets and office space. But it is on the technology side that the building excels. Modubi calls the technology ‘the main challenge’.
But Modubi (now 53) is no stranger to this idea. He qualified originally with a BTech degree from the Durban Technikon. He’s currently finishing off his MBA, and next year he’s planning to tackle a doctorate. He started at the university in 1992 and has worked his way steadily through the ranks to his current position. Now he is in charge of all the buildings on Turfloop – including the two new acquisitions – and the smaller medical campus in Polokwane, as well as the nearly 500 workers who clean and look after them.
‘I’m talking about the new technologies employed in the building itself,’ he explained. ‘The laboratory equipment, much of which is replicated more than 400 times, has many fine hi-tech innovations. Even the furniture and work surfaces and flooring are modern, deliberately chosen for their low-maintenance properties. Then there’s all the plant and machinery behind the scenes, and the health
The steadily developing campus is undoubtedly something of which to be proud. What used to be disparagingly called a ‘bush college’ is now well on its way to comparing with the best in the country.
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Turfloop’s new facilities
Multi-purpose Centre
Multi-purpose Centre
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Turfloop’s new facilities
Selaelo Modubi
Science Laboratories
Science Laboratories
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Profile: Serobi Maja
HAVING A (WELL-CONTROLLED) FLUTTER DURING THE RESTLESS
1970s, Serobi Maja spent a lot of time on the Turfloop campus of the University of the North (now Limpopo). He began his studies with a Senior Teacher’s Diploma. Then, as he said, he ‘wasted a year’, a course of action which he does not regret because it enabled him to ‘get involved in other campus activities’. Finally, he did a BA degree, majoring in philosophy, literary studies and English, graduating in the fateful year of 1976. Today, Serobi Maja is the Chief Executive Officer of the Limpopo Gambling Board – AND he’s in the middle of his one-year term as the first black African president of the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) with its headquarters in the American State of Nevada. That’s where the gambling paradise of Las Vegas is situated. One could say that Maja is at the top of his profession. He was quoted recently as saying that IAGR had set the stage ‘for a new spirit of togetherness among all the gambling jurisdictions of the world’. IAGR’s membership comprises regulators from 43 jurisdictions, and is widely regarded as ‘the premier international association of gaming regulators’. The association not only fosters co-operation and uniform practices between gaming regulators in the performance of their duties, it is also a central point of contact for inquiries from governments, gaming regulatory agencies, as well as representatives of the international gaming industry. It seemed an odd mix: the proper licensing and control of one-armed-bandits and other gambling devices – and a philosophy major. ‘But it’s helped me a great deal,’ Maja insisted. ‘Philosophy is about logic, about argument, about human behaviour. In my leadership role – not only here at the Limpopo Gambling Board but also in my international role and in my previous managerial positions – my knowledge of philosophy helps me to understand situations and to find my way through their difficulties. I have often seen myself as a mechanic (with philosophy in my tool box) who fixes wrong thinking.’ Serobi Maja
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Although originally setting his sights on teaching, Maja’s career has turned out very differently. After university he joined the former Lebowa homeland government, rising fairly rapidly to the position of Chief Public Relations Officer in the Department of the Chief Minister and later in the Department of Economic Affairs. Armed with his special toolbox, he was elected as the first president of the National Public Relations Association of South Africa (1990 to 1994), and appointed as an advisor to CODESA in 1991/92. After democracy had been installed, Maja’s career changed direction quite dramatically. He became the Chief Director and then the Head of the Department of Safety and Security in the newly established Northern Province (now Limpopo). ‘I must say I enjoyed this work immensely, looking after the safety of the people. There was also a certain satisfaction,’ he added with a slight smile, ‘in being saluted by the same policemen who, when I was a politically active university student in the 1970s, had beaten me up.’ But the sudden changes of direction in his career weren’t over. After five years in Safety and Security, suddenly he was instructed to take over the Gaming Board. ‘I wasn’t too keen, but I made the best of it. I’m sure my philosophy major has made me more versatile than most.’ Maja had to start from scratch. There had been no gambling (except for horseracing) in South Africa prior to 1994. Even the Venda Sun, ostensibly in an independent country, was operating their casino on a liquor licence, and needed to be properly licensed in terms of new legislation and regulations. There were new casino licences to be granted according to the national allocation of three for the province. ‘Everything went remarkably smoothly,’ Maja recalled. ‘We now have two operating casinos – the Khoroni in Thohoyandou and the Meropa in Polokwane – with one more, to be situated near Burgersfort, in the pipeline. All three have been licensed without challenge. That in itself is quite an achievement and a testimony to the care and transparency with which all the necessary procedures have been carried out.’
As well as controlling the activities of the three casinos and all the horseracing activities in the province, the Limpopo Gaming Board has licensed two so-called ‘machine route operators’ which together manage on a profit-share basis the nearly 500 slot machines in bars and pubs across the province. The revenue generated from gaming levies amounted to R34-million in 2010. From this sum must be subtracted the operating costs (R28-million during the same year) of Maja’s administration. ‘But the advantages of well-run gaming facilities in terms of tourism and job creation are considerable,’ Maja said. ‘The presence of operating casinos also generates increased demand for local authority services.’ With regard to the disadvantages, he pointed out that only a very small number – in fact, less than half a percent – of people making use of the gaming facilities were identified as gambling addicts. Nevertheless, the National Gambling Act of 2004 had established a ‘responsible gambling programme’ that provided a hotline and counselling services for problem gamblers – as well as making it possible for family members to take action when gambling becomes a threat to the family’s economic survival. In summary, Maja has established an orderly environment for Limpopo’s gaming activities. More than that, thanks to his international prominence, the province (and indeed South Africa) is now, as he terms it, ‘well-branded’ around the world. Asked if he occasionally enjoyed a casino flutter himself, Maja shook his head. ‘I’ve never really liked it. I never even played dice as a young man, much less wasted my money on the still illegal fah-fee. Maybe I don’t enjoy the loss of control that any game of chance entails. And maybe that characteristic was enhanced when I began to study the intricacies and power of human thought through philosophy.’
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PRESTIGIOUS ‘ROYAL’ AWARD FOR MEDUNSA DIRECTOR International achievement
the Master Photographers Association, British Institute of Professional Photography, Royal Microscopical Society, and the Professional Photographers of Southern Africa (PPSA), and an honorary fellowship of the PPSA. Ebrahim’s awards include the British Medical Journal Award for ‘Kirlian Photography in Medicine’; a Technical Award and Medal for developing a technique ‘Comprehensive Gait Recording in Parkinson’s Disease Patients’, both of which were awarded by the RPS Medical Group; and a Certificate of Appreciation from the SA Police Service for compiling a forensic photography course to promote professional training and the optimal use of photography to investigate and solve crime.
President of the Royal Photographic Society, Rosemary Wilman, presenting Hoosain Ebrahim with his award
THE
ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC Society’s Member’s Award is given to an ordinary member who, in the opinion of the Society’s Council of Trustees, has shown extraordinary support for the Society over a sustained period. In 2010 this prestigious award was presented to Hoosain Ebrahim, Director of Medical Illustration and Audio-Visual Services (MIAAVS) at Medunsa (featured in Limpopo Leader 20). This award carries with it Honorary Life Membership of the Royal Photographic Society.
Ebrahim says this award was a ‘big surprise’ for him, but it was also particularly gratifying as it demonstrates that one doesn’t work in a vacuum. ‘This award also told me something about the membership of the Royal Photographic Society. One imagines that working in Africa would take one out of the circle of recognition, but it doesn’t. The membership of this prestigious organisation observes and appreciates one’s efforts.’ Ebrahim estimates that the membership of the Society numbers over 10 000 worldwide. He joined the Society as a student member in 1975; he is now an associate member, and is working his way towards a fellowship, which he believes he will achieve over time. He has frequently presented at RPS meetings and conferences, particularly at those run by the Imaging Science Group.
According to the Society, its awards are unique in their scope and reach, recognising achievement across the spectrum of photography from top professional creatives to the unsung heroes behind the scenes without whom the medium would not be what it is today; in art, science, commerce, and education.
Ebrahim joined Medunsa in 1982 as Chief Clinical Photographer to establish clinical photographic services at Medunsa. In 1992 he became director of MIAAVS, which offers a range of services to Medunsa, satellite campuses, and Dr George Mukhari Hospital, including clinical photography; medical illustration, art and design; audiovisual; and technical services. Ebrahim also established a selective course in Medical Photography as part of the third year medical curriculum at Medunsa.
Ebrahim, South African by birth, went to Britain in the early 1970s after completing high school where he qualified in various fields including motion picture and television production, photographic science and technology, and medical photography. He has fellowships of
Ebrahim’s steadfast and influential work continues at Medunsa, and along with it, his deep gratitude to colleagues and mentors in South Africa and Britain who have encouraged him and contributed to his development and career path over many years.
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