360º PERSPECTIVES | ISSUE 7 | 2020/2021
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A career of rising to the challenge
» When former Minister of Higher Education and Training Naledi Pandor asked Dr Randall Carolissen to assume the role of NSFAS administrator in August 2018, the institution was facing collapse. OST OF THE MORE than 600 000
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student beneficiaries had not received their allowances for 2018. “Many people told me that it was absolute madness to take this on, but I felt compelled by my background that it was the right thing to do. I find it difficult to resist challenges,” says Dr Carolissen. Dr Carolissen grew up in Ravensmead and matriculated at Florida Senior Secondary School where his English teacher, future University of the Western Cape (UWC) Rector
Professor Brian O’Connell, had a profound influence on him. One of five children raised by a single mother, Dr Carolissen received a bursary from the Department of Coloured Affairs to study at UWC. He says, “No other institution offered generations a gateway out of poverty. I am extremely thankful that UWC, under the visionary leadership of Prof Richard van der Ross at the time, took a chance on me with my poor matric marks. “UWC provided us with opportunities that we could not get elsewhere. We were exposed to the most incisive minds debating black consciousness and social mobilisation to fight apartheid. I met some of the greatest thinkers from across South Africa.” Dr Carolissen completed a BSc in Physics and Mathematics, a BSc Honours in Physics >>
