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The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Ms Naledi Pandor.

Univen must lead in encouraging agriculture

 

“It is possible for this university to become one of the best in South Africa,” said the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Naledi Pandor.

Pandor said that when people looked at the University of Venda (Univen), they tended to think of a rural, poor and provincial university and did not see it as part of a global university community. “Achieving excellence depends on the university community and its collaboration in achieving a shared perspective,” Pandor added.

The Minister was speaking during Dr Ndanduleni Bernard Nthambeleni’s inauguration as vice-chancellor and principal of Univen last Friday at the university auditorium.

Pandor wished Dr Nthambeleni a fruitful tenure. “I hope you will be able to lead the university in achieving teaching excellence, research excellence and in building strong bonds with the local, provincial, and international community,” Pandor said.

She urged Dr Nthambeleni to begin his tenure with a process of developing a university-wide compact on how all stakeholders will collaborate to achieve excellence and quality.

Although Univen is located in a rural setting, she said that dynamic opportunities existed for academic activity. “This university could contribute significantly to developing our understanding of rural communities, their livelihood, and how we might support them to modernise in order that every person living within this community feels that they have real opportunity and that they can make a contribution to this community and this province’s development,” she said.

According to her, new technologies could transform agriculture and generate a great deal of improvement in food security. “Agriculture creates more jobs per rand invested than any other productive sector,” she said. “What we don’t want is Univen merely supporting the production of agricultural goods. Univen must lead in encouraging agriculture, linked to manufacture (bio-manufacture), to value addition, to advanced agroprocessing.”

“Over the last three years we faced drought on a huge scale. We should be looking at Univen’s research laboratories for the development of drought-resistant seeds. We should be looking at what form of water research and irrigation technology we need to address our particular challenges,” she said.

She encouraged the students to take postgraduate degrees that will make their knowledge locally relevant, internationally excellent and globally competitive. 

 

 

Date:23 March 2019

By: Mbulaheni Ridovhona

The 22-year-old Mbulaheni (Gary) Ridovhona has been passionate about journalism to the extent that he would buy himself a copy of weekly Univen students' newsletter, Our Voice. After reading, he would write stories about his rural village, Mamvuka, and submit them to the very newsletter for publication. His deep-rooted love for words and writing saw him register for a Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies at the University of Venda, and joined the Limpopo Mirror team in February 2016 as a journalism intern.

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