I think this what we need to reassess carefully, I am writing this information because I am a beneficiary of the NRF- Scares Skills Project and nor a product of the Donar Funding for Post Graduate Skills. The bodies you make reference to, do support local content and in most cases the requirement is that you should be South African. I have engaged with NRF President before he joined TUT as DVC-Research and Innovation around this matter. What need to be understood is that most of the State Entities you make reference to are not fully funded by the State, they are mostly 40% funded and raise fund through Collaboration within the UNESCO programmes and other Sustainable Development Donar Agencies. Hence lets not assume that because the Faculty might have many Nigerian, its all bad for the development of our Country and the continent as a whole. The fact that SA has the best Universities and Research facilities attract our brother and sisters to come and study in this country. I have noticed on number of occasion that, it is on very few programme wherein the State should support Postgraduates as they represent a cream of skills we so passionately need. You ought to prove us wrong that your University for starters only get support for such programme based on the number of Research output and on the number of who is registered. Hence Government position not to make this a must is informed by the reality that these programmes represents Luxury as oppose to right for undergraduate to eradicate poverty, skills shortages and other social ills.
After a careful study, it was found that most of us as SA, do not finish our studies, when given opportunity for Postgraduate. The reason range from the fact that in most cases, these programmes provides stipend and not Salary, as soon you find a Job with a salary you dish your studies. I am saying this as part of these generation that fall into this category. Hence the question should be how do we encourage our own SA to undertake Postgraduate Programme as oppose to fight those who are committed to study. Our youth are more interested on the results now and do not believe in future investment. remember most of these programme are two to three years and one evaluate that he or she is a first born and should move and start providing for the family. I would like to challenge you chief to bring a handful of cadres whoa ready to undertake Postgraduate Studies and we will lobby for them to be funded on a binding agreement. Like we did with our Doctoral students to CUBA, who on return provide services to the Rural areas. We have enough money that need people that are serious to find solutions to problems facing our country, continent and the globe. There are many Foundations that support different types of Postgraduate including (Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, Eskia Mpahlele, Suzman etc). The entities are also prepared to spend enough chunk of their budget on R&D and what demoralise most of these entities is the fact that SA are lazy finish and klaar. Lets open this debates, such that even if you intend to engage Minister of Higher Education & Training, you should provide credible evidence of those that were denied to pursue studies and replaced by our African Brothers. Remember this is the same tone used to accuse our African Brother over the fact that they are taking resources away from SA, when Xenophobic and Afrophobic attacks took place last Year. My leader I humble you to evaluate you point clearly as we engage on this matter, because my reading are that you are accusing University of Zululand of not registering South African to Postgraduate programme in that Faculty, further you are saying that South African do not take the Science and Technology serious and as such Humanities will be full of our own and as such there are limited support for those. hence I ask you, what is the stand of your University of S&T, Engineering, Commerce as we strive to drive our economy to a High-Tech mode? Lets engage. -- This message is subject to the CSIR's copyright terms and conditions, e-mail legal notice, and implemented Open Document Format (ODF) standard. The full disclaimer details can be found at http://www.csir.co.za/disclaimer.html. This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean. MailScanner thanks Transtec Computers for their support. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
