Mbeki public policy story distorted facts about UCT: iLIVE

Gerda Kruger, executive director of communications and marketing, University of Cape Town" The article "Mbeki unveils his public policy plan", published on May 4 in The Times, refers.

The article quotes Mojanku Gumbi, previously the chief adviser to Mbeki when he was president, as having said: "Some of the best trained architects and engineers are from the University of Cape Town, but they hate themselves as Africans. They don't want to be Africans."

It is indeed a pity that The Times did not approach the university for comment on this quote.

It is hard to know what motivated such a statement. The campus experience certainly reflects quite the opposite.

The university's mission speaks about an Afropolitan vision of expanding our expertise on Africa, extending networks on the continent, promoting collaboration and student exchanges across Africa, engaging critically with Africa's intellectual capacity and contributing to strengthening higher education on the continent.

It further speaks about our aim to produce graduates whose qualifications are internationally recognised and locally applicable. It speaks about our commitment to produce graduates who give back to the country and continent.

Thirteen percent of our students come from the continent, and the majority go back to their countries with new expertise .

Our staff and students have extensive collaborations with partners across the continent. The academic work that our students and staff do is reflective of their commitment to Africa.

Our students and staff are critically involved in work in many African countries. We are involved in women's legal rights issues (southern, eastern and central Africa) from within the Law Faculty; the drafting in 2010 of the constitution for Kenya; the peace mission in Darfur; interdisciplinary research on cities in Africa facilitating critical urban research and policy discourses for the promotion of sustainable urban development.

Our SRC was recently instrumental in bringing to the university, for a first ever conference, student leaders from universities across the continent.