Learn from Marwala: Read to lead

In the midst of the doom and gloom visited upon us largely due to load-shedding, a weak economy and a general decay of public infrastructure, it was a great relief on Friday to be in an audience where all we did was celebrate.

The venue was The Ballroom, at the Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg. The occasion? A farewell dinner in honour of the outgoing vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, Prof Tshilidzi Marwala, who is headed for Japan where he’ll take up his new post as the rector of the United Nations University (UNU).

The job is so important that a UNU rector has the rank of under-secretary-general at the United Nations. It could not have gone to a more deserving academic and genuine leader.

Yet ever since his appointment was announced, the jubilation has been tempered by a deep and sad sense of loss.

In an era when the social transformation agenda is on the back foot, mainly due to political mismanagement by the political class and its deployees in public institutions and agencies, the departure of an individual as highly skilled, principled and committed to change and justice as Marwala may seem a massive blow.

Many of us who have observed him during his 10-year tenure, first as deputy vice-chancellor for research and internationalisation (2013 to 2017) and then as vicechancellor and principal, at UJ have been in awe as he continued with the great work started by his predecessor Prof Ihron Rensburg of taking the former Rand Afrikaans University to greater heights in the democratic era.

According to higher education minister Blade Nzimande, who was one of the speakers at the dinner, UJ is now the most sought-after university among South African students.

The vast majority of its students, officials say, are from disadvantaged backgrounds — most being the first in their families to receive tertiary education.

With a PhD in engineering and a renowned expert in artificial intelligence, Marwala also pays keen interest in social sciences, something he partially attributes to his studies in the US where it was compulsory to take a social science class as part of his mechanical engineering degree.

But it may also be because of his upbringing in the little-known rural village of Duthuni between the towns of Thohoyandou and Makhado in Limpopo. His friend and fellow academic, Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, has written elsewhere how, as a grade one pupil, Marwala walked barefoot to school where he had a large mango tree as a classroom.

These humble beginnings and associated hardships may have contributed to this yearning of his to search for answers to problems beyond engineering and science.

He has written extensively about leadership and meritocracy and the role these can play in changing society for the better. One of his favourite lines recently, especially given the country’s leadership crisis, has been: “Those who don’t read must not lead.”

With that saying, he seeks to emphasise the centrality of education in producing good and great leaders.

The other day I quoted a social media post from him in which he told of a trip a group of South African politicians had taken to an Asian country, probably China, to attend a conference.

“Their Asian counterparts said: you guys sing a lot in your conferences. You will be bored in our conference where we have PowerPoint presentations and thinking,” tweeted Marwala.

Here again he was emphasising the need for education in our body politic.

Much is currently being said about the ruling party’s cadre deployment policy, especially following the Zondo Commission report and the subsequent constitutional challenge to the policy by the Democratic Alliance.

Even among some ANC sympathisers these days, to say someone is a “deployed cadre” is to suggest that they are appointed to a position they are not qualified or suitable for. They are there as part of the party’s patronage system.

I don’t know if Marwala has ever considered himself “a cadre” or “a deployee” in the higher education sector. But when he was appointed, despite his luminous CV, there were those sceptics who saw him as just “another cadre” whose appointment was to see the standards at the university drop.

As he vacates office for even greater heights at UNU, the sceptics are eating humble pie.

If he was a “deployed cadre” then may many more skilled, professional and non-partisan “cadres” like him be “deployed” in all the public institutions that are in need of fixing.

May we take to heart his call that “those who do not read, must not lead”.