Practice What You Preached!

Sometimes people use terms such as good governance without knowing what it means. If it is incorrectly used in a conversation, it is still forgivable but when it is used as a campaign strategy and you are transgressor of that value system (good governance) it is plain stupid.

Two of the candidates who are running for University Council through the Convocation are using good governance and academic excellence as their campaign strategy. This is to infer that the current leadership of UWC do not adhere to the principles of good governance and academic excellence.

However, before they point to anyone else they must have a look at what they have been doing the past nine years as the Convocation leadership. They must ask themselves whether they adhered to the principles and norms of good governance.

Central to good governance is openness and transparency. Since I joined this institution in 2007 I never saw them adhering to these principles.  For example, never before did they inform members of the UWC Convocation about the workings of the Convocation.

They also neglected to inform members of Convocation that two members of Convocation can be elected to the University Council. Never before did they explain the election process for both Council and for the Executive of Convocation. 

They have rather kept the information to themselves which placed them in a privileged situation. Good governance is a liberal democratic ideal which advocates for access to information. Something they neglected.  

With regards to academic excellence I have never heard of a campaign or programme by the Convocation that focuses of academic excellence. In actual fact, I did not hear of any campaign in the past 8 years that was projected towards the student population. Surprisingly the people who are campaigning for academic excellence are the same people in power for the past nine years and have put themselves up for re-election.

Now please tell me how you can preach good governance but you are also a transgressor of the same value system. Please tell me how is it possible to hold academic excellence dear if you never valued the UWC student population.

And for those of you who are wilfully to be misled by these individuals please go ahead and follow them, protest on their command, drag your names through the mud on their command and maybe just maybe, will they give you a job once you completed your studies. However, I will not count on it.