Honorary degrees in SA like a puppet show
Honorary degrees in SA like a puppet show
Mabila Mathebula
Oxford and Harvard have been singled out as universities with a universal high frequency.
Simply put, a high-frequent university is a well-known or reputable university with a nationally or globally academic status. For example, I never knew anything about a low-frequent Trinity International Bible University (TIU), a bogus college not registered with educational authorities in South Africa until the university bestowed an honour on Sello Maake ka Ncube.
I also never knew the history of the University of Zagreb, a public research university in Zagreb, Croatia, and one of the oldest universities in Europe, until I was appointed as a reviewer for the Organization, Technology and Management in Construction Journal.
I also never knew anything about All India Rail Safety Council, a railway university in New Delhi, India, until I was appointed as an international advisory committee member. More often than not, universities that have low frequencies are frowned upon or written off by members of the public. Ka Ncube was in glum silence; the whole tale was so startling, so terrible, so benumbing to our South African senses when a talented actor’s sceptre passed from his grasp.
I stared back in open-mouthed amazement when I realised that bogus universities have always regarded the South African academic playing field as a lottery; where so many people enter and only a few win. Little did the TIU realise that there was no gamble about the match of awarding a PhD degree to Ka Ncube.
It thought it had picked the winning numbers. The TIU had been surprised when it realised that it had drawn an elephant and not a celebrity in the academic lottery. Sadly, its academic pace has dropped to a limping walk since Minister of Higher Education Dr Blade Nzimande called it to order.
The bogus university reminds me of a sign in the Tribune morgue that says nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested on. Little did the university realise that some laurels might be wilting around the edges when it awarded degrees to celebrities who regard it as an affront when you do not address them by the title of a doctor.
The university has been ceaselessly foraging for celebrities to enhance its limping academic image. Although the honour was reassuringly good, it did nothing good to appease his academic hunger. People on social media laughed speechlessly. When he looks at his pictures in his academic regalia, he feels like an imposter.
Allow me to cite the history of honorary doctoral degrees as my witness. The earliest Doctor of Civil Law degree was awarded by the Oxford Universality to Lionel Woodville in the 1470s. He later became bishop of Salisbury. Generally, the awarding of some honorary degrees in our country is like a puppet shows where the chancellor and vice-chancellor are the puppet masters.
Before a degree is awarded, the university must answer the following questions: What has the candidate done to merit such an honour? Put differently, duty begets honour and not fame. How does his community perceive his contribution to society? How many people can say “he or she changed my life”? How did he scale greater heights from humble beginnings?
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida Missouri, in 1835, and died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910. Although he left school at 12 when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri and Oxford University.
His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi river boat pilot, journalist, travel writer and publisher.
Kwame Nkrumah received a letter from the president of Lincoln University, informing him that the board of trustees had agreed that the Doctor of Law degrees should be conferred upon him at the Commencement Exercises (graduation ceremonies) in June 1951.
It was just over six years since he had left America and he could not believe that such an honour could be bestowed upon him. He mused: “Here was the Kwame Nkrumah of 1935 who had not even enough to pay for one semester at the University but who had the nerve to persuade the Dean to give him a try. And now, 16 years later, that same youth labelled ‘leader of government business’ was about to have a great honour bestowed upon him by his Alma Mater.” His honorary degree was based on his resilience and academic excellence.
On May 28, 1896, Booker T Washington received an invitation letter from Harvard University to confer the honorary degree of Master of Arts. The letter read: “Harvard University desires to confer on you at the approaching Commencement an honorary degree.”
Washington was taken aback by the honour, he wrote: “My whole former life as a slave on the plantation, my work in the coal-mine, the times when I was without food and clothing, when I made my bed under a sidewalk, my struggles for an education, the trying days I had at Tuskegee, days when I did not know where to turn for a dollar to continue the work there, the ostracism and sometimes oppression of my race – all this passed before me and nearly overcame me.”
A Boston paper said: “But the degree was not conferred because Mr. Washington is a coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which counts for greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.”
South Africa should take a leaf out of Booker T Washington’s book. As a country, we have what I would call a “PhD Syndrome”. Harvard University honoured him with a Master of Arts degree not a PhD. Why can’t we honour some people with a Master of Arts degree or any other degree? Beggars must not be choosers. It would be up to the university councils to look into this issue.
Booker T Washington contributed to the American society more that most of our PhD holders, and he was thinker of great thoughts and a doer of great thoughts. For example, how many PhD holders in South Africa can match former president Thabo Mbeki and former president of Ghana Nkrumah intellectually as well as their writing skills?
Coming back to Maake ka Ncube, he studied at Leeds University. He graced our television screens for many years and worked in the UK, US, Canada and Europe. Why our universities never acknowledged him for the role he played in society is not for me to answer. He started his career during the dark days of apartheid but he succeeded against all odds.
If he had studied at Lincoln University with Nkrumah, the board of trustees would have conferred a PhD on him. The whole Maake ka Ncube saga is an indictment on our South African universities.
Our people are recognised by universities outside South Africa but we fail to acknowledge the creativity of our people, partly due to professional jealousy. There are some artists who do not have matric and yet, they have been honoured with a PhD.
A person who studied at Leeds University, under all sorts of countervailing factors and worked abroad under active racism, cannot be recognised in his country. This brings me to a Bophuthatswana politician who once said: “If South Africa does not recognise us an independent state, we will recognise ourselves.”
Do universities have researchers who scout people who must be honoured? Do they know how much they have contributed to the field of knowledge? Have they changed life? Like Nkrumah and Washington, Ka Ncube share their academic prowess and resilience. It is not your fault that bogus university recognised you but South African universities must share the blame.
We recognise people whom we perceive as being inferior to use and relegate those who challenge us intellectually to the background. Ka Ncube is a Tintswalo who is a victim of professional jealousy.
Author and life coach Mathebula has a PhD in construction management.