Award Ceremony

13 March 2010 - Molapo Campus Hall

A very good 2010 morning to you all, ladies and gentlemen!

 

Honourable Council members in attendance - Reverend Mulder - thanks for being a good friend and pillar to this college. We are ourselves praying for the total restoration of your health, which can only come from above!

 

Our Guest Speaker, honourable Judge T. M Makgoka - we can never thank you enough for giving of yourself to grace this occasion as Guest Speaker, we are baring our heart, when we say "thank you!"

 

Officials from the Department; Deputy Principals of the college, Mr Mabathoana and Ms Matseba; Members of the college''s Broad Management Team; Members of our campuses'' Management teams; Friends and partners from industry and commerce and members of the community and neighbours from the surroundings of our campuses;

 

President and members of the college''s Students Representative Council (Mr Sandile Ntshingila and your team, welcome); ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, members of staff; our beautiful award recipients, dear parents and students.

 

In our midst, we have two friends from Korea Kim and Seonyang, who are volunteers supporting our students at George Tabor Campus.

 

And, I want to steal a moment from this platform to recognize one of our colleagues, who is hanging up her gloves at the end of this month, after a sterling career in education, stretching double the ages of some of our students here - our colleague, Mrs Annemarie Richardson, Campus Manager of Roodepoort Campus. I respectfully ask that we give her a deserved standing ovation.

 

Welcome all to this Award Ceremony, which is taking place on World Customer Day, a day when all of us who are either managing or working for organizations or companies must stop for a moment and reflect on how we treat the people who sustain our organizations, the people who keep us in business, if we are running businesses, the people who keep us employed if we are employed - the customers!

 

As a college, we are ourselves, on this day, joining other organizations in the world in reflecting on how we can touch our customers, notably, our students, better!

 

So, this being Customer Day, ladies and gentlemen, you all deserve red carpet treatment! And thanks for being here to celebrate with us, the achievements of our students, this morning.

 

People make progress and advances even in the worst of times! In fact, it is said, mankind has made some of the greatest advances on earth, under the most trying of circumstances, driven either by the compulsion to do good, to solve some problem or just to survive.

 

Among the many things which are underrated or underestimated in our society, is the power of good - the powerful force of good! The ability of good to have a ripple effect!

 

Today''s occasion is about the power of good, this powerful force of good.

 

Colleges, such as ours, have been in the media over the last few months. Recently, it was the results which were not only not so good, but which also came late due to unfortunate logistical problems at the Department. Not so long ago, it was the strike which affected colleges in the province; and about two or three days ago, one college in the province was in the media. As if that is not enough, on Thursday, one of our campuses was also dragged into the media, when the SABC 1 Special Assignment team was following a story of a student who, apparently was treated badly at some school last year, and because this student then left that school and decided to enroll at our Campus, Technisa, this year, where he seemed to be happy, the SABC 1 team followed this student to our campus, Technisa, and that way, we found ourselves in the media!

 

Being in the media has, unfortunately, become the lot of our educational institutions in the country - last week, some of our universities were themselves in the media.

 

All of these things can end up making people ask: Can any good come out of our educational institutions? Can any good come out of our educational institutions?

 

Today''s occasion not only provides an answer to this question, but it also celebrates the power of good. How I wish our media was equally attracted to incidents such as today''s occasion!

 

If you open your eyes and stretch all your senses, wherever you are in this hall, you are bound to pick up the ''smell and flavour'' of excellence, excellence which has been achieved under not very perfect circumstances, exactly the same circumstances I described above. So yes, a lot of good does come from our educational institutions, and today, this occasion will give us a window on the kind of good and excellence that has come, and will continue to come, out of this institution!

 

We are the first ones to admit that we can do much better than we have done with these students who will be receiving awards this morning. However, we cannot hide the fact that we are very proud of what has been achieved by the college, in conjunction with these students who will be receiving awards today!

 

We are even more proud of the parents of these award recipients, for we know these achievements would not have been possible without the ''behind the scenes'' work of the parents in support of these students. We also cannot hide our pride and gratitude to the lecturers, in particular, and the managers who have supported and worked with these students to see them achieving what all of us are going to be witness to this morning. To the lecturers, we want to say: ''let''s do it again, only this time (this year) with a much bigger number of students than the ones we see here this morning! We know you can!

 

To the wonderful students and award recipients, we want to say your country and nation, South Africa, is in 2010 celebration mood and for now, for today, at this college, in this province - you are the 2010 spectacle!

 

Today, our spotlight and reason for excitement is you! Just for today, you are the bird in hand! We are going to win the Soccer World cup, no doubt! But that is still somewhere out there! Your success and excellence, however, is not something that we still aspire for and desire to achieve; your success and excellence is already real. And thank you making us feel good for a moment and for real!

 

But it is important that you realize that ''more is expected from those who have shown themselves to be capable of achieving more.''

 

Starting from now, each one of you must know that never ever will it be enough for you to achieve just a mere pass in any subject. Your excellent results suggest that you are familiar with this truth: ''All great things are only a number of small things that have carefully been collected together.''

 

That no one achieves success in one bang. Successful people work for success progressively and constantly. This, I am certain, is how you also achieved your success, which we are toasting and celebrating today! So, never forget or abandon that!

 

In the bird kingdom, you would be called ''eagles'' because of your performance and eagles know instinctively that theirs is to fly greater heights than other birds! And they do not settle for any less!

 

Some of you may know that a week ago, we hosted our partners and friends from a partner college in the Netherlands, Noorderpoortcollege.

 

You may also have heard that they surprised all of us, very pleasantly, when they made an offer that the top, top ten students in NCV level 2 and 3 in the college in terms of academic performance at the end of this year, will be supported by them fully (and I mean fully) to visit their college in the Netherlands, for a week, early next year!

 

Dear parents, if your son or daughter (grandson or granddaughter!) is among award recipients here today, there is no reason, why your son or daughter should not strive to be among the top ten students college-wide, who will be going to Holland early next year, at no cost to you.

 

These ten students will be accompanied to Holland by the two lecturers who, themselves, will have produced the best results at the end of 2010 college-wide!

 

So, when they enter the aeroplane, these ''top-drawer students'' and ''top-drawer'' lecturers, the aeroplane will be filled with the flavour and smell of excellence and success! I guarantee you, this cannot be beaten!

 

Welcome everyone and congratulations to the recipients of awards.

 

Dan Nkosi
Principal