END OF YEAR FUNCTION 2009

Honourable members of Council; Members of the college''s Academic Board; Deputy Principals, Ms Matseba and Mr Mabathoana; members of the College''s Broad Management Team, Campus Management Teams.

Dear colleagues, members of staff, in all your different but equally important roles and functions - educators and support staff - a very good morning to all of you! A special word of welcome to our very special friends Seonyang and Kim, volunteers from Korea, who are visiting ICT interns from Korea, based at George Tabor. You all - all of you - do look both relaxed and beautiful!

My input, this morning, has as its essence, this two-worded and eight-letter phrase: "Thank You and Thank You." Anything else which I will say is merely to underpin this simple but profound phrase: Thank you!

When we started this year in January, we were so focused on the job at hand and the long year ahead that both the task at hand and the long year were quite daunting and intimidating. We had neither time nor courage to even think about an end of year function. Besides, the year ahead seemed so long that it would have been ridiculous to even think of an end of year function (at the beginning of the year, nogal!).

We started this year, as you would recall, licking some wounds from our not-so-good results of the previous year and vowed - at least, I vowed - to make amends with our results of this year. And this year, like any other year, came with well-documented challenges of its own, but we are finishing this year, feeling quite strong, amidst everything that the year threw at us.

xBut this occasion is not meant to be about long speeches, it is more a platform for us to look each and every one of you in the eye and say: "Thank you for ensuring that we are able to finish strong, notwithstanding all the challenges of the year!"

It is also a platform for us to briefly indicate what the year ahead is likely to look like, or to throw at us.

The long-talked about Programme-based Funding will be a reality with effect from the beginning of next year, 2010. Our planning for 2010 has had to comply with and be informed by Programme-based Funding. Essentially this means as a college, we will be funded based on the number of students we enrol, the number we retain in our lecture rooms through the year and the number we pass and the number of students we successfully link up with the economy through post-graduation employment. In truth, this has been long coming.

We are naturally anxious, but not overly worried, since we believe this Programme-Funding test can be passed and we will pass it.

Unfortunately, the ongoing global economic crunch has seen government ordering colleges, including us, not to grow or increase our enrolment numbers in 2010 because of budgetary constraints.

We had enrolled 4169 NCV students college-wide in 2009 and were projecting to grow or increase this number to a little over 8000 in 2010. But the Department gave a directive that we should maintain the 2009 enrollment numbers of 4169 in 2010 and not grow. This came as a bit of draw-back and disappointment since we did want to grow our numbers and grow the college. We have however accepted the situation as one that we cannot possibly change, but we have decided to respond positively to this situation and rather use 2010 as a year of CONSOLIDATION, rather than growth. So, the focus in 2010 will be on CONSOLIDATION, i.e. doing everything better, improving quality, supplying material and resources for ISAT timeously, improving outputs, e.g. attendance, retention and importantly, results. In short, upping our customer care and student support! So that come 2011, our students of 2010 become the ones who go around saying good things about us and this college!

Needless to say, we know this is an ambitious plan, knowing our students, in particular, and some of our previous constraints, but we also know that, difficult as this intent and plan may seen, they can be achieved.

One of the out-cries which came from the students, via the SRC, has been what they referred to as our reluctance to embrace technology and multi-media in the delivery of education and training and they say this is puzzling to them because it should be obvious to us that they are essentially a technology-generation which should be educated through the use of technology.

In this regard, we have made a resolve to progressively respond to this challenge by our students, who are the main reason for the college''s existence. For starters in 2010, each campus will purchase between 10 and 15 laptops and DVD projectors which lecturers will be able to book to prepare and present lessons. Mr Mazomba, who is currently heading our Human Resource unit, will be organizing Basic Computer Literacy and Powerpoint Training for all college educators in January, 2010 to enable all lecturers to be prepared and present their lessons using computers and DVP projectors. In 2011, we will double the number of laptops and DVD projectors at campuses so that all lecturers have easy access to a computer to prepare and present lectures. The target is to ultimately have a situation where every educator has access to a college laptop and projector which they can use to prepare and deliver lessons

Among the ''lowlights'' of the year - because if there''s highlights, there must be lowlights - among our down moments of the year, was the unprecedented delay in the release of the 2008 results, which saw some students not being able to register until quite late in the first quarter. You may remember that at this occasion last year, we undertook to display our college results for all campuses on the electronic display boards at our campuses. The huge delay in the release of results and the fact that these results in ''dribs and drabs'' made it difficult for us to implement this resolve. Our plan is to do this next year since we continue to believe that our results resemble our share price!

This was a year like any other year and a year like no other year, if one can try to sound like Charles Dickens!

Various colleagues lost their loved ones, spouses, family members during the year and this occasion affords us a fitting platform to once again, reiterate our condolences and sympathies to all these members of staff.

There are also staff members who will be leaving the college at the end of this year, either to go on retirement or to move into the proverbial greener pastures. We want to wish these personnel well and thank them for having shared a part of their life with South West Gauteng College.

Chairperson, Members of Council, in the course of today, we will also be presenting Long-Service Awards to deserving members of staff and honouring some members of staff for exemplary service and exemplary leadership among their peers!

Programme Director, Honourable Members of Council, we also want to symbolically take our hats off to members of the Council of the college for their support and stewardship of this college. We extend the same to the members of the college''s Academic Board and Council Committees. Thank you all, for giving your precious time to this college! And indeed, to your families for readily agreeing to share you with the college.

Indeed, If our observation of what happened this year is anything to go by, we believe we have what it takes to conquer the future, and what we have, dear members of Council, are the people seated in front of you and around you - and, yes, you as the Council of the college!

And I know I speak for all Council members - and for the Department too when I say: Thank you! Thank you! And thank you to all the college personnel.

My humble and sincere gratitude also goes to the two Deputy Principals, Mr Mabathoana and Ms Matseba, the Campus Managers and their management teams at campuses, all the other members of the college''s Broad Management Team.

Baie dankie! Ngiyabonga, Ha Khensa! Kea le leboga! Ndiyabulela!

And to use some streetwise language… Big Up to all of you!

Dan Nkosi
Principal