Sporting a bow tie and fedora with sartorial flair, Prof Robert Balfour was officially introduced as the University of Western Cape’s (UWC) new Rector and Vice-Chancellor at his inaugural media conference held at the university’s Centre for Humanities Research in Woodstock on Thursday 16 January.
As UWC celebrates its 65th anniversary this year, Balfour envisions a future centred on collaboration, strategic planning and shared accountability. His goal is to foster a more inclusive and transformative academic environment that honours and advances the university’s rich historical and intellectual legacy.
Contributing to UWC’s legacy
“My contribution to UWC’s legacy would be to create the climate for revitalising debate on the relevance of the left in the 21st century, when capitalism seems hegemonic; it seems largely unaccountable, very exploitative and damaging to the environment, to people and to relations among people. Even so, for me the intellectual project about the left’s contribution is, is more than just a critique of what is wrong with capitalism. It’s about imagining a better future for ourselves. It’s appropriate for UWC to be the place where that imagining infuses teaching, community engagement and research.”
Feeling at home
Since late last year Balfour has been immersing himself in campus life, engaging with staff and students and adjusting to the unpredictable Cape Flats weather.
“Freedom intellectually, but also freedom that contributes to a very clear understanding of what social justice must mean in a country such as ours in future. So it’s inspirational for me to be here. And I see it as a chance in my professional life, but also my personal life, to contribute to a place that has always signalled in many ways, for me as a young academic and professional, such hope about the possibilities for inclusion and transformation, particularly for UWC, and how these come together in relation to activism and community work.”
As an only child born in Johannesburg and spending his formative years in rural Mpumalanga, he was sent to a Catholic boarding high school in Pretoria due to his parents’ concern about lack of socialisation in the 1980s.
He went on to study language, education and art, flourishing as an academic and making crucial contributions to multilingual policies and curriculum development. His research focus, which included language education and policy, postcolonial literature and rural education, reflected his commitment to advancing educational equity and social justice in South Africa and beyond.
Consequently, arriving at UWC had always been his dream, given that since its inception during apartheid the institution had committed itself to critical inquiry about justice, decoloniality and education transformation. Balfour emphasised that the university had the potential to play a central role in addressing systemic inequities and integrating marginalised intellectual traditions into the curriculum.
READ RELATED | Remembering Prof Brian O’Connell: The visionary who shaped UWC’s future
Scope of challenges understood
During the Q&A portion of the conference Balfour was asked about available placement of the many matriculants facing an uphill battle to attain a bright future.
He alluded that universities of technology and traditional universities were becoming too similar, which limits the variety of options available for young people to choose from when planning their future.
“University education I think has come to be seen as the logical next step of schooling, which it cannot be. It cannot be that alone. So the Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) energy and vision for community colleges for the revitalised TVET sector, I think, must be welcomed. And our role as an institution should be to open those routes for access to community colleges and TVET colleges and universities. ”
This reflects his visionary approach to his tenure as Vice-Chancellor of UWC, by expressing a deep understanding of the challenges faced, not only by the youth, but the tertiary education sector and larger society as whole.
“Opening access to education is not only about increasing access to universities, it’s also about making it possible to move from a community college to a TVET to a university and making that journey accessible to people as lifelong learners… And even I know now young people who have two jobs at the same time. So this notion of preparing for one job, one place for the rest of my life is part of the past.”
‘Leadership above ego’
True to his candid nature, he admits that his dreams for the university are ambitious and he does not have all the answers. However, he rests assured that students, communities, staff, intellectuals, activists and leaders will join him. “Leadership cannot be about ego. It has to be about community. That is going to be difficult and probably characterised by failures as much as successes.”
