In 2019, the former North West University Vice Chancellor, Professor Dan Kgwadi told the media present at an interaction event organised at the Mahikeng Campus that the university was in the process of establishing its own medical faculty.
Three years down the line the media personnel who informed the general public about Kgwadi’s proclamation are still waiting with bated breath for the promised invitation to the “sod turning” ceremony that was promised to us then. Such proclamations and reporting about them to the public and resultantly delayed by those responsible are the factors that drive the public members to have no faith in the media personnel across the country.
The former Vice Chancellor’s announcement was met with much jubilation and ululation from the journalists present, the representatives of Friends of the University and other invited guests. Kgwadi stated that there were funds sourced from international sponsors to can kick-start the project but up to now there is nothing that signals such a project will be carried out any time soon.
Mahikeng residents should bear in mind that the NWU Mahikeng campus has an ample space because the unused land belonging to the university stretches up to Lokaleng village. This will augur well for the town’s economic spinoffs as we all know that the medical faculty has an academic hospital or clinic attached to it. Think about how many jobs can be created if such a development can take place.
The Potchefstroom and Vanderbijlpark campuses have no space to accommodate the development of such a structure. Secondly, that will also allay some of the university alumni that the Mahikeng campus is treated like a satellite of the two campuses mentioned since their merger. University Management Executive decisions are obviously taken in Potch, where the Vice Chancellor is based.
I put a challenge to the VC, Prof. Bismark Tyobeka, also an alumnus of the same university to speed up the process of the medical faculty erection. We do not envisage seeing him bringing about changes at the university at a snail’s pace like it was the case during Kgwadi’s tenure as VC. It took about half a decade for the university to be issued a liquor license. If one has to ask, there will be an assortment of reasons from the university management but one can state that there will be delays because the Mahikeng campus has fewer white students.
The establishment of this faculty will change the status quo because it will attract multi-racial students to Mahikeng, which will obviously force the provincial and national government to start preparing for the functioning of the town’s airport, hotels and other service providers in general.
