Home

Sol Plaatje university confers first degrees

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Sol Plaatje University in Kimberley in the Northern Cape held its third graduation ceremony on Saturday.

About 121 students graduated from the fledgling university which was founded in 2014. The graduation saw the first batch of degrees conferred to students.

Despite its relatively young age and intake, the university boasts the best rate of students qualifying in minimum time. This is according to university Vice Chancellor Professor Yunus Ballim who was speaking on the sidelines of the university’s graduation ceremony.

Ballim says nearly 70% of students who enrolled for the university’s degrees in 2014 graduated in minimum time.

“This group of graduates that you saw here today around 65 to 67 % of them are of those who started on the programme, finished in minimum time. That’s a remarkable achievement. The national average is I think about 27% we like to think that if we can sort out their financial aid problems as far as we can, make sure that everybody’s eating, properly accommodated, that students will rise to the challenge.”

Forty seven students were conferred with their degrees at the ceremony. One of those is Conrad Obaray who passed with distinction in BSc Data Science.

Obaray is part of the first batch of BSc Data Science students to receive their qualification at the university. He says studying this degree came by chance, he had initially tried to apply for a teaching degree.

“To be honest with you it kind of found me. Initially when I registered, I went to apply for teaching, but then the funding,  I was unsuccessful, and then after consulting with the university there was an opportunity to study data science”.

Meanwhile, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union, Nehawu, picketed outside the graduation to demand a 10% increase and 100% bonuses for their members.

Author

MOST READ