TUT Autumn Graduations 2026: Vice-Chancellor’s Welcome Address

Sanibonani! Dumelang! Goeie more (middag)! Lotshani! Molweni! Xewani! He-Nndaa! [for males], Aaah! [for females]

Prof Tinyiko Maluleke, Vice-Chancellor and Principal In my capacity as Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), and on behalf of the Chancellor of the Tshwane University of Technology, Dr Gloria Serobe, it is an honour for me to welcome you to this graduation ceremony. This is but one of our 2026 autumn series of graduations. Of all the ceremonies that take place at this University - the People’s University - in any given academic year, none is as significant, and none is more prestigious than a graduation ceremony. Such is the importance of graduation ceremonies that they alone are presided over by the titular head of the University, namely, the Chancellor. It is the Chancellor who, by the powers vested in her, confers all degrees and awards all diplomas and certificates, in the name of the University.

Let me hasten to acknowledge the presence (and/or the good wishes) of the Chairperson of the TUT Council, Mr Ivan Ka-Mbonani.

The esteemed Members of Council and its Committees

Members of Senate

Members of the Executive and Institutional Management Committee

Representatives of Labour. Members of the ISRC its sub-structures

TUT Alumni, Industry partners

Esteemed graduands, Parents and guardians, Partners and friends;

Manene na manenekazi,

Bo mme le bo ntate,

Ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome to this apex ceremony of the Tshwane University of Technology, the entrepreneurial University of Technology, shaping the future. Welcome to the moment when we mark the culmination of the most fulfilling human endeavours, the academic endeavour. We are here to celebrate those who, despite difficulties and setbacks, have persisted in their pursuit of 21st-century skills.

Is there anything more rewarding than the celebration of those whom Harry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his poem -The ladder of St Augustine - described as, and I quote, “they who, while their companions slept, were toiling upwards in the night”? There is nothing more inspiring than this crop of graduands we are about to see on stage - they who heeded the call of Percy Bysshe Shelley when he urged: “rise like Lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in sleep had fallen on you”. Indeed, like lions, they have risen to the occasion. Freeing themselves from procrastination, they rose early every day, every week, every month, every semester and every academic year.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here, to congratulate they who reached great heights, not “by sudden flight”, as Longfellow has noted, but through perseverance and hard work, every day, every week, every month, every semester and every academic year.

I am talking about a very special group of South Africans – TUT graduates. Across our seven faculties and across our centers and institutes, we produce graduates who are fluent in the international language of AI; graduates who have a firm grasp of the theory and practice of entrepreneurship; graduates who are able to produce problem-solving innovations, using their knowledge to combat gender-based violence; deploying their expertise for climate action and for the advancement of the green economy.

It is therefore with a sense of absolute confidence and pride that we release today, the brand-new list of our excellent and future-ready graduates. During the 2026 Autumn series of Graduations a total of just over thirteen thousand (13 023) students will graduate:

1. Eleven Thousand Two Hundred and thirty-nine undergraduate students (11 239}
2. One thousand five hundred and forty-seven (below master’s) Postgraduate students (1 547)
3. One hundred and ninety-four Master's students (194)
4. Forty-three PhD students (43)

Before I conclude, I would like to make a special appeal to all our guests today; please make donation pledges to TUT. I am particularly appealing for donations to the ISRC-founded A Re Ageng Fund and the TUT Bursary and Scholarship fund; both of which are dedicated to assisting academically gifted students who lack the financial means to pay for their studies.

We know that the road from first year to graduation year is stony, rough and long. The graduands you will see walking confidently across the stage today have come to this point in their academic journey not because of favour or advantage; they are here because they have been resilient.

The graduates we are unveiling today are like the people whom Alfred Lord Tennyson, in his poem Ulysses, encouraged “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield”. These then are the entrepreneurial graduates who constantly strive, to seek, to find and never to yield their responsibility for building a South African system of innovation that is responsive to national development and environmental sustainability.

At this point in their journey, this group of TUT future-ready graduates, is ready to join fellow researchers, practitioners, innovators and policymakers in the great national duty of entrepreneuring our future.

Such has been their determination that against all odds, they have kept moving forward. Our graduates are a living embodiment of the words of Martin Luther King Junior in his unforgettable speech at Spelman College, where he said, and I quote: “If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk, crawl; but by all means keep moving.”

Many of the graduates you will see today, could not fly, so they ran instead, and they ran to the finish line. When they could not walk, they crawled and rolled themselves forward, inch by inch, day by day, from one month to the next, one semester at a time, constantly moving from good to great. This is how they have arrived at this apex point in their academic journey.

Indeed, the late former President Nelson Mandela had the likes of our graduates in mind when he said, and I quote:

“Education is the great engine of personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.”

Our graduates have been formed in the TUT crucible. In this crucible, the values that reign supreme are those of resilience, excellence, accountability, diversity, and stewardship.

Let the country know, and let the world know, that TUT graduates are ready to grab the job market by the scruff of the neck. If they won’t get a job quick enough, they will invent the jobs they need, including the jobs that have never existed before. TUT graduates as shaping the future of work. The entrepreneurial education they have received at TUT has made them future-ready.

Let the country know, and let the world know, that at TUT, we are making tremendous progress in entrepreneuring the future of this country, the continent and the world.

Our graduands are central to our historic mission as a university. They fully deserve our heartfelt congratulations. To them we can only say: Halaaala!