Award ing honorary degrees ‘like a puppet show’
OXFORD and Harvard have been singled out as universities with a universal high frequency.
Simply put, a high-frequency university is a well-known or reputable university with a nationally or globally academic status. For example, I never knew anything about a low-frequency Trinity International Bible University (TIU), a bogus college not registered with educational authorities in South Africa until the university bestowed an honour on Sello Maake ka Ncube.
I also never knew the history of the University of Zagreb, a public research university in Croatia, and one of the oldest universities in Europe, until I was appointed as a reviewer for the Organization, Technology and Management in Construction journal.
I also never knew anything about All India Rail Safety Council, a railway university in New Delhi, India, until I was appointed as an international advisory committee member. More often than not, universities that have low frequencies are frowned upon or written off by members of the public.
Ka Ncube was in glum silence; the whole tale was so startling, so terrible, so benumbing to our South African senses when a talented actor’s sceptre passed from his grasp.
I stared back in open-mouthed amazement when I realised that bogus universities have always regarded the South African academic playing field as a lottery; where so many people enter and only a few win. Little did the TIU realise that there was no gamble about the match of awarding a PhD degree to Ka Ncube.
The university has been ceaselessly foraging for celebrities to enhance its limping academic image. Although the honour was reassuringly good, it did nothing good to appease his academic hunger. People on social media laughed speechlessly. When he looks at his pictures in his academic regalia, he feels like an imposter.
Allow me to cite the history of honorary doctoral degrees as my witness.
The earliest Doctor of Civil Law degree was awarded by Oxford University to Lionel Woodville in the 1470s. He became bishop of Salisbury. Generally, the awarding of some honorary degrees in our country is like a puppet show where the chancellor and vice-chancellor are the puppet masters.
Before a degree is awarded, the university must answer the questions: What has the candidate done to merit such an honour? Put differently, duty begets honour and not fame. How does his community perceive his contribution to society? How many people can say “he or she changed my life”? How did he scale greater heights from humble beginnings?
Mark Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida Missouri, in 1835, and died in Redding, Connecticut, in 1910. Although he left school at 12 when his father died, he was eventually awarded honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Missouri and Oxford University.
His career encompassed such varied occupations as printer, Mississippi river boat pilot, journalist, travel writer and publisher.
On May 28, 1896, Booker T Washington received an invitation letter from Harvard University. The letter read: “Harvard University desires to confer on you at the approaching Commencement an honorary degree.”
Washington was taken aback by the honour, he wrote: “My whole former life as a slave on the plantation, my work in the coal-mine, the times when I was without food and clothing, when I made my bed under a sidewalk, my struggles for an education, the trying days I had at Tuskegee, days when I did not know where to turn for a dollar to continue the work there, the ostracism and sometimes oppression of my race – all this passed before me and nearly overcame me.”
A Boston paper said: “But the degree was not conferred because Mr Washington is a coloured man, or because he was born in slavery, but because he has shown, by his work for the elevation of the people of the Black Belt of the South, a genius and a broad humanity which counts for greatness in any man, whether his skin be white or black.”
South Africa should take a leaf out of Booker T Washington’s book. As a country, we have what I would call a “PhD Syndrome”. Harvard University honoured him with a Master of Arts degree not a PhD. Why can’t we honour some people with a Master of Arts degree or any other degree?
Booker T Washington contributed to the American society more that most of our PhD holders, and he was thinker of great thoughts and a doer of great thoughts. For example, how many PhD holders in South Africa can match former president Thabo Mbeki intellectually as well as their writing skills?
Coming back to Maake ka Ncube, he studied at Leeds University. He graced our television screens for many years and worked in the UK, US, Canada and Europe.
Why our universities never acknowledged him for the role he played in society is not for me to answer. He started his career during the dark days of apartheid but he succeeded against all odds.
The whole Maake ka Ncube saga is an indictment on our South African universities. Our people are recognised by universities outside South Africa but we fail to acknowledge the creativity of our people, partly due to professional jealousy. There are some artists who do not have matric and yet they have been honoured with a PhD.
A person who studied at Leeds University, under all sorts of countervailing factors, and worked abroad under active racism, cannot be recognised in his country.
Do universities have researchers who scout people who must be honoured? Do they know how much they have contributed to the field of knowledge? Have they changed life?
Ka Ncube shares Washington’s academic prowess and resilience. It is not your fault that bogus university recognised you but South African universities must share the blame.