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Do‚ rather than criticise‚ Zuma tells students

Health workers trained at South Africa’s third tertiary institution opened since the commencement of South African democracy must be professional patriots.

This was the message from President Jacob Zuma at the opening of the Sefako Magatho Health Sciences University‚ formerly known as the Medical University of South Africa in Ga-Rankuwa today.

“You must promote the legacy of Sefako Makgatho by producing qualified‚ highly skilled and patriotic human resources‚” said Zuma.

 “If you serve the country and you are patriotic‚ you will do a lot. Patriotic South Africans will stand up and do what he or she sees is not being done‚ [rather] than to criticise what is not being done. That’s patriotism.”

Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande‚ who took the decision to uncouple Medunsa from the University of Limpopo‚ said part of the liberation of the country was about freeing all South Africans from a system that was “fundamentally dehumanising and used education as one of its weapons”.

The president said that R298 million rand had been allocated to the university for student subsidies and R210 million for its establishment.

The university offers undergraduate courses in the areas of medicine‚ health care sciences‚ oral health care‚ pathology and pre-clinical sciences. It opened its doors in January this year.

Sefako Makgatho was a politician‚ educator and journalist. He formed the Transvaal African Teachers Association in 1906‚ one of South Africa’s first education unions‚ and fought for a non-racialised and equal education system.

He utilised the courts to challenge legislation that affected and undermined Africans in urban areas‚ particularly those affecting the freedom of movement. He died in 1951 in Riverside‚ Pretoria at the age of 90.

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