This is a speech delivered by TEBATSO MABITSELA during the Graduation Ceremony at the Mopani TVET College – Sir Val Duncan Campus, Ba-Phalaborwa – Limpopo province, South Africa on 19 September 2025
Very rarely does one feel so proud as I do when delivering this message to you today. It is both an honour and great privilege for the Office of the Premier to form part of this momentous occasion. The longstanding partnership of the Office of the Premier, TVET Colleges in Limpopo, SETAs and other institutions within the skills development fraternity is undoubtably growing in leaps and bounds.
Today’s graduation ceremony creates a worthy platform to honour students who fulfilled their academic requirements in qualifications in Business Studies, Engineering, Artisan and Nated Courses.
Each graduate seated here has walked a long journey of sacrifice, sleepless nights, and anxious dedication. And today, you reap the reward of your sweat and effort. However, as Onkgopotse Tiro opined, “Of what use will your education be if you can’t help your country in her hour of need?”
On paper your sterling academic achievements might appear as technical skills, but in practice they are supposed to be nationbuilding skills. They are qualifications that must help South Africa to end poverty, reduce inequality, and create employment particularly for the young people.
In a book by David Mahlatji titled, “The Curse of the Learned Idiot”, simple but painful observation are made, for example that education by itself does not guarantee wisdom. Too often, we have seen in our country and of course in other parts of the world people with degrees, certificates, and high positions, who use their knowledge not to uplift, but to oppress; not to serve, but to enrich themselves in unsavoury manner.
That is the “curse of the learned idiot”: when a person becomes educated on paper, but poor in spirit; qualified in skill, but bankrupt in integrity such a person becomes a curse to the nation.
Graduates, I say this with great hope and anticipation of your selfless and patriotic service to the nation. Do not join the ranks of those who are a curse to humanity by being involved in corruption, graft and malfeasance. Do not allow your qualifications to make you to become arrogant and indifferent to the suffering of the people. Instead, become patriotic and enlightened servant of the people. Use your knowledge to heal, to build, and to serve the national in an impartial manner.
We live in a country where some people mistake patriotism for empty slogans. Patriotism is about asking yourself daily: How can my skills be used to make South Africa better? People feel betrayed when there is an over promise of a better life but experience under delivery of services by both public and private sectors. True patriots must rise and serve our nation with deeds but not words. Actions speaks louder than words!
Ethics are a cornerstone of all professions. If you are in Business or Engineering, you know that corruption in procurement destroys hospitals, schools, road and rail networks, water, and electricity supply. Economic growth and social development suffocate under the heel of corruption. Governments and business empires crumble under the weight fraud, and corruption.
If you are in Finance and Economics, fraud and corruption disrupt trade and investment, worse still, they deny people jobs. If you are in any Accounting, negligence can cost business opportunities and profit margins. In every profession, integrity is not optional — it is the foundation on which patriotism is build!
Servant leadership means that you do not measure success by self enrichment or how high you climb the corporate ladder, but by how many downtrodden people you have uplifted from squalor and poverty. The highest form of leadership is service, and the prudent use of education is to uplift others.
South Africa faces the triple challenge of poverty, unemployment, and inequality. These are not abstract words — they are a lived experience of millions in our nation. But every skill you have acquired is part of the solution:
- Public Management, Human Resource Management and Office Administration students: you can ensure transparency, efficiency, and fairness in how public resources are managed. You can fight maladministration by simply being ethical professionals who uphold good governance principles.
- Marketing, Tourism and Hospitality students: you are going to keep the wheels of trade, investment and logistics moving. Without you, commerce stalls, opportunities shrink, and unemployment deepens.
- Engineering students: you are going to become guardians of dignity, and pride of the nation by the type of infrastructure facilities that you will develop such as schools, hospitals, and roads. Your professional contribution to society will form the foundation for economic development, work with integrity!
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Information Technology and Computer Science students: You are the hope for the nation that your contribution will leapfrog the network connectivity in communities, particularly in the rural areas. By a click of the button, poor rural people should be able to gain access to services and keep in touch with their relatives and friends in distant lands.
Each one of you is not just entering a career. You are entering a calling — a calling to serve South Africa with courage, integrity and without fear, favour or without prejudice. You are called upon to be ethical, and professional servants of the nation. Serve with integrity!
Graduates, let me challenge you today:
Carry your certificates not only in your hands, but in your hearts. Let them not be pieces of paper that adorn your walls at your homes or prospective offices, but tools that transform communities, societies and our nation.
Do not allow education to separate you from your own people in the townships, villages and mekhukhus. Instead, let your learning bind you closer to the people who raised you, supported you, cheered you and believed in you. Be rooted in your communities and do not allow anything to alienate you from those who need your service desperately.
When some chase ill-gotten wealth, you must chase impactful service to the people. When others chase titles, chase selfless service to the nation. When others chase recognition or validation, you must chase purpose to make South Africa a better place for all.
Ladies and Gentlemen
In conclusion, allow me to remind you, South Africa does not need officials who master theory but are amateurs in practical execution. We do not need officials who master the languages of academia, bureaucracy and corporate governance without patriotic consciousness and selfless service to the nation. We do not need more educated people who cannot apply their knowledge and skills to build a prosperous nation. Our country needs more ethical and professional people who fix their eyes on a bigger picture – to make South Africa work better. We do not need more managers, but we need more servant leaders. We do not need more learned idiots. but we need more educated people with character and moral rectitude.
Therefore, true education must go beyond textbook and academic scores. Life skills such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, financial literacy, interpersonal communication, and health awareness are essential for personal development and social contribution. Education must become a transformative journey that produces not just graduates, but wise, ethical, creative, agile, and resilient individuals capable of serving the nation with purpose.
So, I leave you with this challenge:
Do not allow knowledge to make you blind to wisdom. Become enlightened and patriotic servants.
Congratulations to all of you. Congratulations to your families. And congratulations to the Mopani TVET College for shaping leaders, and not just graduates.
Thank you.