‘Take context seriously’ – Adam Habib

University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) vice-chancellor and principal Professor Adam Habib says school leavers should seriously consider the palaeosciences as a field of study at university.

Addressing an audience of learners, parents, teachers and guests at the St Stithians College Founders’ Day commemoration in Johannesburg recently, Habib cited palaeosciences and deep-level mining as two specific fields of excellence at Wits that were created – and continue to excel – as a result of the context in which the university is located.

The study of deep-level mining achieved academic prominence thanks to the mineral-rich reef of the Witwatersrand, while palaeosciences excels because of the university’s proximity to the Cradle of Humankind.

“If you want to understand the evolution of our species, you need to come to Wits to interact with the fossils in its collection,” he said. “On the basis of that, you will begin to understand how the world has evolved and how species evolved.”

If you want to be world class, he said, you have to take context seriously.

“You can’t be truly world class without taking your context seriously, without using your context as the very source of innovation. To be world class is to be unique, and it is precisely your context that gives you your peculiarities, your specificities, that make you valuable to the globe itself.”

Another area where South Africa has had to be truly innovative because of context is in the sphere of mobile technology.

“When cellphone technology emerged 20 years ago, it emerged in the context of contracts: you bought the phone, you had a contract. But many people on the African continent couldn’t afford those contracts.

“And so somebody took context seriously and they innovated. They generated something called ‘pay as you go’. And suddenly this opened cellphone technology up not only for people on the African continent, it opened up for student constituencies all over the world; it opened up new markets, even in the developed world.”

“South Africa has led the way in a number of fields because of our specific context – and if students are interested in palaeosciences, there is no better place to study than at Wits,” said Maropeng marketing manager – and Wits alumnus – Lindsay Marshall.

“The university’s Palaeosciences Centre of Excellence continues to break new ground. The recent Rising Star workshop is a good example of the type of work being done.

“Maropeng is in the privileged position to be able to showcase the bounty of the Cradle of Humankind to the general public.”