Each academic year the College officially welcomes the newly registered students at each Campus’ Academic Opening, this event allows the new students to see the College Executive, lecturing staff and support staff. However, with the new normal (current world pandemic) we have seen ourselves moving from our usual seven Academic openings (one in each of the seven campuses) to a total of twenty-four sessions broken down at each campus and according to the student capacity for each programme.
The main aim of the many sessions was to ensure that social distancing would be observed and proper ventilation can take place as most of our halls are not as big.
This new normal hasn’t been an easy transformation as it involved a huge amount of groundwork and also class rescheduling to be able to accommodate all groups. Other campuses saw themselves hosting three sessions per day back to back, however, campuses gave their all to ensure they pull all stops to give their students the best welcome.
This new dawn came to life to the College family along with our Principal Dr MM Muswaba. Dr. Muswaba joined the College on 1 January 2021 and he has taken the opportunity to welcome the new students and emphasized the slogan from his office “Students lives matter”. He reiterated that without students the College will just be a building and the staff won’t have anything to show up to. No student will be looked down upon due to their background, religious belief, sexual orientation and race, all students are the same and they all matter.
Another major objective of the event is to motivate the students and give them an idea of what lies ahead of their journey at the College of Cape Town. The events were nothing short of entertainment and inspirational speakers. Each campus invited various guest speakers to uplift the students; some were old College students, while others were reputable professionals. The 2021 College slogan is “Excellence starts with me” and each speaker had a bit to say about how they worked tirelessly to become excellent.
The Student Representative Council (SRC) highlighted the importance of class attendance, hard work, not gaining favours from lecturers and most importantly that “the College of Cape Town has no space for ancestors, ensure that you complete your course is record time. They also mentioned the student support services offered by the College and accessibility to students across all campuses.
One thing about campus Academic Opening is that each campus gives you a taste of its "own" flavour, no campus is the same as the next one. That is exactly what makes the College of Cape Town what it is; the diversity and touch of different characters. Each campus ensured that it showed off what it is capable of producing and not missing an opportunity to remind us of their prestigious accolades ranging from their pass rates to the outstanding academic staff performance.
As much as Covid-19 has erupted our livelihoods it hasn’t taken out the main objects and spirits of the "Coolest College in South Africa" - College of Cape Town for TVET.