Welcome to the “COLLEGE WE WANT” in 2023, I trust that you have had a good break with your family and loved ones and wish you all the best with success and joy, and only what is good for you and your family for this new year filled with opportunities and possibilities. 

Our focus for this year as an institution is to once again dedicate all our efforts towards this year’s slogan, THE COLLEGE WE WANT. Last year we floated the slogan THE COLLEGE WE WANT but did not get to a point that we lived the practice of the college we want.  This year we need to strive towards making this slogan real and alive in our daily practices of being the best we can be and build ethos of THE COLLEGE WE WANT.

To the staff, welcome back to the college we want where we live the values of the College of Cape Town, where we all are at a highly functioning successful college and a place that we are all proud of, this would be the essence and ethos of the college we want. A college that supports each other and encourages growth and self-enrichment.  A college which embraces each other’s diversity and encourages innovation for the improvement of the college and the students it serves. I wish to salute all our staff for their tireless commitment to the African child to ensure that each one of them who leaves the college will make a success of their lives.

Let me start by quoting the words of our icon who has just gone ahead of us, The late “Arch” Desmond Tutu. During his address at the Nelson Mandela Foundation on 23 November 2004, he said. “Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument.” On behalf of the College Council, the College Executive Management Team and on my own behalf as the Principal of the College of Cape Town, I would like to welcome all the College Community and our partners to this 2022 academic year. It is indeed a year in which the College of Cape Town is promising to improve its argument in all its endeavours and not raise its voice.

The office of the principal is quite aware of the objectives that the College sets up in its Annual Performance Plan for 2022. There is however no doubt that the various teams in the College are now invigorated and ready to pull the strings in all the directions despite the impediments that are being created by the pandemic. Being led by the able office of the Minister of Higher Education and Training, the Honourable Dr Nzimande, the College is ready to ensure that student success has been improved tremendously across the College Programme Qualification Mix. My office is also aware that both the lecturing staff and our students are ready to excel the College to new heights in this academic area.