Rhodes University has reaffirmed its position as a leading postgraduate and research-intensive university with 40.35 percent of those graduating at the 2012 graduation ceremonies being postgraduate students.
A total of 2 233 degrees - 901 postgraduate degrees and 1 332 undergraduates degrees will be conferred during five ceremonies spread across three days, starting tomorrow evening on Thursday (12 April).
Of the total, 1 379 of our graduates or 62% are women, 441 or 20% are international students from 32 different countries in the rest of Africa and around the world.
Congratulating this year's graduates Dr Saleem Badat, Rhodes University's Vice Chancellor, said, the new Rhodes graduates should remember that they are among the best and brightest of our society.
It's to them that we will be looking for leadership, for them to re-imagine and reshape our future, to forge new ways of conducting our affairs, to make human development, people and social justice the vital centre of all our actions, he said.
"We look to you to exercise, with humility, leadership wherever you find yourself - in the classrooms and schools of our lands; in hospital and clinic dispensaries; in legal practices, prosecution offices and courts; in research institutions and scientific laboratories; in financial and public services, and in the media and universities.
"Of course, this leadership must be exercised and your knowledge and expertise must be put to work not only for your private benefit but also for the benefit of society at large, to advance the general public good."
By Azwi Mufamadi