[Salutations]
Ladies and Gentlemen

1. It is, for me, a great pleasure to join you on this auspicious
occasion, the day on which we inaugurate Professor BOJOSI KHEBETU
OTLHOGILE as the fourth Vice Chancellor of the University of Botswana. It
is, no doubt, a great day for Professor Otlhogile and a memorable one for
all of us!

2. I welcome all of you, and thank you for gracing this occasion with
your presence. I recognize and thank, in particular, those friends of our
University who visit from outside our country. I wish you an enjoyable
stay and hope that time permits you to see more of our beautiful country
and sample the many good things it has to offer.

3. It is well for Professor Otlhogile to celebrate his achievements
this day, and for us to join with him in this. It would not be
inappropriate to do so, for of the many who are called, only few can be
chosen. When the celebrations end, as they must, the future will begin, as
it should. With it the future brings challenges, challenges for the Vice
Chancellor, for his administration, and for the entire University. What
must be accomplished is that our University should become a leading center
of excellence in the most composite sense. Only then can we boundlessly
and unceasingly celebrate, never forgetting, however, that we must then
maintain the University as a going concern of excellence for as long as
the Lord shall be pleased to keep us.

4. I do not propose to extol the Vice Chancellor's credentials and
virtues, of which he is undoubtedly possessed, nor is it the function of
the moment to eulogize him. His assignment has only recently commenced,
and it will yet bring forth fruit. The essential and pertinent of his
antecedents the Chairman of Council will record when he recites the
Citation. In any event, nothing I say of the Vice Chancellor's suitability
for his assigned role could speak more eloquently than my appointment of
him to this important office and the fact of his installation today.

5. That said, I must go forward and say that this day is much less an
occasion for celebrating past successes than it is the day on which the
Vice Chancellor should solemnly contemplate the enormity of the task this
appointment has set him. It is the day on which he must continue what I
hope he started following his appointment to this office, to earnestly
reflect on the kind of university his leadership and administration should
deliver to our people at the end of his tenure. It is for him the
beginning of the phase of his life that, possibly more than any other,
might define his qualities as a leader forever more.

6. Time-honored African tradition requires, on an occasion such as
this, that we of earlier birth and accomplishment, and therefore hopefully
of more exulted wisdom, arm the Vice Chancellor with the light of counsel
and guidance as he trudges forward into the darksome path of leading our
University to the realization of its mission and vision. We must warn him
of the complexity of his task, and burden him with our onerous yet
achievable expectations of the kind of product he must deliver to us when
his time of service shall determine. We must offer him encouragement and
promise him our every support as he journeys forth into the known yet
uncertain future into which we, in this inauguration, usher him.

7. It behooves me, as Chancellor and the person upon whom our great
people have, for the time being, reposed their trust by placing at the
helm of their affairs, to urge upon the Vice Chancellor the urgent service
that our people require of their University and the keen hope they cherish
of its success. I do so on behalf of all of us here and others elsewhere
in our country. Even as it is to the Vice Chancellor I shall direct
myself, it is to the entire University community I shall be speaking, for
the Vice Chancellor shall only be the leader of a team comprising the
University community. His work shall be theirs, and theirs his. His
successes shall be theirs, as shall his failures. It is them all I
admonish today, for it is all of them that I here charge with this task.

8. The University of Botswana, as its predecessor University of
Botswana and Swaziland and previously the University of Botswana, Lesotho
and Swaziland, was established for the central purpose of enhancing the
minds of our people and arming them with the skills necessary to fight and
win the abiding war against ignorance and poverty. Though the struggle
long commenced and has yielded many successes, the war is far from won as
the enemy re-deploys with greater ferocity.

9. Of all the things we can do, have done, and continue to do to rid
our people of poverty, nothing could more decisively and lastingly defeat
that condition than education and training. Even as this is the challenge
that faces our other institutions of learning, it faces the University
with greater urgency, I declare. It shall be the encapsulating task of the
Vice Chancellor and his administration to press forward with this national
agenda. In this they must be guided, amongst other things, by the National
Development Plan 9 and Vision 2016, our vision as a nation and a people.
And may he and the University, at the end of his tenure, report on the
yield of their joint efforts.

10. Our University must set itself the mission of supplying in full
its share of the resource and skill needs of our economy. Because these
needs shift and change as some of them are filled and the economy grows
and matures, the University must, from time to time, consider, reconsider
and fine- tune its Programs to this end. It must, at all times, be the
reservoir that keeps the economy nurtured and thrifty. It must stimulate
the national life with well-researched and analyzed intellectual
discourse. It must, objectively and in a scholarly and constructive
manner, from time to time evaluate the state and condition of our people
and supply ideas on the way ahead.

11. What it must not do is descend into an academic institution that
exists for its own sake and as an end in itself, or become a tool in the
hands of those who would put it to uses other than those commanded by the
national interest, for then it would lose all relevance and the deployment
of increasingly scarce national resources on it would cease to have
justification. This University is ultimately an asset of the community
built with contributions made by ordinary Batswana to serve the nation as
a whole. For this reason, we who have to account for the use of our
nation's wealth would have to reconsider our priorities.

12. It shall be one of the functions of the Vice Chancellor to ensure
that the University community does not lose focus. To become a leading
center of excellence in Africa and the world as Vision 2016 requires, the
University must encourage greater and truer scholarship than is currently
evident. The resources our country expends on giving more and advanced
education and training to lecturers and students at the University are
justifiably employed only if the resulting qualifications produce
scholarly work of great quality.

13. Facilities, however modest, the University has enough of for the
time being; what we need to hone further and perfect is our work ethic as
a people. The University is prime among those institutions in this our
country which must offer a suitable example to the country. The University
must be a source of evolving ideas and, in that way, a catalyst for
development as a leader in the great enterprise of education.

14. At the risk of belabouring this subject, I take the liberty to
speak more on it for it concerns me sufficiently. University lecturers and
students have, no doubt, the same liberties as do other Batswana, and may
undertake any other lawful activity they might wish. What they must,
however, never lose sight of is the purpose for which the nation educated
them, continues to do so, and maintains them and the University. Primary
to their activities must be the need to fully and conscientiously perform
the roles for which they were brought into the University, and all their
other activities must be subordinated to this major function. It is not
and can never be the role of university staff and students to engage in
activities that undermine, in whatever disguised form, the essential unity
of our nation.

15. A teacher must enjoy the confidence and trust of all his different
students. Of equal importance is that our people must be assured that the
people whose task it is to shape the minds of our young are themselves
people of integrity who understand that, whatever their own inclinations,
objectivity, honesty and honour characterize their every action. A teacher
cannot do so if he engages, even in an individual capacity, in activities
which champion causes in an extreme and divisive manner; public discourse
by academics and students must be scholarly to be worthy and respectable.

16. A university lamentably misses its target when it becomes a hive
of party political activity engaged in by both lecturers and students
alike. Every vocation has its requirements and its limits, and we
undertake to meet and observe these when we each make our choice of
vocation. Having made the choice, we incur the duty to act with
responsibility and with discretion according as our choice imposes. It is
not to be without rights to observe limitations reasonably imposed by our
choice of career. While some party political activity in the University is
tolerable, it cannot be allowed to be excessive because it then detracts
from the objective role of a university teacher or student. I would, Mr.
Vice Chancellor, like to see educational activity dominating the
University and other tendencies, if they continue to exist, become less
significant.

17. The overwhelming majority of the products of our University since
its inception to date have been uniquely fortunate. Most of our University
students presently and in the foreseeable future will continue to enjoy
this fortune. It can only be few countries in the world that directly
finance and considerably subsidize the university education of their
people. This should induce in us a sense of grateful and determined
service to our nation and conduce us much less to a tendency to demand
more from it.

18. One hangs one's head in shame when lecturers refuse to do their
work because they want more money and students refuse to study in
preference for marching the streets demanding of Government more money to
buy items of luxury for personal pleasures and entirely unconnected with
their needs as students. One feels even more disgraced when one considers
that this sort of conduct is engaged in by some members of that small
section of our society which, to its knowledge, is much more privileged
than the majority of our people who have sacrificed immensely in order to
educate them and consequently have to make do with so much less.

19. Mr. Vice Chancellor, I should like to see less of this attitude in
the future and more of the correct one. I would so like to see the
University community, indeed everyone in this country, give so much more
of themselves for the benefit of their country, and priding themselves on
it. Rather than demand more, we all must seek ways to give more of
ourselves, appreciate, be content and do the best we can with what little
our country is able to afford us.

20. It must be the single-minded quest of our lecturers to educate and
train our students to attain the highest standards of knowledge and
performance, and students must ambitiously concentrate their abilities and
energies on achieving optimum benefit from their education and training in
order to facilitate their success in the life of work that must
necessarily follow their training. Their success in this would translate
into that of their country, and therefore service to it. What greater
value and privilege can there be in the life of one than to give of
themselves to their country! We all must, at all times, keep in mind
Vision 2016 and that it is our sacred duty to place ahead of all else the
realization of its wider ideals.

21. It was always the aim of our University to achieve standards of
education and training reasonably capable of competing with those
maintained by the most reputable universities elsewhere in the world. Much
progress has been made in this respect. There is room for greater
progress, for running an institution of learning in a constantly and
rapidly changing world is an unending occupation. As some challenges are
overcome new and different ones take their place and demand different
approaches. Such institutions require a leadership that is ever dynamic.

22. It deserves emphasis that while Government will continue to fund
the operations of the University and studies by Batswana students, the
progressive scaling down of such sponsorship which started some years ago
will continue as the dictates of the economy shall determine and
competition for increasingly scarce resources grows. There may indeed come
a time when Government will be able to lend less and less financial
support. Ultimately, the University will have, as do most universities
elsewhere in the world, rely for its resources from sources other than
Government.

23. I am glad that the University has commenced diversifying its
sources of funding and urge it to continually identify additional sources
locally, regionally and internationally with a view to progressively
reducing its dependence on Government. Commendable among existing efforts
is the establishment of the University of Botswana Foundation as the
fund-raising agent of the University under the praiseworthy stewardship of
Hon. Satar Dada and his Committee. I thank the public, corporate and
parastatal sectors for supporting the Foundation and urge them to greater
support. I invite others to join in the act. The need for the University
of Botswana to diversify sources of funding will be brought into sharper
focus when the second university is established, for then competition for
existing funding will be the greater for it. The search for more sources
must, Mr. Vice Chancellor, proceed apace.

24. It is my ardent hope that the Vice Chancellor will, if he has not,
and continue if he has, to aim to do the above and more. In doing so, he
will have to call on the partnership of the University Council, the
management of the University, staff, students, other structures and
external stakeholders. I need not tell him and them that neither he nor
they can succeed in their respective responsibilities each without the
team effort of the others. Even extraordinarily endowed individuals are
increasingly learning that true and successful leadership often means the
ability to effectively and effectually lead a team in the performance of
an assigned task.

25. The Vice Chancellor and the University will not be without those
upon whom they can, at any time, call for guidance and advice. Government
recently established the Tertiary Education Council under the experienced
leadership of Professor Thomas Tlou, formerly a Vice Chancellor of this
University. This Council was formed for this and other purposes. The
guidance, and I dare say mentorship, of Professor Tlou might be
particularly valuable, not least because he has taught at and was at the
helm of the University for many years. There is then the Ministry of
Education, which, at all times, stands ready to give assistance and
support.

26. For my part, I pledge the continued support of the Government, to
the extent possible, with funding the University, including and
particularly in the areas of the further training of lecturers and
continuing research and skills training. Current initiatives in this
latter respect are the impending introduction of the school of medicine
into the University of Botswana and the establishment of the second
university. We stand ready to assist in any way we can. It will, Mr. Vice
Chancellor, strengthen us in this resolve to know that the University is
giving back to the country greater measure for measure.

27. I cannot conclude my address without commending our University for
forging collaborative relationships with other universities and
institutions of learning on the continent and elsewhere. The benefits of
these initiatives are manifest and immense, and need no recounting. I can
only encourage that they be escalated and strengthened. I verily thank our
friends for showing their support, and may the common destiny that brought
us together in times past bond us inextricably for all time to come.

28. Could I now ask you, Honoured Guests, Distinguished Ladies and
Gentlemen, to please join me in wishing the Vice Chancellor and our
University great success in the years ahead. May theirs be an epoch-making
performance, and may posterity recognize them for the legacy of it.