Ithuba in the News

Remarks given by Ricardo Romo, President of the University of Texas at San Antonio at the Certification Ceremony held at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. August 8, 2008

Madam Minister Pandor, Members of Executive Council, Dean of the University of Pretoria, and distinguished guests, all protocols observed.

We, from The University of Texas at San Antonio, are honored to be here in your presence today.

We would like to offer a special thank you to the colleagues at the Department of Education who have been instrumental in this project. They have dedicated their expertise and leadership to the project from its conception to its naming to its implementation.

We would like to offer thanks to our funding agency, the United States Agency for International Development and the American people. The Ithuba Writing Project has provided us with an opportunity to meet and work with new colleagues and to experience the vastness and expertise that exists here. We have much to learn from South Africa.

Thanks to the NGOs, The READ Educational Trust, led by Ms. Cynthia Hugo and The Molteno Project, led by Mr. Masennya Dikotla, who have helped us implement the project through their expertise in material development and teacher training.

And, last, but not least, to those of you today for whom this ceremony is about. Thank you for choosing teaching as a profession and choosing to author in the Ithuba Writing Project. You have inspired all of us to become better educators ourselves and better people. I want to close by offering you two challenges—(1) keep writing—you are authors of books that will be distributed to young learners throughout your country. You have more stories to tell and they must be written. And, (2), share your gift of writing with the learners you teach. They will begin their journey into writing through reading your stories. But there is more – you must guide them as we have guided you with opportunity and support.  Your learners have stories to tell, and through the writing of their stories, they will write their lives and the future of this wonderful nation.