Why the Thabo Mbeki School of Public and International Affairs (TM-School) was established

Africa faces many challenges, including the fight against diseases, and wars, managing unity in diversity, and the urgent need to master the sciences, among others.

The intelligentsia is a critical asset for Africa to solve these challenges.

The School is staffed with the best talent who will produce intellectual cadres and combatants who will help our continent to respond positively to the challenges mentioned—helping Africa achieve its renaissance.

The Role of Scholars and Leadership in the Rebuilding the African Continent by President Thabo Mbeki

On 22 September, the University of South Africa (UNISA) and the Thabo Mbeki Foundation launched the newly formed Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs (TM-School).

The Patron of the THABO MBEKI FOUNDATION and Unisa Chancellor, President Thabo Mbeki, delivered a speech and, among others, said;

• The TM-School will have to avoid the consequence of turning its students into corporate stooges.
• The School should pay close attention to ‘ensure’ that the university is the philosophical centre of society
• We must not allow the ‘big business’ of college to take the way of students learning to question everything
• Our aim in teaching should produce men and women to be both critical and creative. Our students should be encouraged to be thinkers and doers rather than accumulators of facts and received knowledge. This must be so if they are to be instruments of change working towards realising a just and consequently stable society.
• The School must strive to serve as a philosophical thought centre of society, to train the next generation of thinkers who will learn how to question everything to create new knowledge