Chancellor Ngoepe
Unisa’s Graduate School of Business (SBL) launched their first ever academic scholarship in 2011 in honour of Judge President Bernard Makgabo Ngoepe. The scholarship is a CSI initiative established by the SBL CEO & Executive Director, the management and academic staff, to enable brilliant but needy students to complete their studies at the SBL. The scholarship pays 100% of the tuition fee for the specific year it is award in.
The Judge Ngoepe Scholarship is currently sponsoring eleven candidates who have excelled in completing their Master of Business Administration (I or II), Master of Business Leadership (I or II), or students enrolled for the Doctor of Business Leadership programme with SBL. Assisting students with the scholarship is an opportunity for the SBL to contribute and empower emerging leaders to hone their skills and to empower them to be able to answer the call of our current socio-economic challenges.
The inspiration of naming the scholarship after Judge Ngoepe is the SBL recognising his passion for education as well as the contribution he has made to society. Judge President Ngoepe is currently the Judge President of the North and South Gauteng Courts. He holds an honorary doctorate from University of South Africa (Unisa) and is currently the Chancellor of this mega distance learning institution. He is renowned for his sterling contribution to modern South Africa. In the early 1990s, he was one of an eight-person team which drafted the country’s new Constitution. He was a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) where he served on the amnesty committee. In 1998, he acted as Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal; and a year later, after a stint in the Constitutional Court, he was appointed to his present position: Judge President of the High Court in Gauteng South and North. In addition to these duties, he is the Chairperson of the Court of Military Appeals and the Magistrates Commission, as well as member of the Judicial Service Commission.
The SBL prides itself as the only business school in South Africa that graduates the largest number of students in the MBA and MBL programmes annually and thus contributing enormously to alleviating the leadership skills shortage in our country.
Successful recipients of the bursary are expected to provide research or teaching assistance at the school.
