An assistant lecturer in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg, Mr Sizwe Mkwanazi, has been named a Rhodes Scholar-elect for 2017. Currently working in the UJ Department of Business Management, he is now waiting to hear that he has been placed in a Department or Faculty of the University of Oxford, UK, to confirm the Scholarship.
See his Rhodes Scholar-elect entry here.
Mr Mkwanazi is the UJ co-faculty Advisor for Enactus, a global organisation bringing together student, academic and business leaders, committed to using entrepreneurial action to improve lives.
He had been involved in community development through various initiatives. Amongst those initiatives was the founding of the Youth For Action Rural Youth Development Foundation in 2011 and working on Community Service Learning with Co-operatives in Soweto under Enactus.
“I grew up in Platrand Farm, just outside Standerton. I completed my secondary school education at the Gert Sibande TVET College with a National Certificate (Vocational) in Office Administration and joined UJ as an undergraduate student in 2011,” he says.
Mkwanazi studied for a National Diploma in Small Business Management, BTech. Management Services at UJ. He submitted a Dissertation for MTech in Operations Management at the end of 2016, supervised by UJ researcher Professor Charles Mbohwa. Also in 2016, he completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from North West University.
“As a person I value my community and I belong to the lower class of people – I live, eat, suffer and rejoice with them. I believe that through co-operatives most problems of the people I belong with lives would be better,” says Mkwanazi.
He adds: “Thanks to Mrs Joyce Sibeko (Lecturer at the UJ Department of Business Management) who introduced me to co-operatives, I had an opportunity to meet 84 sewing co-operatives in Gauteng during my Master’s research, which improved my understanding of co-operatives and their role in community development.”
“I also thank Mr Dirk Rossouw, Professor Charles Mbohwa, Ms Moosa Maseko and Professor Tshilidzi Marwala for proving references towards the Rhodes Trust Scholarship and for Oxford Academic Applications. A presentation by the Rhodes Scholars-elect on how one can apply for this scholarship will be held sometime in March on UJ Kingsway Campus and communication will be shared accordingly,” says Mkwanazi.
Mkwanazi has published conference papers on the theme of Co-operatives Operational Performance and Entrepreneurship. In future he hopes to work with the International Cooperatives Alliance in promotion of production and community-based cooperatives globally.
He hopes to pursue Management Studies at the University of Oxford.
A Rhodes Scholarship is confirmed once a successful candidate has been offered a place in a Department or Faculty of the University of Oxford and in a college.
The Rhodes Scholarship selection committees seek young women and men of outstanding intellect, character, leadership, and commitment to service. The Rhodes Scholarships support students from across the globe who demonstrate a strong propensity to emerge as ‘leaders for the world’s future’.
A Rhodes Scholarship covers all University and College fees, a personal stipend and one economy class airfare to the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom at the start of the Scholarship, as well as an economy flight back to the student’s home country at the conclusion of the Scholarship.
In 2015, Mkwanazi was awarded an Africa-only Mandela Rhodes Scholarship. These scholarships aim to build exceptional leadership capacity in Africa.
