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Daily Maverick
03-06-2025
- General
- Daily Maverick
From protest to policy — how to prepare student leaders for governance roles
Leadership development begins in childhood and is either matured or sabotaged in early adulthood. What surfaces later in public life is merely the ripple effect of how young leaders were shaped, or not shaped, in those formative years. The impact is seen in everything from government, to corporates and civil society formations. Nowhere is this more evident than in the corridors of tertiary institutions, where student leaders often find themselves catapulted from protest to policy proponents without a roadmap. South Africa's Higher Education Act affirms the importance of the student voice, through the establishment of student representative councils. These structures are meant to form part of university governance, giving legitimacy to student participation and co-ownership of institutional decisions. However, a troubling paradox lies hidden in plain sight. The students who are elected to lead are often those who have risen through the fiery furnace of very essential campus activism. They are politicised, energised and popular – but are they prepared to govern? That is the dilemma. Passion without preparation. Power without posture. Protest without bureaucratic policy insight. Student organisations across campuses – whether aligned to Sasco, Pasma, Daso, the EFFSC or others – reflect our nation's fractured political landscape. Their members fight hard for electoral visibility. But when the protests are over, when the slogans fade and the victory photos are taken, what follows is an often painful transition – moving overnight from activist to structural representative. And too often, it fails. Students find themselves suddenly required to operate in the very spaces they previously vilified. Instead of megaphones and placards, they now face committee rooms, university statutes and boardroom coffee. As one student leader admitted during a capacity-building session: 'You sit there drinking coffee with management, and you've got a lump in your throat because you know your people outside don't trust this table.' This isn't just political tension. It's a deep psychological rupture – one not confined to student leadership but familiar in many transitions of power. It shows up when trade unionists ascend to corporate boards. When activists become ministers. When freedom fighters become cabinet politicians. This is possibly the case also when a country moves from revolutionary struggle to diplomatic status at the United Nations. The transition from outsider to insider is complex, and if mishandled, corrosive – both to the soul of the individual and to institutional systems. The leadership bottleneck becomes clear: student leaders, once driven by mobilisation and moral fire, now face institutional processes they neither understand nor control. Their term of office is punitively short. Their learning curve is steep. The same voices that carried weight on the picket line are now weighed against policy cycles, academic calendars and budget meetings. Decisions on exclusions, accommodation or financial aid don't move at protest speed. They move at the pace of bureaucracy. This mismatch between urgency and process often creates a crisis of identity. Many student leaders, untrained in governance and under pressure to remain 'relevant', begin to perform rather than lead. They attend to operational issues – responding to every complaint, attending every event – not because it is strategic, but because it is visible. They believe leadership is about being seen. And being seen means votes. In the absence of strategic tools, some regress into dangerous patterns. They use the student body as leverage, sometimes impulsively and very often manipulatively. They stage unrest to regain relevance. They conflate outrage with influence. But what began as representation quietly morphs into exploitation. The consequences can be devastating. Protests escalate. Trust erodes. Institutional governance becomes fragile. Millions are lost in property damage. Students face disciplinary hearings or arrests. Some drop out. Some are maimed. Many student leaders themselves leave office bitter, disillusioned or psycho-spiritually broken. Their passion was pure, but the system gave them no scaffolding. But there is another way. It begins not with slogans or elections, but with structure. With strategy. With formation. The Early Adulthood Development Foundation (EADF) proposes a new pathway. We propose a reimagined pipeline for student leadership formation. One that prepares the next generation not just to protest, but to govern. Not just to lead a chant, but to lead a council. The first pivot is this: From performance to formation. Leadership is not a stage. It is a calling which requires self-mastery and not just public appeal. Training must begin before elections and continue long after the term begins. We must invest in deep personal formation, not reactive workshops. Second: From popularity to credibility. We need leaders who are trusted, not just followed. Who are respected for their integrity, not just their volume. This requires political literacy, strategic maturity and ethical clarity. The student body on campus must stop rewarding visibility without sustainable vision. And third: From protest to policy. Activism should not die when office begins. It should evolve. Protest must give birth to policy. Student leaders should be equipped to translate the pain they've seen into the policies they propose. That means knowing how systems work, how power flows and how decisions are made. This is where the proposed EADF scaffolds come in. They are simple, but transformative: Structured pre-election training to lay the foundation; Baseline entry assessments to identify maturity gaps; A leadership eligibility pipeline that ensures experience before elevation; and Consistent mentorship and coaching throughout the term. These are not luxuries. They are real necessities, if we are serious about cultivating ethical and effective leadership for the next generation. From churches and corporates, to governments and NGOs, crisis always mirrors character. The tertiary education sector is not just a space for academic growth. It offers a sacred potential rehearsal environment for public life. If we form leaders who can stand with conscience and insight in the boardroom, kneel with compassion in their dorm rooms and lead with temperate foresight in protest, then we are not just shaping student politics, we are safeguarding the future of leadership itself. DM Tebogo Mothibinyane is a student development practitioner. Professor Cecil Bodibe is a clinical psychologist and past DVC student at Unisa. Dr Zolile Mlisana is a paediatrician and past principal of Medunsa.
CBC
28-02-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Ottawa elects 3 new faces including an extra Liberal MPP
Ottawans elected three new faces to the provincial legislature on Thursday, one of whom helped the Liberal Party of Ontario grab an extra seat at Queen's Park. When the election was called, the Liberals held only nine seats across the entire province, and four of those were held by Ottawa Liberal MPPs. The party retained that quartet of seats on Thursday but also secured a fifth one in the formerly Conservative riding of Nepean thanks to Tyler Watt, a health-care worker. Watt succeeds Lisa MacLeod of the Progressive Conservatives, who announced in September she wouldn't be running again in her longtime riding. "I was nervous going into tonight, so I'm just trying to take in how exciting this is," Watt told CBC after he was projected to win. "It's just [a] really incredible experience that I will remember for the rest of my life." Familiar figures The other two Ottawa newcomers to the Ontario Legislature are both experienced municipal politicians. George Darouze, the city councillor for Ottawa's Osgoode ward, reclaimed the provincial Carleton seat for the Progressive Conservatives. Goldie Ghamari had won the riding for the PCs in 2022 but turned Independent last year and didn't run again. A number of Darouze's cohorts on council joined him at a golf and country club to track the results. "I'm feeling very humble. I'm very happy," Darouze said, crediting his team for slogging through a winter campaign. "We [had] people flipping, slipping and falling. It's amazing." George Darouze will be the new MPP for Carleton 4 hours ago Duration 1:30 Catherine McKenney, the former city councillor for Ottawa's Somerset ward, won the provincial seat of Ottawa Centre for the Ontario New Democratic Party. McKenney takes on the mantle from the NDP's Joel Harden, who will run in the upcoming federal election. McKenney said they felt a lot of relief once they were declared the winner. "You know, you work hard. You go to the doors, day in and day out, you talk to people. It always felt good ... but you want the results in and now we have them," McKenney said. WATCH | McKenney keeps it in the NDP family: Catherine McKenney wins Ottawa Centre 5 hours ago Duration 2:38 McCrimmon, Pasma returned to office In Kanata-Carleton, the Liberals' Karen McCrimmon secured her second term. She was first elected to the riding in a 2023 byelection, but only by a small margin, which made her riding one to watch last night. "I'm grateful to the people ... who have placed their trust [in me] once again," McCrimmon said. "And I'm grateful for my family. They're the ones who make the sacrifices to allow me to do this. Just a whole lot of gratitude going on here." During the last general election in 2022, Ottawa West-Nepean incumbent Chandra Pasma of the NDP also took her seat by a relatively small lead, raising the question of whether the party would hold it this time around. It did, with Pasma besting her opponents. "We knocked on as many doors as we could," Pasma said. "But of course there's extra challenges when you're doing this in February, from the freezing temperatures to the ice and snow.... We dealt with some slips and falls but we were really happy to have those conversations." After Thursday night's results, the Liberals emerged with five out of the nine ridings where Ottawa residents cast a ballot, with the PCs and the NDP each garnering two seats. Stephen Blais helped shore up the Liberals' local fortunes by retaining the Orléans seat, though the results for that race did not get released until after 11 p.m. With Watt's win in Nepean, the Liberals were the only party to pick up an additional seat.
CBC
18-02-2025
- Health
- CBC
Chandra Pasma 'not taking anything for granted' in latest bid to represent Ottawa West-Nepean
The weather outside may be frightful, but Chandra Pasma is using that to her advantage when knocking on doors in the provincial riding of Ottawa West-Nepean. "You have to be brief because people don't want their door open long, but that's also not bad for us because we need to keep moving in order to keep the blood circulating," the incumbent candidate says. Pasma won the seat for the Ontario New Democratic Party in the 2022 general election, but only by about 900 votes over the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario candidate. Now she's seeking a second term in a tight winter campaign window against a slate of first-time rivals, and the clock is ticking. "We are not taking anything for granted," she said last Tuesday. "We have 17 days to keep making that case to people." Pasma, who introduced Marit Stiles to the stage when the NDP leader visited Ottawa early in the campaign, cited health care and affordability as the top issues she's hearing about. "People are really concerned about the fact that they can't access a family doctor or that they're going to the Queensway Carleton Hospital and they're waiting 14, 16 hours to see a doctor," she said. "We have an aging population. People need access to health care when they need it." State of health care 'unacceptable' Brett Szmul, a teaching assistant at Carleton University, has never run for office and is doing so in this election for the Liberal Party of Ontario. He got his first glimpse at his newly printed campaign material last Tuesday during a round of door-knocking near Fisher Heights Park, where he filmed a promotional video. On one doorstep, he modestly left a leaflet featuring his face tucked underneath the resident's Amazon parcel. Szmul also cited the state of the health-care system as a major concern — and one of the reasons he decided to take a run at provincial politics. "Right now [it's] unacceptable," he said. Later, he described a memorable exchange with a woman who told him through tears about how her grandmother waited for care in an emergency room for about 18 hours. "This is an elderly woman we're talking about who is in pain," he said. 'We need strong leadership' Like Szmul, Husein Abu-Rayash has not run for MPP before, and like Pasma, the PC candidate appears to be keeping a close eye on the clock. Last Tuesday, when CBC caught up with Abu-Rayash in the Carlingwood area and asked if he rang at a door a second time after not getting an initial response, he said with a chuckle: "We have a 20-second policy," before moving on to another address. Husein originally intended to run in Nepean and faced backlash from that area's outgoing MPP that some criticized as being Islamaphobic. "My background is to serve this country," the former Canadian Armed Forces member told CBC last week. Like PC Party Leader Doug Ford, Husein was sporting "Canada Is Not For Sale" headwear on top of a "Protect Ontario" hoodie. "A lot of people are concerned [about] protecting their jobs, and we need strong leadership," he said when asked if people have brought up the threat of U.S. tariffs. Asked about whether issues like health care, affordability and education have also come up during his travels, Husein returned straight to the topic of leadership. "A lot of people's main concern is they wanted someone who's able to protect their jobs," he said. "There is ... a gap in the federal level." The Green Party of Ontario declined to make its candidate for the riding, Sophia Andrew-Joiner, available for an interview. According to her campaign bio, Andrew-Joiner has worked on Parliament Hill as a volunteer for federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May and as a parliamentary assistant. Her priorities in Ottawa include good public transit, affordable housing and increased supports for halfway homes and emergency shelters, according to the bio.
