For nine MUT student leaders, a journey to Rwanda became their first opportunity to travel beyond South Africa’s borders. Behind that milestone is a partnership championed by Professor Sibusiso Chalufu, former Interim Dean of Students at MUT, who has taken up a new leadership role as Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, leaving MUT with a relationship that has already moved beyond signatures on paper.
There is something bittersweet about celebrating an institutional partnership at the very moment one of the people who helped bring it to life has left. For Mangosuthu University of Technology (MUT), the partnership with the University of Kigali (UoK) in Rwanda is part of the legacy Professor Chalufu leaves behind.
While serving as Interim Dean of Students at MUT, Professor Chalufu drew on his networks and relationships to connect MUT with the University of Kigali. Importantly, his contribution did not end with introducing two institutions to each other; he championed an engagement that would create tangible opportunities for MUT students.
That vision came to life on 20 September 2026 when nine members of MUT’s Student Representative Council travelled to Rwanda as part of a delegation led by Dr Xolile Ngubane, Senior Director: Office of the Vice-Chancellor and Principal. For all nine student leaders, it was their first journey outside South Africa.
What might otherwise have remained an institutional agreement suddenly became personal: nine young leaders carrying their passports across a national border, encountering another African university, engaging international academics and student leaders, and seeing themselves as part of a much bigger global higher education community.