EMBRACING HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTIONS
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HIGHER LEARNING INSTITUTIONS SHOULD NOT TAME & INTIMIDATE US:
WE SHOULD EMBRACE THEM WITH A CLEAR VISION AND MINDSET
Image: Thami akaMbongo Manzana (Source: Facebook)
There are moments when memory forces reflection. Standing in the Yvonne Banning Studio at Wits University recently took me back to conversations with the late Simba Pemhenayi, who once warned: “Institutions can either make you or break you.”
That warning still matters.
Today, the Cultural and Creative Industries face serious governance and leadership challenges.
Many practitioners feel excluded from decision-making spaces, while higher learning institutions are often viewed with suspicion or fear. But perhaps the real question is not whether institutions tame us — it is whether we are entering them with clarity, purpose and strategy.
This conversation matters because the future of our sector depends on who occupies positions of influence. If we are serious about transformation, we cannot afford to stand outside the systems that shape policy and power. We must engage them — not to be silenced, but to be equipped.
There are moments when memory forces reflection. Standing in the Yvonne Banning Studio at Wits University recently took me back to conversations with the late Simba Pemhenayi, who once warned: “Institutions can either make you or break you.”
That warning still matters.
Today, the Cultural and Creative Industries face serious governance and leadership challenges.
Many practitioners feel excluded from decision-making spaces, while higher learning institutions are often viewed with suspicion or fear. But perhaps the real question is not whether institutions tame us — it is whether we are entering them with clarity, purpose and strategy.
This conversation matters because the future of our sector depends on who occupies positions of influence. If we are serious about transformation, we cannot afford to stand outside the systems that shape policy and power. We must engage them — not to be silenced, but to be equipped.
Image: Simba Pemhenayi (Source: Facebook)
The late Simba Pemhenayi — may his soul continue to rest in power — once shared words that have stayed with me for the rest of my life.
He spoke of how he had seen brilliant, fearless artists enter institutions full of fire, only to emerge tamed — softened, cautious, and sometimes toothless. Their passion diluted. Their voices quieter. Their resistance negotiated.
We had these conversations before I enrolled at the University of Cape Town in 1999. And when I arrived at UCT, Simba’s words echoed in my mind daily.
At UCT, I saw it all — the good, the bad, and the ugly. It would be dishonest of me to discredit UCT, because it shaped me profoundly. It equipped me as a performer. It sharpened my craft. It prepared me for the Cultural and Creative Industries in ways I could not have imagined at the time. For that, I remain deeply grateful.
Yet gratitude does not mean blindness.
Image: Yvonne Banning (Source: UCT)
Yesterday, during a visit to Wits University, I found myself standing in the Yvonne Banning Studio. And suddenly, memory became present.
Yvonne Banning was my voice lecturer at UCT. She was rigorous. Demanding. But deeply invested in our growth. She insisted that Black students who struggled with English receive additional support. She pushed us beyond comfort. She wanted us to succeed — not just pass.
When I graduated in 2001 and joined Magnet Theatre’s production of ONNEST’BO by Mark Fleishman, I even stayed at her home in Mowbray. I remember her cat — which terrified me because of stories I grew up hearing about cats. That’s a story for another day.
Image: Thami with Cecil Berry (Source: Facebook)
Yvonne Banning at UCT took us through Mama Cicely Berry’s The Actor and the Voice. Years later, I was fortunate enough to meet Mama Cicely Berry at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford Upon Avon, UK, through the Brett Goldin Bursary. To sit with her one-on-one was a moment I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Standing in that studio at Wits, I asked myself:
What is the Universe trying to communicate to me now?
Why this moment?
Why now?
For over 25 years, I have navigated this sector — as a practitioner, advocate, cultural worker. Today I find myself again in academic spaces, confronting difficult realities about the state of the Cultural and Creative Industries in South Africa.
And here is the truth:
Our industry is often led by politically aligned and administrators — many highly educated — but not always rooted in lived experience of the sector.
Influential positions — Director-Generals, Deputy Director-Generals, Chief Directors, CEOs of State-funded institutions — are rarely filled by practitioners who have lived the daily realities of rehearsal rooms, touring struggles, funding rejections, or community arts survival.
We ask why.
Image: DSAC Logo (Source: Facebook)
But we must also ask ourselves uncomfortable questions.
How many practitioners deliberately study Public Management and Administration?
How many of us prepare ourselves academically for governance roles?
How many of us position ourselves strategically for boards, councils, executive leadership?
We cannot complain that government buildings are filled by “those who studied” if we refuse to study the systems that govern us.
Yes, qualification requirements change. Yes, they sometimes exclude. Yes, institutions have historically been tools of exclusion and colonisation.
But decolonisation does not mean abandonment. It means confrontation. It means infiltration. It means transformation from within.
Image: Wits University (Source: Wits)
Isn’t it time we look at Higher Learning Institutions with an eagle eye — not as enemies, but as tools?
Isn’t it time we engage academics to our advantage?
Isn’t it time we stop seeing universities as places that tame us, and start seeing them as places we can strategically occupy?
Simba was right: institutions can make you or break you.
But perhaps the difference lies in mindset.
Institutions break you when you enter them seeking validation.
They equip you when you enter them with purpose.
We must encourage practitioners not to fear higher learning — but to approach it with clarity. With vision. With political consciousness. With strategy.
Higher Learning Institutions can play a vital role in advancing the Cultural and Creative Industries:
They can produce sector-informed policy thinkers.
They can train arts administrators who understand lived realities.
They can generate research that strengthens funding arguments.
They can house archives that preserve our histories.
They can incubate leaders who understand both governance and grassroots realities.
But this requires intention.
We must also acknowledge those within institutions who genuinely serve the sector — lecturers like the late Yvonne Banning, mentors like the late Simba Pemhenayi — people who used institutional power to uplift, not suppress.
There are academics who are committed to transformation. There are scholars who fight internally to shift systems. They must be supported and partnered with — not dismissed.
At the same time, we must remain vigilant against those who use institutional authority to defend broken systems instead of fixing them.
The problem is not education.
The problem is how education is positioned and used.
If Higher Learning Institutions become spaces that protect bureaucracy and silence dissent, then they will tame us.
But if we enter them with courage, strategic thinking, and sector commitment, they can become powerful instruments of reform.
Our State-funded institutions and councils often lack practitioners with lived experience. Perhaps the solution is not withdrawal — but preparation.
Perhaps the next generation of artists must also be policy thinkers.
Budget readers.
Governance specialists.
Administrators who understand the Public Finance Management Act.
Leaders who can sit at executive tables and deconstruct them.
Isn’t part of decolonisation reclaiming the very spaces once used to exclude us?
Standing in that Yvonne Banning Studio at Wits, I felt something shift. Not abandonment of Simba’s warning — but a deeper understanding of it.
Simba did not say avoid institutions.
He said be careful of being tamed.
The responsibility is ours.
Image: Thami akaMbongo Manzana (Source: Facebook)
We must enter institutions not to be absorbed — but to absorb knowledge.
Not to be silenced — but to sharpen our voices.
Not to defend broken systems — but to dismantle and rebuild them.
Higher Learning Institutions should not intimidate us.
They should not tame us.
We must embrace them with a clear vision and mindset — and use them to advance the Cultural and Creative Industries in South Africa.
I truly hope more practitioners refuse to be broken by institutions.
May they instead be equipped — and return to the sector stronger, sharper, and ready to build the future we deserve.
Perhaps the real legacy we owe to those who walked before us — to voices like Simba Pemhenayi — is not fear of institutions, but wisdom in how we approach them. Let us not be intimidated, nor tamed. Let us enter with sharp minds, strong identities, and an unshaken commitment to the Cultural and Creative Industries. If we engage higher learning with purpose and courage, we may not only transform ourselves — we may finally begin to transform the very system that once sought to define us.
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