With hardly five months to go before vacating her position, after her contract was not renewed, Walter Sisulu University’s first female vice-chancellor, Prof Rushiella Nolundi Songca, will leave the institution with her head held high.
This after having transformed the rural Eastern Cape university — academically and through infrastructure improvements — from crisis level.
Songca, who made history when she took over the reins from Rob Midgley, making her the first female VC of the troubled institution, used the occasion of her recent appearance before the commission of inquiry investigating several shooting incidents involving students at the institution in 2025, to reflect on her time in office.
She is set to vacate her post in March 2026.
In August, the university’s council announced it would not be renewing her contract when it expires in March.
The announcement was made by the university’s council chair, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi SC, despite Songca only having served for one term.
Songca, who told the commission she had inherited a university “characterised by multiple interconnected crises across all operational dimensions”, said she would be leaving the institution in a far better space than it was when she took over the VC reins in 2021.
Songca told the commission, led by retired Constitutional Court justice Chris Jafta, that when she arrived at the institution, some governance structures had collapsed, infrastructure had deteriorated to critical levels, financial systems were inadequate, while capacity and qualifications of academic staff was a challenge.
Before her appointment, Songca was the university’s deputy vice-chancellor for academic research.
“When I assumed the position of VC in 2021, I found a university that was characterised by multiple interconnected crisis across all operational dimensions.
“Governance structures had collapsed, some academic programmes had lost accreditation, such as the LLB qualification, while infrastructure had deteriorated to critical levels, with a high maintenance backlog.
“Financial systems were inadequate, with unsustainable student debt levels, among other challenges that posed a risk to the successful implementation of the institution’s vision,” she told the commission.
Songca said her primary goal was to “resuscitate the institution’s core business of teaching and learning, research and innovation and community engagement”.
As such, a new vision — Vision 2030 — was adopted.
“This bold, comprehensive 10-year transformation strategy was deliberately designed to address our institutional crisis.
“The 10-year timetable was strategically chosen, recognising that sustainable institutional transformation, from infrastructure renovation and development to academic restoration, from financial stabilisation to university community safety, would require sustained effort, substantial resources, and time to rebuild stakeholder trust,” she said.
Songca said she was “shocked” that there were many academics at the institution that were not adequately qualified.
Many academics were also without the necessary tools of the trade, such as laptops or desktops, and students were being taught “through WhatsApp messages”.
When she took over, Songca said only 19% of staff members had PhDs, a figure which had since increased to 30%.
To effectively execute her Vision 2030, Songca said she needed executive managers “who would be both responsible and capable of operational execution and management of the strategy”.
“Consequently, it was essential to appoint competent and qualified deputy vice-chancellors, executive deans and their deputies, and other senior managers who could translate the strategic vision into operational reality.
“The university has made significant strides in the past four years in implementing Vision 2030, transforming governance structures, restoring academic integrity and upgrading critical infrastructure.
“However, we cannot overstate that WSU’s position as a university of access, serving SA’s most marginalised communities, creates unique pressure that exceeds our institutional capacity to address independently,” she said.
Songca said WSU’s challenges stemmed from interlocking factors such as the profound socioeconomic vulnerability of its student population, critical dependency of NSFAS funding, inadequate accommodation infrastructure, pervasive crime in surrounding communities, and the accumulated student debt of more than R1.4bn “that continues to grow despite our interventions”.
These systematic challenges, Songca said, “create an environment where student grievances are often rooted in factors beyond the university’s immediate control, yet they inevitably manifest within our campus community”.
“Given the dilapidated infrastructure, for both the living and learning spaces, I prioritised building strategic relationships with government departments, the Sector Education and Training Authorities, and other funding bodies, to generate resourced for infrastructure development, student bursaries, and other institutional needs.”
This was essential, to transform the negative perceptions funders and stakeholders held about the institution.
Despite significant results, substantial worked remained.
The outgoing VC told the Jafta commission that it is against this backdrop of institutional transformation, ongoing infrastructure constraints, and profound socio-economic pressures affecting their student body, that the protest incidents of the 2025 academic year, one of which claimed a life of 24-year old Sisonke Mbolekwa, and left three other students injured, must be understood.
Daily Dispatch
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