When you step into Prof Monwabisi Knowledge Ralarala's office at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), your attention is immediately drawn to seven framed certificates adorning the wall.

But these are more than academic qualifications. The collection traces an academic journey that began with his first qualification as an undergraduate student at UWC in the early 1990s. It tells the story of a young man who left his rural villages of kwaLuthuli and kwaNoncampa, outside Tsomo and King William’s Town respectively, in the Eastern Cape, to pursue his education, armed with little more than determination and a strong belief in the power of education.

More than three decades later, that determination has culminated in the latest achievement of UWC’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic – a third PhD: Doctor of Business Administration in Higher Education awarded by the University of Bath in the UK. Prof Ralarala was part of the Department of Higher Education and Training’s (DHET) Future Leaders’ Initiative, locally coordinated by Nelson Mandela University, in collaboration with the University of Bath in the UK.

Drawing inspiration from the University of Bath programme, he is currently developing a home-grown doctoral programme to be offered by UWC. The emphasis is on higher education leadership. Prof Ralarala said the proposed programme could be the first of its kind on the continent if it receives the necessary approval and support from DHET and from the relevant statutory bodies. The proposal has already received support in principle within UWC, with discussions underway with DHET.

The focus of the proposed programme will be on developing visionary leaders capable of transforming higher education across Africa, and it will target both aspiring and senior professionals in the sector. The programme is intended to build a pipeline of future leaders who are equipped not only with academic expertise but with the leadership skills needed to guide universities through increasingly complex challenges. 

"This will give leaders and aspiring leaders in higher education an edge as senior professionals, enabling them to deal better with crises and complex problems. Such a doctorate would equip leaders to tackle these challenges in practical ways,” Prof Ralarala remarked. 

He noted that, while higher education has many accomplished scholars in senior management, academic expertise does not necessarily prepare them formally or practically for leadership or training beyond their disciplines. He elaborated on this: 

“As academics, we are often trained in a specific discipline to become leaders in our own right, but we are confined in our own discipline. As we move up the leadership ladder, we often don’t get the opportunity to be properly capacitated to become leaders and do justice to leadership. As a leader, you’ve got to do much more to pave the way … sometimes you have to ‘make the road by walking’, as Horton and Freire remind us,” he said.

While Prof Ralarala is one of the leading scholars in higher education today, having earned his first PhD from Stellenbosch University in 2010 and his second from the University of the Free State in 2015, and having built his expertise in forensic linguistics, his path to becoming an academic was neither simple nor predictable.

He admits that registering for a Higher Diploma in Education at UWC in 1992 was never part of his original plan but was instead a practical choice after his dreams of studying law or journalism were dashed.

Financial constraints prevented him from pursuing law, as completing the degree would take too long. At the same time, his grandmother discouraged him from pursuing journalism, believing it was a dangerous profession given the country’s turbulent political transition in the 1990s. 

“My parents wanted me to qualify quickly, teach and come back and start paying ‘black tax’” [financial support that working Black professionals give to their extended family as an act of gratitude].

"So, I ended up at UWC. It was a very interesting experience in that I did not apply to come here. I was a walk-in student and was told in no uncertain terms that the University was no longer taking any students and was done with registration."

Despite initially being turned away, Prof Ralarala refused to give up. He returned to the campus for three consecutive days until an administrator noticed him and handed him application forms for the few programmes that still had spaces. That determination would become a defining characteristic throughout his career, and one opportunity seemed to lead naturally to another.

“After that, every opportunity opened another door, and I simply kept walking through it,” he said.

While completing his Honours degree in 1997, he became a teacher at Langa High School, where he went beyond the classroom by establishing a steel band and partnering with Robben Island to give learners a firsthand connection to South Africa’s liberation history.

His next opportunity took him into academia. After completing postgraduate studies at UCT in 1999, in the same year he accepted a lecturing position at Stellenbosch University, where he completed his Master’s degree and later his first PhD.

However, his first doctorate left him feeling that something was missing. The topic had been assigned to him: persuasion in African languages – and he struggled to connect with it.

“I didn’t feel I had done justice to the topic. It wasn’t really coming from my heart.” 

With the support of the Canon Collins Trust, he started again, pursuing a second PhD at the University of the Free State on a subject he was passionate about – the intersection of language and law (forensic linguistics). His research examined how poor translation and the inaccurate recording of police sworn statements can cause evidence to be lost in translation, thereby affecting court judgements.

His own experiences of language and accent bias also shaped his work. As a student from a rural background, he often encountered subtle prejudice linked to language and accent. He remembers classmates believing that students who spoke polished English were automatically more intelligent – a perception he strongly challenges.

“English proficiency does not equal intelligence,” he said. “Great ideas are not determined by an accent.”