Hotstix ’ believes it ’ s never too late for an education
HE HAS done it all. Travelled the world, met world leaders and made enough money to give his family a comfortable life, but Sipho “Hotstix ” Mabuse is still yearning for one thing – an education.
The 62-year-old musician, who obtained his matric last year, is currently writing his first-year exams. Mabuse is studying for a degree in anthropology with the University of South Africa.
Mabuse says it is not just a
I am motivated by my
wife and children, they all have degrees
need for a qualification that drives him to study, but a need for knowledge.
“I was driven by the need for education to go back to school. I needed it to empower myself because education enables you to engage,” he says.
He hopes, “God willing ”, to finish his degree in five years.
“You must understand that I travel a lot, and I am a father and a husband,” Mabuse says.
He says he feels privileged because not many people have the opportunity to finish their studies and fulfil their dreams
Mabuse says many people are forced to sacrifice their dreams.
“Some have to become bread- winners in their homes and take care of extended families. Their struggles are even bigger than mine because I had a successful career and a stable income,” he says.
“When I went back to school, I had met most of my needs and had achieved a lot of things in life.”
Mabuse is making up for the more than 40 lost years without studying. He dropped out of school in Grade 11 in 1969 to pursue his music career.
But despite having a successful international career, a great sense of not being fulfilled kept worrying him.
He went back to sit at a desk and passed his matric at an adult basic education and training centre in Pimville, Soweto, at the age of 61.
He says the feeling of being a student is a wonderfully inexpressible feeling.
“I can ’ t even explain how it feels to be in the library, studying. I have received warm welcomes from fellow students who say I inspire them. But it is them who inspire me a lot,” he says.
He also jokingly says he is motivated by his children and wife because they all have degrees and he is the only one who has not been to university.
Mabuse says he is not studying in order to pursue a career.
“I ’ m already at an unemployable age. But I hope I can be a visiting lecturer when I have a Masters degree,” he said.