BL Premium reports that the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals (Absip) has called on asset managers to look beyond the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Wits University when recruiting and deciding which institutions of higher learning to support.

Absip president Polo Radebe made the plea at the organisation’s CEO Roundtable with Stanlib boss Derrick Msibi last week. She subsequently explained the lobby group’s position as follows: “The tendency of industry role players to support and recruit from established universities poses a risk of perpetuating old divides between traditionally white universities and historically black institutions. This is as a result of many insiders and incumbents in the financial services industry having studied at particular universities and therefore having a sense of familiarity and faith with the academic grounding that those universities provide. Given the historical imbalance of resources, this means that we run the risk of condemning students from historically black universities to a new hurdle of access into the workplace.” While not directly answering Radebe’s plea, Msibi, a UCT alumni himself, alluded to the networking advantages that come from studying at certain universities. To remedy what it says is the dominance of a few institutions, Absip has expanded its student chapter to the University of the Western Cape, University of KwaZulu-Natal, North West University, University of Limpopo and the University of Venda.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Abelo Khumalo at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)

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