Although he needs help walking and his hair is almost completely grey, Nelson Mandela still has the power to impress the girls. Mandela, wearing a colorful green silk shirt, spent a few minutes with each of the students swapping stories about their backgrounds and what they planned to study.”Throughout the world, nobody can take leadership of a country without an education,” he told one of the students. “ I am so nervous, I feel like I am about to collapse,” said Ayanda Khala.

She was one of the 20 students who won a Mandela Rhodes Scholarships and got to meet the former president in Houghton yesterday.

Now in its third year, this has been the biggest group to be awarded bursaries.

The students come from all over the southern Africa and have all been awarded the scholarship for post-graduate degrees. Khala has chosen to study for an Ma in dramatic arts at wits University.

“When he walked in I had to say to myself: 'Okay, this is real', then I just burst into tears,” she said.

Mandela congratulated Boitumelo Magolego on receiving the scholarship to study am honors degree in engineering at the University of Pretoria, saying “ my grandson is studying there, if you meet him my regards”.

Despite looking very frail, Mandela was full of his usual humor and had a special quip for all of the students as they came to introduce themselves to him.

I envy you for your hairstyle ,” Mandela told Marlon Burgess, whose long dreadlocks caught the ex-presidents eye.

Burgess, a 26-year-old university of Cape Town (UCT) student, was thrilled at meeting Madiba.”Its overwhelming but I'm trying not to allow it to overwhelm me ... just to engage with the human being that is Nelson Mandela.”

Many of the students are studying at UCT and Mandela asked each of them with a big grin if they knew his wife, who is a university chairman. “have you met my wife?” Mandela asked Sheetal Vallabh, a Master psychology student.

“I wish she was here today, but she has many engagements. She is more busy than i am.” we met for lunch, go off and then only see each other again for supper. “ I wish I had married a wife who was less busy,” he said. Madiba shook Nyika Machenjeze”s hand, a master student from the University of Fort Hare and said he had also studied there.

He amusingly added that he had not granulated though because he had been expelled. When 22-years-old international studies Master student Rikus Oswald told Madiba they shared the same birthday. Madiba said:” We have to arrange a birthday together.”

I'm up to that,” said Oswald.

Sean Johnson, the chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said the scholarship programme was meant to “nurture some of the future young leaders in Africa”.

“We have a different group of people doing different studies from diverse countries in Africa.” Johnson said.

“The dream of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation is that by 2012 we will have 100 scholars getting bursaries a year.” He said the day Mandela met the student was always the “nicest day of the year” for the foundation.

“Today we were by this great leader and it and it made us feel that maybe we can be a little like this man.” said Judy Sikuza, an industrial psychology Honor student. “We have had many workshops this year,” said Leanne Johanson, an   psychology Honor student. “And we really bonded strongly, so it is great to see everyone again.”

The class of 2007 comprises students from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, for the first time.

Madiba told Rumbidzal Goredema from Zimbabwe that, according to his wife, the brightest student at UCT were from Zimbabwe.

“Even though you are going away (from Zimbabwe) I hope you will be able to influence people in Zimbabwe to do the right thing,” he said.