Community Service Policy

The Community Service Policy of the University of the Free State (UFS) is founded on the vision and mission of the UFS to be an excellent, equitable and innovative university through the pursuit of scholarship as embodied in the creation, integration, application and transmission of knowledge by means of the promotion of an academic culture expressed through quality education, research and community service.

The Community Service Policy recognises the continuous challenge faced by the UFS in the field of pro-active transformation and the importance of responding vigorously to this challenge. This response necessitates becoming a model of a truly robust and responsive university that uses its teaching, research and community service capacities to make a significant contribution to the development of its province and also that of its wider region, South Africa and Africa.

Such a contribution, with a “scholarship of engagement” at its heart, aims to enhance cooperation between the university and its surrounding community, using the UFS as a staging ground for continued and creative interaction.

The Community Service Policy acknowledges the concurrent challenge of operating in a truly African reality and reflecting an African consciousness and identity, and undertakes to champion the contextualisation of the UFS as a university of excellence in, and for, Africa.

The Community Service Policy thus envisions community engagement in the form of a pioneering approach that is increasingly integrated with teaching, learning and research.

Definition of Community Engagement

Continuously negotiated collaborations and partnerships between the UFS and the interest groups that it interacts with, aimed at building and exchanging the knowledge, skills, expertise and resources required to develop and sustain society.