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28 March 2018 Photo Supplied
Building programmes receive accreditation
The vision for the UFS Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management is to be the preferred choice for built environment students and the preferred provider of built environment graduates.
In 2017 the South African Council for the Project and Construction Management Professions (SACPCMP) visited the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management at the University of the Free State (UFS), to re-accredit programmes offered by the department.

In January 2018 the department received the news that the SACPCMP granted full accreditation for the next five years (January 2018 to December 2022) for the programmes BSc Construction Management; BSc Hons Construction Management; and Master’s in Land and Property Development Management (Project Management specialisation).

The South African Council for Property Valuation Profession (SACPVP) also granted conditional accreditation for the Master’s in Land and Property Development Management (MLPM) (valuation specialisation) programme.

The value of accreditation
According to Prof Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu, Head of the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management, it means the department is recognised as a certified place of learning offering a certified programme mix recognised by the SACPCMP as meeting its standards. It further means that the department, via its programmes, is able to produce graduates who are “fit for purpose”, technically competent, and have developed and can demonstrate a range of skills.

She added: “Having accredited programmes makes our programmes attractive, with wider employment opportunities. It certifies that our graduates from the Construction Management programme are qualified and competent. They have achieved a minimum level of competence to embark on the journey to practise professionally.”

Achieving and maintaining programme accreditation from the respective national and international professional bodies is the ultimate goal for the department. “This hallmark of quality reflects the university’s aspiration towards excellence,” Prof Kajimo-Shakantu said.

On offer at the department
The department offers BSc in Construction Management and BSc Hons in Construction Management and BSc Quantity Surveying and BSc Hons Quantity Surveying respectively.  These programmes are offered both on residential (full time) as well as via compact mode of delivery (block sessions) for those already working in the construction industry but who wish to obtain or further their educational qualifications. 

At master’s level, the department offers a structured Master of Land and Property Development Management Programme (MLPM) with specialisation in either Valuation or Project Management. Other programmes on offer are the following   master’s and doctoral programmes, namely; MSc Construction Management, MSc Property Science and MSc Quantity Surveying and PhD Construction Management, PhD Property Science and PhD Quantity Surveying respectively.

“My vision for the Department of Quantity Surveying and Construction Management is to be the preferred choice for built environment students and the preferred provider of built environment graduates,” said Prof Kajimo-Shakantu.

“Construction Management programmes, like the other programmes we offer, lead to exciting, challenging and rewarding careers in the construction industry and beyond. Our graduates are also highly sought-after by built environment employers nationally and internationally,” she concluded.

News Archive

The TRC legitimised apartheid - Mamdani
2010-07-20

 Prof. Mahmood Mamdani
“The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) accepted as legitimate the rule of law that undergirded apartheid. It defined as crime only those acts that would have been considered criminal under the laws of apartheid.”

This statement was made by the internationally acclaimed scholar, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani, when he delivered the Africa Memorial Lecture at the University of the Free State (UFS) last week on the topic: Lessons of Nuremberg and Codesa: Where do we go from here?

“According to the TRC, though crimes were committed under apartheid, apartheid itself – including the law enforced by the apartheid state – was not a crime,” he said.

He said the social justice challenges that South Africa faced today were as a result of the TRC’s failure to broaden the discussion of justice beyond political to social justice.

He said it had to go beyond “the liberal focus on bodily integrity” and acknowledge the violence that deprived the vast majority of South Africans of their means of livelihood.

“Had the TRC acknowledged pass laws and forced removals as constituting the core social violence of apartheid, as the stuff of extra-economic coercion and primitive accumulation, it would have been in a position to imagine a socio-economic order beyond a liberalised post-apartheid society,” he said.

“It would have been able to highlight the question of justice in its fullness, and not only as criminal and political, but also as social.”

He said the TRC failed to go beyond the political reconciliation achieved at Codesa and laid the foundation for a social reconciliation. “It was unable to think beyond crime and punishment,” he said.

He said it recognised as victims only individuals and not groups, and human rights violations only as violations of “the bodily integrity of an individual”; that is, only torture and murder.

“How could this be when apartheid was brazenly an ideology of group oppression and appropriation? How could the TRC make a clear-cut distinction between violence against persons and that against property when most group violence under apartheid constituted extra-economic coercion, in other words, it was against both person and property?”, he asked.

“The TRC was credible as performance, as theatre, but failed as a social project”.

Prof. Mamdani is the Director of the Institute of Social Research at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda; and the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Department of Anthropology at the Columbia University in New York, USA.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
20 July 2010
 

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