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19 March 2018 Photo Rulanzen Martin
Prof Solomon writes book on human security in Africa
Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Acting Vice-Rector: Academic; Prof Hussein Solomon; and Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of the Humanities, at the book launch.
An acclaimed academic regarding security issues on the African continent, Prof Hussein Solomon, recently launched the book African Security in the twenty-first Century.

The book, which was launched on 13 March 2018 at the Archive for Contemporary Affairs on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS), took three years to complete and has 11 chapters and 300 pages.

“It has been difficult, some of the chapters did not appear, but will be released as journal articles,” Prof Solomon said.

Focus more on human than state security
“This particular book project had its origins four years ago at the African Studies Association conference, which was held in San Diego,” Prof Solomon said. 

This is where he met Stephen Emmerson, co-author of the book. “We attempted to make the book as comprehensive as possible, covering all the major sources of insecurity on the African continent – from resource conflict to conflicting identities to drug-trafficking and terrorism,” he said.

The approach of this book was to focus on human security, which is the security of ordinary Africans, in contrast to that of the state and/or regime security. 

News Archive

Rhodes professor calls for accountability in teacher education
2013-11-14

 

 Prof Jean Baxen of Rhodes University and Prof Dennis Francis, Dean of the Faculty of Education of the UFS.
Photo: Stephen Collett
15 November 2013

 



Lecture (pdf)

 

“Our education system needs quality teacher education.”

This was the message from Prof Jean Baxen, Deputy Dean of Research at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. She delivered the Education Public Lecture on ‘The lives of children, citizenship and teacher education: challenges and opportunities’ at the University of the Free State’s Bloemfontein Campus.

Growing up in White River, the rural areas of Eastern Transvaal (as it was previously known), Prof Baxen took the audience on a journey of the imagination. She shared stories of how she and fellow learners walked miles to get to school and how her son found himself in a situation of being unsure about his own racial identity, questioning what it meant to be ‘coloured’. She also related stories of how teachers are not sufficiently prepared to mediate information on HIV/Aids.

These stories revealed how little teachers cared, and also how difficult and challenging it is for learners to cope in such teaching and learning environments – thus calling for quality teacher education.

She stressed the fact that quality teacher education is needed in South Africa to assist in curbing the challenges children and fellow citizens come across in our broader society. “It is important that, as teacher educators, we should groom teachers to find and understand their identity, sexuality, and also the world they live in. There is an urgent need for us to hold ourselves and others accountable and to not distance ourselves and make it someone else’s responsibility – it is our joint responsibility as citizens,” she said.

We need a pedagogy that would navigate and start formulating a language that we could use to face these challenges, she proposed.

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