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19 March 2018 | Story Eugene Seegers | Photo Charl Devenish
UFS collaborates with Wits UWC to present higher education PhD Conference
Prof Merridy Wilson-Strydom (UFS, Prof Patricio Langa (UWC), Prof Melanie Walker (UFS), and Prof Stephanie Allais (Wits) at the keynote address delivered by Prof Allais.
The higher education sector in Africa has seen dramatic shifts over the past few years, and has attracted renewed attention from global funders and national policy-makers. In turn, country-wide challenges of poverty, inequalities, and university histories and stratification in South Africa and elsewhere on the continent offer rich opportunities for critical, theoretically-informed research to investigate and understand the conditions of possibility for change nationally and comparatively.

In particular, three centres at universities in South Africa have decided to build an organic collaboration, starting with research by doctoral research fellows at these universities, who presented papers at a two-day conference. The conference was jointly organised and hosted under the umbrella of the SARCHi (South African Research Chairs Initiative) Chair in Higher Education and Human Development at the Bloemfontein Campus of University of the Free State (UFS). Two keynote addresses on significant issues in the sector were presented by Prof Stephanie Allais, Director of the Centre for Researching Education and Labour (REAL, University of the Witwatersrand) and Prof Patricio Langa, Associate Professor of Sociology and Higher Education Studies at the Institute for Post-School Studies (IPPS, University of the Western Cape).

HE researchers collaborate
This ongoing collaboration between the three universities was initiated by Prof Melanie Walker at the UFS, in partnership with Prof Allais and Prof Langa and their institutions, with each institution taking a turn to host similar conferences. The conference at the UFS not only brought together doctoral researchers from these three centres to share their research, but it also offered the opportunity to engage with other early-career and experienced scholars. 

The conference was themed Critical Higher Education Studies: Theories and Research and aimed to build research relationships and stimulate debate among scholars. It was jointly organised by postdoctoral fellows: Ntimi Mtawa and Faith Mkwananzi (UFS), Bothwell Manyonga (Wits), and Patrick Swanzy (UWC).

Significant benefits for conference-goers and presenters alike
Conference-goers, as well as the presenters, reported great benefits as a result of their attendance and participation in the event. The research papers were important and central. However, the broader value of the conference was the platform it offered to young, emerging scholars to showcase their research projects, receive critical comments, listen and learn from one another, in addition to engaging with experienced scholars. 

Secondly, the variety of PhD research fellows who presented their research further enhanced critical academic engagement and the exchange of ideas. Presenters reported that the quality of feedback and comments on their projects had especially enhanced their current work. The focus of the stimulating keynote addresses also challenged participants to think well and critically about the field of higher education. Practical skills development also featured on the programme in the form of learning how to present a TED-style talk.

“The conference was especially valuable in bringing together early-career researchers working on critical and theorised approaches to higher education,” said Prof Walker. She added, “In particular, I valued the diversity of both the projects and their theoretical frames, which proved especially rich, together with the outstanding keynote contributions—one from political economy and one from sociology—which shaped the event as a whole.”

News Archive

UFS sets trend for higher education institutions
2005-09-21

The University of the Free State (UFS) offers more service-learning courses than any other higher education institution in the country and has the highest number of students enrolled for these service-learning courses.

This was the research findings on higher education institutions conducted between 2001 and 2004 by the Joint Education Trust (JET) into service-learning courses. These are courses which seek to integrate service to the community into the academic core of higher education institutions.

The results of this research indicated that the UFS is one of the few higher education institutions in South Africa that have made progress in integrating community engagement into the mainstream academy.

According to the findings 2 233 students at the UFS participated in service-learning courses supported by JET, while 858 students at the University of Transkei (UNITRA), 636 students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and only 600 students at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) participated in service-learning courses.

In total there were 6 930 students participating in service learning courses supported by the JET at 10 institutions throughout the country.

The research also found that out of a total of 182 service-learning courses supported by JET countrywide, the UFS had the highest number of such courses at 42, followed by WITS with 28, the University of Kwazulu Natal with 26, UWC 24 and UNITRA with 22.

Nationally, most of the service-learning courses at higher education institutions are offered in the human sciences (62), followed by health sciences (37), education (26), agriculture (14), and economic sciences (11).

According to leading academics, service-learning is a credit-bearing, educational exercise in which students participate in an organised service activity that meets identified community needs and helps the student to gain a deeper understanding of course content and a sense of civic responsibility.

Reacting to the research findings, the Rector and Vice-chancellor of the UFS, Prof Frederick Fourie, said the university feels strongly that there should be integration of service-learning into the academic core of the institution.

“Through service-learning modules the UFS can give expression to its role of service to the community as an institution of higher learning, producing quality graduates who understand the communities in which they will have to function for the rest of their lives,” Prof Fourie said.

According to Mr Jo Lazarus, the project manager of the Community-Higher Education – Service Partnership (CHESP), which falls under the JET, a number of institutions have identified community engagement as a strategic priority and have allocated significant resources from their central budget towards its implementation.

Mr Lazarus said most students have an overwhelmingly positive attitude towards service learning.

“A large percentage of students surveyed indicated that their service-learning course helped to improve their relationship skills, leadership skills and project planning abilities. As significant is the fact that these courses also benefited them in terms of their awareness of cultural differences and opened their eyes about their own cultural stereotypes,” said Mr Lazarus.

“The key challenge still hampering the integration of service-learning as a core function of academic activity is that some institutions still see service-learning as an add-on, and nice-to-have activity,” he said.

According to Mr Lazarus higher education must demonstrate social responsibility and commitment to the common good by making available expertise and infrastructure for service-learning as a form of community engagement.

Media release
Issued by:  Lacea Loader
   Media Representative
   Tel:  (051) 401-2584
   Cell:  083 645 2454
   E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
   20 September 2005

 

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