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Student Success
The UFS is committed to student success through its own initiative.
In its endeavour to assist and support academically deserving students, taking into account the current economic climate in South Africa, the University of the Free State (UFS) has been able to maintain its approach to student success from its own initiative and in cooperation with external sources or partners. 
 
In addition, the university’s tuition fees remain on average 20% less than those of comparative universities.
 
“More than 70% of all registered undergraduate and postgraduate students at the UFS are receiving some kind of financial support – whether from the university or via external sources or partners, or from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS). In fact, financial support to students is one of the main expenses of the university,” says Mr Chris Liebenberg, Senior Director: Finance at the UFS. 
 
According to Mr Liebenberg, undergraduate bursaries to the value of R63 million and postgraduate bursaries to the value of R77 million have been allocated for 2019. These bursaries are funded by the UFS, as well as by external sources or partners and are awarded on merit, which includes academic, sport, and cultural performance. It excludes bursaries that students receive from NSFAS. 
 
“The university is able to provide this support to deserving students due to its stringent application of financial governance and discipline and within a framework of financial sustainability. It is a principle that the university management strongly believes in and will continue to apply,” says Mr Liebenberg. 

News Archive

“I, too, am an African,” says visiting US drama professor
2013-03-06

 
Africans are of blood and of soil, says Prof Charles Dumas in his inaugural lecture at the UFS. Speaking on the topic I, too, am an African, Prof Dumas reminisced about his life and experiences on the continent.
Photo: Minette Grove
05 March 2013

Lecture (pdf)

What is an African? Is it those born in Africa, defined in racial and genealogical terms, or those who identifies with the continent in nationality and ancestral location? Did the descendants of enslaved Africans in the US, the Caribbean or Brazil lose their Africaness when their ancestors were put on slave ships to the New World?

These were some of the questions raised by Prof Charles Dumas, visiting senior professor in the Department Drama and Theatre Arts, in his inaugural lecture at the university.

Proclaiming attachment to the continent, Prof Dumas told his audience there are two types of Africans: Africans of the blood and Africans of the soil. In a speech titled, “I, too, am an African,” he stated that he lay claim to his ancestral birthright not because of blood relationship to an identifiable ethnic group or birthright to the continent, but because he earned it.

“I suggest another way that one can be an African, is through trial and struggle to be reborn an African in spirit. It is a ritual journey that may be taken by anyone. For, after all, if we are to believe the anthropologists who tell us that human life as we know it began in the Olduvai Gorge, genetically we are all African in origin.”

Prof Dumas, a senior professor at Penn State University in the USA, took the audience on a journey of his experiences on the continent, starting in 1978 when he first came to South Africa as a legal observer. Noticing the changes between Apartheid and today’s South Africa, he said this generation are committed to learn from each other – and that is the most important, he said.

“With their hopes and aspirations they earnestly desire to live in the new South Africa that we promised them. We must support them in their effort. It is time we stored our old baggage in the closet.”

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