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24 January 2019 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Sonia Small
Dr Engela van Staden
Dr Engela van Staden started as Vice-Rector: Academic on 1 January 2019.
The Executive Committee of the Council (on behalf of Council) of the University of the Free State (UFS) approved the appointment of Dr Engela van Staden as Vice-Rector: Academic during a meeting held on 5 December 2018. She started on 1 January 2019 as Vice-Rector: Academic (designate) and will take up the position from 1 February 2019 as Vice-Rector:  Academic. Prof Hendri Kroukamp, who acted in the position of Vice-Rector: Academic, will resume his portfolio as Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences on 1 February 2019. 

“Dr Van Staden has an immense knowledge of the higher-education system, governance, planning, and policy frameworks within the sector, and of enrolment planning and management, and will provide leadership within this domain. She has been in senior management positions at faculty, institutional, and national level for a period of 20 years and is one of the experts in academic-programme development and curriculum design in the country. I look forward to working with her and welcoming her to the university,” says Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.
 
Dr Van Staden holds a DPhil in Education from the Rand Afrikaans University (now University of Johannesburg). She was Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Teaching, Learning and Community Engagement at the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University. Prior to this she was, among others, Chief Director: University Academic Planning and Management Support at the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) from 2009 to 2017, Director: Strategic Management Support at Tshwane University of Technology from 2004 to 2009, Dean: Faculty of Education and Director: Strategic Planning at the then Technikon Northern Gauteng from 1996 to 2003. 
 
Her responsibilities at the Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University included teaching and learning, quality assurance, strategic and academic planning, technology and education innovation, planning and reporting for and on earmarked and development grants, curriculum reviews, infrastructure planning, blended learning, and the redesign of the university’s business model.
 
In the portfolio of Chief Director: University Academic Planning and Management Support at the DHET, she was responsible for, among others, the national enrolment targets of 2013 and 2019, and institutional performance targets aligned to the Minister’s performance targets, the management and approval of all national programme applications, the development of the distance policy for universities / open learning strategy, the monitoring of universities under administration, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) budget allocations to universities, the planning and establishing of new universities in Mpumalanga and Northern Cape with specific reference to the academic programmes and governance and policy environment, and the establishment of the Central Application System (CAS) and Service and Clearing House Mechanism (CACH), which includes a project management office, business architecture and the formulation of proposals towards the governance and management of such a function.
 
She has supervised master’s and doctoral students, authored and co-authored a number of academic articles, compiled a vast array of technical reports, and participated in a wide variety of national and international projects in South Africa and abroad.

News Archive

SA must appoint competent judges
2009-05-08

 
At the inaugural lecture are, from the left: Prof. Teuns Verschoor, Acting Rector of the UFS, Judge Farlam and Prof. Johan Henning, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the UFS.

Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Ian Farlam has called on the South African government to appoint and continue to appoint competent, fair and experienced judicial officers to sit in the country’s courts.

He also emphasised the need to have an efficient and highly respected appellate division, which rightly enjoys the confidence of all.

Judge Farlam was speaking at the University of the Free State (UFS) where he delivered his inaugural lecture as Extraordinary Professor in Roman Law, Legal History and Comparative Law in the Faculty of Law.

He said there were important lessons that emanated from the study of legal history in the Free State, particularly including the lesson that there were courageous jurists who spoke up for what they believed to be right, and a legislature who listened and did the right thing when required.

“This is part of our South African heritage which is largely forgotten – even by those whose predecessors were directly responsible for it. It is something which they and the rest of us can remember with pride,” Judge Farlam said.

Addressing the topic, Cox and Constitutionalism: Aspects of Free State Legal History, Judge Farlam used the murder trial of Charles Cox, who was accused of killing his wife and both daughters, to illustrate several key points of legal history.

Cox was eventually found guilty and executed, however, the trial caused a deep rift between the Afrikaans and English speaking communities in the Free State.

Judge Farlam also emphasised that the Free State Constitution embodied the principle of constitutionalism, with the result that the Free State was a state where the Constitution and not the legislature was sovereign. He said it was unfortunate that this valuable principle was eliminated in the Free State after the Boer War and said that it took 94 years before it was reinstated.

Judge Farlam added, “Who knows what suffering and tragedy might not have been avoided if, instead of the Westminster system, which was patently unsuited to South African conditions, we had gone into Union in 1910 with what one can describe as the better Trekker tradition, the tradition of constitutionalism that the wise burghers of the Free State chose in 1854 to take over into their Constitution from what we would call today the constitutional best practice of their time?”

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Assistant Director: Media Liaison 
Tel: 051 401 2584 
Cell: 083 645 2454 
E-mail: loaderl.stg@ufs.ac.za
8 May 2009
             

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