Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
25 January 2019 | Story Zama Feni | Photo Zama Feni
Sinoxolo Gcilitshane
Former UFS student and former Bloemfontein teacher, Sinoxolo Gcilitshane, received a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship to study further at the University of Cape Town.

The education career of a University of the Free State alumnus and budding teacher, Sinoxolo Gcilitshane, has been given a boost after he was granted a Mandela Rhodes Scholarship to do a Bachelor of Education Honours at the University of Cape Town this year.

This prestigious offer comes after only one year of teaching experience at Petunia Secondary School in Bloemfontein, where the 25-year-old first plied his trade as an educator in English and Social Sciences since January last year.

Gcilitshana, who holds a Bachelor of Education in Further Education and Training Phase from the University of the Free State, has since resigned from his teaching job.

His honours programme will focus on the teaching of History. “I chose this area simply because I still can’t believe the impact of my Grade 12 History teacher, the handsome Zimbabwean, Vimbai Muchabaiwa. His competency, commitment, and inspiring pedagogy really inspired me to such an extent that I decided that one day, I want to be like him, to teach like him, and love students in the same way he loves us.”

It is Gcilitshana’s resolute belief in himself that led to him receiving this esteemed opportunity. “There were those who told me that the Mandela Rhodes Scholarship is not for average students like me, and I believed them, because I couldn’t even speak proper English when I joined the UFS.”

“I never imagined myself as a beneficiary of this prestigious scholarship; nevertheless, I decided to brush aside any beliefs of self-doubt about myself. I then applied, and here I am today through the grace of our Almighty,” he said.

“My philosophy in life is that nobody owes you anything – not a job, not a greeting. It is therefore important for everyone, especially young people, to build their brand and to always chase excellence in all that they do – not money.

Asked where he would like to see himself in five years’ time, Gcilitshane, who was the Prime of Khayalami Residence once, brimmed with excitement when he said: “Within the next five years, I hope that I will be tasked with the responsibility and special privilege of teaching at a university anywhere in the country, where I will get the opportunity to work really hard and do my research and become one of the leading scholars in my field of specialisation.” He intends going for a master’s degree after finishing this programme.

 

News Archive

Visiting Professor, Piet Bracke, Speaks on Public Mental Health
2015-02-20

Piet Bracke

Professor in the Department of Sociology at the Ghent University in Belgium, Piet Bracke, recently visited the UFS to speak about his research on the Public mental health and comparative health research: between social theory and psychiatric epidemiology.

At the public lecture on Monday 16 February, Bracke stated that part of the sociological attention to mental health and well-being was rooted in the 19th century's romanticists' discontent with self and society. The classical and contemporary social theorists' views on the disconnection between culture and the ‘real’ self resembles the more recent evolutionary psychological assumptions about the maladaptation of  psychobiological mechanisms to contemporary societal arrangements.

In contrast to these perspectives, contemporary psychiatric epidemiological research has a strongly underdeveloped conception about the nexus between society and population mental health. Both perspectives, the social-theory-and-societal-discontent approach and the biomedical psychiatric epidemiological approach, have drawbacks. Starting from the pitfalls of the aforementioned perspectives, they have been exploring the challenges posed by the development of a macro-sociology of population mental health.

Recently, this research domain has received renewed attention of scholars inside as well as outside sociology. The rise of multi-country, multilevel datasets containing health-related information, as well as the growing attention on the fundamental social causes of health and illness, and the focus on population as opposed to individual health, has contributed to the revival of comparative public mental health research. Based on findings from their recent research, they have illustrated how taking the context into account is vital when exploring the social roots of mental health and illness. In addition, they have demonstrated how they can liberate a few so-called ‘control variables’ in risk factor epidemiology – e.g. gender, education, and age – from their suppressed status by linking them to core concepts of sociology. With their research, they hope to further the development of a macro-sociology of public mental health.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept