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30 May 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Rian Horn
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UFS Housing and Residence Affairs leads transformation for university culture to improve student experience and Accommodation
The University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Housing and Residence Affairs (HRA) wants to ensure quality and affordable accommodation on and off campus for UFS students through the ITP.

The development of the ITP at the UFS started in January 2017; areas of transformation were identified, of which HRA’s deliverables are as follows:

• A detailed ‘as-is’ study to understand the issues faced by students regarding on- and off-campus accommodation and quantification of the accommodation gap.
• Development of a strategy to create residences with an academic focus, and the full implications regarding numbers and costing.
• Setting of minimum transport and safety standards for students.
• Development of an approach to student accommodation that is affordable for the students and entails optimal cost to the university.
• A strategy for postgraduate, postdoctoral, and international students.
• Gender-inclusive housing.

Mr Quintin Koetaan, Senior Director of HRA, and President of ACUHO-I SAC, started a project to ensure that NSFAS-funded and other UFS students are afforded quality accommodation on and off campus. Mr Koetaan was also appointed by NSFAS to convert this into a national project. This project includes engagements with different role players such as municipalities, national and provincial officials, the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa, NSFAS, and private off-campus accommodation service providers.

The decision by the UFS to increase the percentage of first-time entering students living on campus, was welcomed by HRA, and is being implemented and managed to address HRA’s ITP deliverables.  As a result of the increased percentage, senior students would be moved to affordable, accredited off-campus accommodation, with available transportation.

HRA’s aim is to ensure that students experience the wholesomeness and joy of being a UFS student, by making provision for their diverse on- and off-campus needs.

News Archive

IRSJ Research Fellow promotes human rights transformation
2017-10-05

 Description: Coysh read more Tags: Transformation, human rights, education, community, research 

Dr Joanne Coysh and Dr Sahar Sattarzadeh attend the
launch of Human Rights Education and
the Politics of Knowledge.
Photo: Luis Escobedo D’Angles


Dr Joanne Coysh is a multi-talented individual who has designed, facilitated, and accompanied participatory processes for research, learning, and change. She is also a postdoctoral research fellow from the University of Warwick, in the UK, and is working at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) at the UFS.  Dr Coysh’s book, Human Rights Education and the Politics of Knowledge, was launched at the Centenary Complex on the Bloemfontein Campus by the IRSJ on 15 August 2017. 

Connecting theory with practice
In the book, she argues that the traditional ways in which human rights education is conducted often become an obstacle. Based on her work on participatory group processes, Dr Coysh is uniquely positioned to bring a different and more practical, even radical, angle to the process of human rights education. Her purpose with the book is to connect theory to practice in order to design processes through which people begin to take positive and transformative decisions and actions. These not only have the potential to transform lives but our relationships with each other and the world in which we live as well.

Teaching and learning from the bottom up
When working with individuals and groups, Dr Coysh believes that they should be engaged, enabled, and empowered throughout the process. Not only does she explore real problems in context, but when doing her work, she also believes in encouraging respect for existing research and knowledge.
 
Her international experience in education and working in communities has allowed her to integrate global best practices into local application, allowing her to explore the big picture as well as local context. Having mastered the art of balancing theory with practice, research with reality, and facilitation with integration, her book shows how this dance can turn human rights education into human rights transformation.

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