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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

‘Language central to multidisciplinary society’
2012-03-22

 

Dr. Neville Alexander (right) discussed the role of language and culture in creating tolerance in South Africa. On the left is Prof. André Keet, Director of the UFS' International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconcilliation and Social Justice.
Photo: Johan Roux
22 March 2012

A multilingual state and culture could lead to more tolerance in South Africa, and schools and universities could play a leading role in the creation of a multilingual culture.

This is according to Dr Neville Alexander, one of South Africa’s foremost linguists and educationalists.

Dr Alexander spoke during a discussion session on language issues in a new South Africa at the University of the Free State’s (UFS) International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice.

He said in a multidisciplinary society, language is central to everything we do. 

“Language has the ability to empower people or to disempower them. Yet the present government failed to value the other official South African languages, apart from Afrikaans and English.”

Dr Alexander said it is “convenient and cheap” for the government “to only govern in English”.

Government officials and academics often used the shortage of terminology and glossaries in various African languages as an excuse to use only English as the medium of instruction. This tendency puts young children in the South African school system at a disadvantage since it deprives them of their right to mother tongue education.

According to Dr Alexander, this is similar to the problems that academics experienced centuries ago when only Latin terminology existed for certain disciplines.

“It is the task of educationalists and experts to develop the necessary word lists and terminology to offer more economic value to all our official languages.”

If multilingualism was promoted at school level, a multilingual culture would become more acceptable in future. In this way, we could have an isiZulu of isiXhosa dominant university in South Africa in 30 years time.
 

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