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30 May 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Rian Horn
South Campus residence
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

Students have a responsibility in SA, says Ntuli
2016-02-19

Description: 2016 SRC presidents Tags: 2016 SRC presidents

Lindokuhle Ntuli (left), President of the Student Representative Council (SRC) on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS), and Paseka Sikhosana, president of the SRC on the Qwaqwa Campus, are in agreement about their vision for the UFS in 2016.
Photo: Johan Roux

You and I have a role to play in building the new South Africa built upon the Constitution of 1996.

These are the words of Lindokuhle Ntuli, President of the Student Representative Council (SRC) on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS). They echo his and the SRC’s message of a “campus for all students, locally and internationally, irrespective of colour.”

Ntuli and Paseka Sikhosana, president of the SRC on the Qwaqwa Campus, were in agreement about their vision for the UFS in 2016.

According to Sikhosana, a well-known slogan accentuates a feeling of uniqueness at the university. “United in diversity. No wonder we say only a Kovsie knows a feeling,” he says.

“As the SRC, we believe that complete transformation on campus is through promoting a non-sexist, non-racial, but democratic student society that acknowledges diversity and change. That further promotes and embraces one student’s difference in terms of culture, tradition, religion, and sexual orientation.”

A new South Africa

Ntuli means students have a responsibility. He referred to a quotation from Frantz Fanon’s book, The Wretched of the Earth, to illustrate this. Fanon was a revolutionary and writer whose works are influential in post-colonial studies. “Every generation has a mission. It is the responsibility of every generation to discover its mission. Once you have discovered it, you have to fulfil it or betray it into relative obscurity,” Ntuli quoted.

According to him, the South African Constitution holds pious promises of a better life for all, and each citizen needs to help to achieve that.

SRC has open door policy 

Ntuli says the UFS remains committed to human embrace, diversity, integration, and human togetherness. He added that the SRC has an open door policy, and will avail itself in helping students.

According to Sikhosana, it is the objective of the SRC to represent the student community in all interactions within the university and externally.

“There is nothing for us, about us, without us students,” he says.

• The above excerpts have been taken from Ntuli and Sikhosana’s respective welcoming speeches to first-year students on the Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses.

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