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06 May 2019 | Story Lacea Loader | Photo Robin Thuynsma
Mr Nikile Ntsababa
Mr Nikile Ntsababa.

Mr Nikile Ntsababa took up the position of Registrar at the University of the Free State (UFS) on 1 May 2019. His appointment was approved by the UFS Council during its quarterly meeting on 15 March 2019.
 
“Mr Ntsababa is an experienced and knowledgeable university registrar with 10 years of senior management experience in institutional compliance, regulatory compliance, academic administration, and university records management. His history of senior roles in the higher-education sector has the advantage of a very good understanding regarding the dynamics, context, and challenges that the position of registrar brings,” says Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.
 
He holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Records and Archives Management from the University of Fort Hare, a Master of Public Administration from Nelson Mandela University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication from the University of Fort Hare. Some of the further certification and short courses he has completed includes a Certificate in International Higher Education Management from Vanderbilt University, Tennessee State in the USA, and a Compliance Management Certificate from the University of Cape Town. He is a Certified Ethics Officer.
 
Mr Ntsababa was Registrar at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) from April 2012 to April 2019; before that he was Deputy Registrar at CPUT from April 2009 to March 2012. He also served as Director of Governance at the University of Fort Hare from September 2007 to March 2009, and as Faculty Manager: Management and Commerce at the University of Fort Hare from January 2004 to August 2007.   
 
“I look forward to working at the UFS and to share my knowledge and experience of higher-education legislation and the associated regulatory processes, requirements, and trends in the higher-education sector,” says Mr Ntsababa.

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Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Marketing)

Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454

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News Archive

Universities join hands in developing literacy tests
2010-03-19

 
At the signing ceremony, from the left, are: Prof. Driekie Hay (Vice-Rector: Teaching and Learning), Prof. Albert Weideman (Head: Department of English) and Prof. Lucius Botes (Dean: Faculty of the Humanities).
Photo: Supplied


The development of academic literacy tests recently took a step into the future with the formal establishment of the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA).

ICELDA, under its first executive head, Prof. Albert Weideman, Head of the Department of English at the University of the Free State (UFS), is a cooperative venture between the multilingual Universities of Pretoria, North-West, Stellenbosch and the Free State.

It is dedicated to the development of reliable state-of-the-art academic literacy tests and currently makes 32 000 tests available to partnering universities annually.

Most notably, it has produced three of the most reliable academic literacy tests in the country. These include an Academic Listening Test and the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) for undergraduate students, with reliability levels that are more than 20% above international benchmarks.

“We are even more excited about our Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS), which is already a crucial instrument in determining the literacy levels of postgraduate students at the Universities of the Free State, Pretoria and North-West,” said Prof. Weideman.

In addition, ICELDA is currently piloting studies for language tests for financial advisors, nurses, students of disaster management, as well as police studies at Unisa.

ICELDA will also collaborate with the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore.

“One of the undertakings I made on my visit to Singapore a year ago was that I would assist in every way I could with the building of joint expertise with CELC in language testing,” said Prof. Weideman.

“However, our focus will remain firmly on research.”

He said his goal was to employ the surpluses generated by selling tests to provide promising students with bursaries to stimulate further study and design of academic literacy and other language tests.

By drawing more researchers into the field, Weideman said, ICELDA could provide the capacity for developing reliable language tests that South Africa had always lacked.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
19 March 2010
 

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