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Off-campus students at the centre of Safety Summit

04 November 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Charl Devenish

SK Luwaca at UFS Safety Summit for off-campus students — Sikhululekile Luwaca, leader of the UFS Safety Champions, addresses a delegation at the Higher Education Safety Summit from 18-19 October 2019 at the Bloemfontein Campus.

A meeting of minds over student safety recently took place at Kovsies. The Higher Education Safety Summit saw a cohort of 165 students from the University of the Free State (UFS), Central University of Technology and Sol Plaatje University, collaborating with the heads of Protection Services from the respective institutions to devise a safety blueprint specifically focusing on the off-campus environment.

“The rental tribunal came on board to assist with rental disputes between students and landlords, in addition to accreditation issues being discussed,” Sikhululekile Luwaca, former SRC President of the Bloemfontein Campus and leader of the UFS Safety Champions that form part of the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice.

Luwaca further said that the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality also committed to assist the universities in addressing crime and enforcing by-laws. “A strategic safety plan was developed around spatialisation and zoning of student communes, developing a system that will assist universities to establish where students stay by using technology such as geographic information system (GIS),” he added.

What were the objectives of the summit?
Being the first of many to come, the summit set out clear objectives which all stakeholders have committed to work tirelessly to achieve, both in the short and long term.

The goals of the summit were threefold. Firstly, the intention was to build capacity between students and staff of all institutions involved to implement programmes by transferring the skills and knowledge between one another.

Secondly, the idea was to gather and consolidate input from the various higher-learning institutions and by so doing diversify the solutions. Thirdly, the purpose of the summit was to create an official platform where partners may consult on interventions that will ripple from the local, to the provincial and further to national level.

Andiswa Msomi, Spatialisation Group Leader and the Safety Champions’ administrator said she appreciated the shift in perspective that the summit brought. “The summit brought to my attention that sometimes we focus so deeply on one aspect of a problem that we end up not seeing alternative solutions. Due to active participants, new solutions came up, new ideas were brought forth and more importantly, we were able to get other institutions on board,” she said.

What are some of the tangible outcomes?
Going forward, an internal report which focuses on crime prevention measures will be presented to all UFS stakeholders. An external report, which will be submitted by the Safety Champions to the government in January 2020, is expected to be integrated into the Provincial Crime Prevention Strategy.

News Archive

UFS launches a Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Observatory, first of its kind in South Africa

2013-12-04

In cooperation with its partners, the Centre for Development Support at the University of the Free State (UFS), launched the SME Observatory at a function on the Bloemfontein Campus. This initiative is the first of its kind in South Africa.

According to Willem Ellis, Director of the Centre for Development Support, this is a public-private partnership between the UFS, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (detea), which aims to gather information for research on small and medium enterprises. “With this research we will endeavour to empower policy formulators to make the right decisions in terms of development on a local, provincial and national level,” Ellis said.

Presentations and the panel discussion at the launch covered topics such as:

How many enterprises can survive in a town?
Are entrepreneurs being set up for failure?
Is SMEs the answer to the unemployment question?
The cost of red tape: is SMEs being tied down?

To demonstrate the applicability of the enterprise architect for issues relating to enterprise policy, as well as entrepreneurship strategies, it was decided to focus the pilot phase of the observatory on towns in the Free State. Dr Daan Toerien, research associate at the Centre for Development Support, and Johannes Wessels, Project Manager of the SME Observatory, compiled the report: “50 Towns in the Free State: What the Enterprise Architecture of these towns is telling us about Entrepreneurial Space.”

In his presentation at the launch, Dr Toerien said: “The Enterprise Observatory’s prime goal is to present valuable facts and insights about enterprises in the domains it is observing.” He has developed a database that contains information on a large number of South African towns. He said that studying the enterprise architecture of towns will contribute significantly to inform the policy and strategy debate on LED and enterprise development. “These activities will add valuable data and insights to approach entrepreneurship in the Free State and, after the pilot phase, also in other provinces in South Africa. The Free State government, district and local municipalities, and the consultant fraternity serving them, should find the SME observatory’s activities of value,” he said.

Wessels said that the SME Observatory of South Africa is dedicated to base its arguments on sound theory, science and applied research; to engage policy and decision makers on an evidence-based approach; operate in a politically non-aligned mode in order to mirror truthfully the impact of policies and decisions and to partner with policy makers, entrepreneurs, public administration, think tanks, research institutions, business representatives and NGOs on building networks and alliances to promote an open and competitive enterprise environment.

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