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MICT SETA gives UFS Journalism students a stepping stone

07 October 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Rulanzen Martin

MICT Seta Grant — The MICT SETA Journalism programme will give addition training to 20 Journalism students from the Department of Communication Science.

Student success is one of the key components in the Integrated Transformation Plan. Facilitated by a grant from the Media Information and Communication Technologies (MICT) SETA, the Department of Communication Science at the University of the Free State (UFS) is providing an additional training opportunity for its students with a programme for second-year journalism students.

The MICT SETA Journalism Short Programme is a prestigious extracurricular opportunity. “The programme will provide additional exposure and training in specialist areas not necessarily covered in depth as part of the BA (Journalism) degree,” says Dr Willemien Marais, Programme Director: Communication Science. “Participation in this programme provides students the opportunity to build a portfolio to enhance their employability.”

The SETA grant was acquired through an application made by the department with the assistance of Juanita Burjins Head: Leadership and Development Unit in the Human Resources Department at the UFS, and was signed earlier this year.

In-depth training

The programme will entail short courses on writing, photojournalism, documentary filmmaking, entrepreneurship and personal development.
“It gives us an opportunity to swim in an ocean where it feels you are drowning. I am very excited to have been chosen to be part of the programme,” says.Rene Robinson, a second-year Journalism student and one of 20 selected for the programme. They were selected based on academic performance as well as on the essay they wrote.

Robinson says: “As a Journalism student you meet a lot of negativity about the degree you are pursuing and this programme offers a chance to elevate yourself.”
Keamogetswe Mosepele, who is also part of the programme, adds: “I am really excited to see what it will deliver.”

The programme specifically targets second-year students so these students, once in their final year, can share their experience through assisting a new cohort of first-year journalism students in various practical exercises, thus reinvesting in the department. They will also work at various media partners of the Department of Communication Science.

From the left; Nkonsinathi Gabuza, from the MICT Seta; Dr Willemien Marais; Prof Collin Chasi, Head of the Department Communication
Science and Juanita Burjins. (Photo: Rulanzen Martin)

News Archive

Stanford University hosts book launch for UFS Prestige Scholar

2015-12-14

Dr Christian Williams, a member of the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme, had his book launched by Stanford University. The book called National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps will be available in South Africa early in 2016.
Photo: Sonia Small

A launch for the much-anticipated book by Dr Christian Williams from the University of the Free State (UFS) was sponsored by the Humanities Center and the Center for African Studies of Stanford University in the USA, among others.

The launch of the book, National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps, coincided with the 40th anniversary of Angola’s independence.

The book was published by Cambridge University Press in September 2015, and the launch at Stanford was on 16 November 2015.

This groundbreaking study, which will be available in South Africa early next year, has already been lauded for its invaluable contribution and the depth of its scholarship. The author is a senior lecturer in the Department of Anthropology of the UFS, and member of the Vice-Chancellor’s Prestige Scholars Programme (PSP). He is a former Fulbright scholar, and holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan in History and Anthropology.

National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa follows members of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) through three decades of exile in Tanzania, Zambia, and Angola.

It highlights how different Namibians experienced exile, as well as the tensions that developed within SWAPO as Namibians encountered one another while officials asserted their power and protected their interests.

It also follows the return of Namibians who lived in exile to post-colonial Namibia, examining the extent to which divisions and hierarchies that emerged in the camps still continue to shape Namibians today.

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