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23 September 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Barend Nagel
Prof Puleng LenkaBula
“I want to establish a paradigm shift from community engagement to engaged scholarship, which will transfer science between communities and form reciprocal collaborations in order to create new knowledge, research niche areas, influences, and support systems to aid innovative and progressive teaching and learning processes at the UFS.” – Prof LenkaBula

The University of the Free State (UFS) Vice-Rector: Institutional Change, Student Affairs, and Community Engagement, Prof Puleng LenkaBula, recently visited the Fulda University of Applied Sciences in Germany to discuss a possible future collaboration between the two institutions.

This was inspired by their multidisciplinary approach to higher-education courses, which she aims to facilitate at the UFS in order to pioneer critical thinking among students to ultimately bring about effective and innovative societal problem-solving in South Africa.

Fulda University is an exceptional higher-education institution with the ability to develop and transform itself to purposefully improve its infrastructure, the quality of students, and studies offered by the university. Their different degrees are structured to intersect with the requirements of the progressive European economic environment.

According to Prof LenkaBula, Fulda University is an outstanding institution specialising in applied sciences and theoretical studies, which set them apart from other universities in the advanced European higher-education system.

Prof LenkaBula believes that the prospect of developing joint master’s and/or doctoral degrees between the UFS and Fulda University would expose UFS students to high-quality international higher-education systems. This will ensure that our students are provided with essential skills to become globally competitive and relevant in their designated career fields, and to become strong contenders in an environment characterised by globalisation and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR).
She referred to the global exchange of knowledge systems between the UFS and Fulda University as an opportunity for the UFS to improve the university’s global rankings through learning and participating in international collaborative approaches in higher education. 

“In order for our university to cease being seen as an ivory tower, it must be involved in producing knowledge that is beneficial to socio-economic and political development – not only for South Africa, but also for the rest of the world,” said Prof LenkaBula.


News Archive

UFS presents workshop on plea bargaining
2010-02-09

At the workshop were in front: Prof. Hennie Oosthuizen, Department of Criminal and Medical Law at the UFS; back: Judge Faan Hancke, Adv. Jo Hiemstra of the Office of the Director Public Prosecution in the Free State, Judge President Hendrick Musi and Judge of Appeal Fritz Brand.
Photo: Stephen Collett


The Centre for Judicial Excellence in the Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) recently presented a workshop on plea bargaining. This is the fourth workshop in the series of workshops on effective court management and the expedition of trials that started in 2007.

According to Judge Faan Hancke, the Chair of the workshop and also Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Process Law at the UFS, selected members of the judicature such as Judge of Appeal Fritz Brand, Judge Albert Kruger – who is amongst others the author of an important book on the criminal process – and Judge President of the Free State High Court, Hendrick Musi, conducted presentations at this workshop.

Judge Hancke’s lecture focused on the basic principles of plea bargaining. “Abroad, the plea agreement is effectively applied to shorten court procedures. This gives them a 80 percent saving on court cases with regard to serious crime, where we in South Africa save less than five percent on court cases.

The workshop was attended by magistrates, attorneys, advocates, the UFS Law Clinic and members of the Legal Aid Council. According to Mr Lukas Brand, a magistrate from Botshabelo, this workshop is a must for each jurist. More members of the legal profession must attend these kinds of workshops because there are many people who lack the necessary knowledge on some of the stipulations in the criminal procedure.
 

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