Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Prof LenkaBula promotes partnership with German University

23 September 2019 | Story Xolisa Mnukwa | Photo Barend Nagel

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

Study on school violence shows the secondary school environment compels learners to be armed

2015-01-26

The secondary school environment apparently compels learners to come to school armed. This is according to a study done by Dr Lynette Jacobs, a lecturer at the School of Education Studies at the University of the Free State.

In her study, Dr Jacobs found that learners from more affluent schools carry noticeably more weapons than learners in less affluent schools. Learners in the lower grades of secondary schools also use and carry more weapons than learners in the higher grades.

Dr Jacobs says while many reasons for school violence can be noted, such as to forcibly take the victims money and food, racial differences, religious differences, as well as the immigrant status of one of the parties involved, these were reasons indicated by less than 10% of the participants in the study.

“There is no single explanation for the threat of violence at schools and most acts of school violence appear to happen randomly, often out of instant retaliation.”

For the study, Dr Jacobs did surveys at schools across three provinces in South Africa.

“Although it varies in levels of seriousness, incidences of physical violence and verbal cruelty consistently occur at South Africans schools. I found that learners are furthermore regularly mocked, insulted, cursed and humiliated by peers.”

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept