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Internationalisation at home: Perspectives from abroad

30 April 2020 | Story Baptiste Becret | Photo Supplied

Since the approval of the University of the Free State (UFS) internationalisation strategy for 2018-2022, the UFS community and staff members of the Office for International Affairs (OIA) have been working hard to try and realise the goals stated in the strategy. The policy states “the university's’ commitment to developing curricula that are locally relevant, globally competitive and connect to multiple knowledge paradigms”. Furthermore, “We expect that the new internationalisation strategy will advance the international positioning of the university, and synergise the existing rich international activities into intentional, comprehensive internationalisation processes”.

In an effort to realise the said expectations through the university’s inbound mobility programme, the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French in the Faculty of the Humanities has hired Baptiste Becret, an exchange student from French partner university, Science PO Bordeaux, as French tutor for the first semester of 2020. This collaboration by the two departments endeavours to achieve the university’s vision of developing its students’ international and intercultural competencies through internationalisation at home. Equally, this initiative speaks to a critical aspect of internationalisation, the “purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal curriculum for the UFS students within the domestic learning environment”.

Being the only Frenchman on campus

“I was the only Frenchman on campus and at the university, which I rather enjoyed. I learned at the beginning of this year, in January, that I could share my culture and language by helping students participating in the first- and second-year French courses at the university. For my part, I was attached to the Faculty of the Humanities. I've already had experience as a tutor in France, so I wasn't very stressed at the idea of being in front of a class. I enjoyed trying to teach my mother tongue. My contact with the French teacher was good. He gave me a lot of freedom to do the activities I wanted to do.

I didn't think that passing on my knowledge to the first-year class would be so difficult. Indeed, for some of them, they have never spoken a word of French. But the atmosphere improved from class to class after a shy start. I hope I was able to help them as best I could. In any case, I was very happy to teach them and to assist them in their various difficulties with the language. For the second-year class, the atmosphere was a little different. The class was smaller, the students already knew each other well, and they were pretty close. Additionally, their language level was already good.

All this to say that being a French tutor was a great experience. It was enriching for both parties (students and me). Of course, I tried to do the best I could, and I took advantage of the free time my schedule gave me to share a little bit of my home country. So, I advise future international students – if they feel comfortable with that – to give it a try. It's only two hours a week with a little bit of extra money. Finally, I would like to thank the International Office for informing me of this opportunity, the people involved in the programme, including my coordinator, the French teacher, and especially the students who have been super cool to me.”

News Archive

NRF commits R30-million for research at the UFS

2007-02-20

The National Research Foundation (NRF) has committed approximately R30-million for various research projects at the University of the Free State (UFS).

According to Prof Frans Swanepoel, Director of Research Development at the UFS, the NRF has also approved all eight research niche areas that were submitted to the NRF, the highest number approved at any university in the country.

Prof Swanepoel said the 24 research projects for which funding had been obtained from the NRF ranged from traditional healing and HIV/Aids/tuberculosis management, practices of the paediatric anti-retroviral programme at the UFS to nano-materials synthesis and characterisation.

He said the eight research niche areas were part of an initiative at the UFS to establish strategic clusters of academic and research excellence.

“There will be six strategic academic clusters at the UFS and the eight NRF-approved research niche areas will form part of them,” Prof Swanepoel said.

The six strategic clusters are:

1. Water management in water-scarce areas

2. New frontiers in poverty reduction and sustainable development

3. Social transformation in diverse societies

4. Ecologically sound value chains for agricultural commodities

5. Materials and nano sciences

6. Advanced bio-molecular research

Prof Swanepoel said that the UFS had also submitted five proposals in terms of an NRF initiative to establish research chairs at South African universities.

“Linked to our intention to establish six strategic academic clusters, five proposals for the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARCHi) were submitted. All five pre-proposals were accepted in the first round of screening, and successful candidates have been invited to submit full proposals by the end of February,” he said.

The proposed research chairs are:

Petro- and organometallic chemistry

Biocatalytic and biomimetic oxidation-reduction systems

Nano-solid state lighting

People’s health and well-being

Water management

Speaking at the official opening of the university earlier this month, the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof Frederick Fourie, said: “The cluster initiative represents a strategic initiative to focus our energies in a few key areas, investing in them so that the UFS can become an international leader in those fields.”

“A medium sized university such as the UFS with relatively limited human, physical and financial resources has to achieve this kind of ‘critical mass’ and synergy to establish itself in terms of its core functions of teaching/learning, research and community engagement,” said Prof Fourie.

Media release

Issued by: Lacea Loader

Media Representative

Tel: 051 401 2584

Cell: 083 645 2454

E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za

20 February 2007

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