Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
07 September 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo istock
water webinar_read more

The Middle East and Africa are facing the highest impact on water and food security, with the potential to aggravate the existing conflict in both regions. Soaring temperatures are expected to exceed global norms, and an arid future and environmental catastrophe is looming.  Israel and South Africa are both arid countries challenged by water scarcity in the face of growing demand. Both countries are in some way water insecure and most of the water in both countries is transboundary.  There is a compelling need for leadership to provide strategic thinking on how to mitigate the impact of climate change on scarce water resources. 

Join our webinar, where a panel of international speakers will discuss the myriad challenges brought on by water scarcity and consider strategic initiatives to leverage expertise in order to improve resilience to water vulnerability.

Welcome:

Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Free State

Panellists:

Dr Theo de Jager, The Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI)

Prof Kevin Winter, University of Cape Town

Mr Oded Diste, CEO Tal-Ya Agriculture Solutions

Monther Hind, Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group, Palestine


Moderator:

Dr Clive Lipchin, Arava Institute for Environmental Studies

Closing remarks:  Prof Hussein Solomon, AHD, Department of Political Studies and Governance, University of the Free State

Date: 10 September 2020
Time: 17:00 (SAT) 

Registration: To register for the webinar, please go to https://forms.gle/PknmhZLsvjPh91N28

The webinar can be accessed at https://zoom.us/j/94893202166

 


News Archive

Universities join hands in developing literacy tests
2010-03-19

 
At the signing ceremony, from the left, are: Prof. Driekie Hay (Vice-Rector: Teaching and Learning), Prof. Albert Weideman (Head: Department of English) and Prof. Lucius Botes (Dean: Faculty of the Humanities).
Photo: Supplied


The development of academic literacy tests recently took a step into the future with the formal establishment of the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA).

ICELDA, under its first executive head, Prof. Albert Weideman, Head of the Department of English at the University of the Free State (UFS), is a cooperative venture between the multilingual Universities of Pretoria, North-West, Stellenbosch and the Free State.

It is dedicated to the development of reliable state-of-the-art academic literacy tests and currently makes 32 000 tests available to partnering universities annually.

Most notably, it has produced three of the most reliable academic literacy tests in the country. These include an Academic Listening Test and the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) for undergraduate students, with reliability levels that are more than 20% above international benchmarks.

“We are even more excited about our Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS), which is already a crucial instrument in determining the literacy levels of postgraduate students at the Universities of the Free State, Pretoria and North-West,” said Prof. Weideman.

In addition, ICELDA is currently piloting studies for language tests for financial advisors, nurses, students of disaster management, as well as police studies at Unisa.

ICELDA will also collaborate with the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore.

“One of the undertakings I made on my visit to Singapore a year ago was that I would assist in every way I could with the building of joint expertise with CELC in language testing,” said Prof. Weideman.

“However, our focus will remain firmly on research.”

He said his goal was to employ the surpluses generated by selling tests to provide promising students with bursaries to stimulate further study and design of academic literacy and other language tests.

By drawing more researchers into the field, Weideman said, ICELDA could provide the capacity for developing reliable language tests that South Africa had always lacked.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
19 March 2010
 

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