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T-systems funding
Opening the doors of opportunity – TSSA allocated R2,4 million in bursary funding for 200 UFS students.


It is no secret that higher education institutions all over South Africa are plagued with the burden of current and historical student debt, leaving many hopeful students with the risk of financial exclusion. T-Systems South Africa (TSSA) has contributed a substantial amount of R2,4 million to fund a total of 200 students at the University of the Free State (UFS) in order to address ‘skills shortages’ in South Africa.

TSSA, a local unit of T-Systems International – a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom – is invested in capitalising on South African expertise where innovation and intellectual property of a global (Information and Communications Technology) ICT provider is involved. The company strives to transform their clients and South Africa as a whole by providing innovative ICT solutions that work, in South Africa and for South Africa.

The company aims to endorse inclusive transformation in South Africa through the promotion and implementation of skills and enterprise development, as well as job creation. This forms part of the company’s National Development Plan for 2030 that envisions the elimination of poverty and reduced inequality.

Kovsie Alumni Trust Investment

Through its corporate social-responsibility wing called the Nation Building Initiative, T-Systems identified the University of the Free State after being contacted by the Kovsie Alumni Trust (KAT). 

KAT identified this opportunity as a call for the university to aid the advancement of students through initiatives such as the Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP), which was first launched in 2017. The ITP aims to utilise the university’s core functions (routed in teaching and learning, research, and engaged scholarship) to train and mould students into globally competitive graduates, which essentially also build towards skills and enterprise development, together with job creation. 

“The contribution of funding from T-Systems enabled us to empower our honours students by paying their outstanding university debt for 2019.  This has had a significant impact on the lives of many of our honours students who will be able to enrol for master’s programmes or seek employment without the burden of university debt,” says Professor Corli Witthuhn, UFS Vice-Rector: Research, Innovation and Internationalisation. 

“The University of the Free State is looking forward to partnering with T-Systems in 2020 in order to ensure continued opportunities for our students to further their education.”


Addressing a skills shortage in South Africa

Kovsie students completing honours studies in fields such as technology, human resources, and marketing as well as qualifications routed in accounting and finance, were given preference for the bursary. Other senior students required a pass mark of 60% or more to qualify for the bursary. TSSA paid off the university debt of students selected in 2019, and they had the opportunity to reapply in 2020. The UFS Alumni office facilitated the process. 

In 2020, students from all study years will be considered for the bursary, including matriculants who are entering university for the first time.  

Dineo Molefe , Managing Director at TSSA, says: “T-Systems has always invested in education by running a number of developmental initiatives, among others its ICT Academy – which provides free learnerships, internship programmes, including a learnership for disabled people as well as the flagship Hazyview Digital Learning Centre, which has become a unique rural nearshoring success story.

“All of this is earmarked to address the serious shortage of ICT skills – and by developing those skills, we not only address an industry problem but also contribute to employment opportunities in South Africa.”

News Archive

Enhancement of social justice focus at research colloquium
2010-10-07

At the third Education for Social Justice Research Colloquium the publication Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South were handed to Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS. At this occasion were, from the left: Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Education; Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University; Prof. Moraka; and Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

 

This year, the University of the Free State (UFS) was the host for the Research Colloquium: Education for Social Justice for the very first time. It is the third time that this colloquium has been presented.

Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS, opened the colloquium, stating that academics, through their research, are ultimately in a good standing to advise government on important issues such as social justice for them to address these issues accordingly.

Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University, delivered the opening address on the theme: Validating community cultural wealth towards sustainable empowering learning environments for social justice. He said that the legacy of our recent past as South Africa still continues to haunt us, especially as exemplified in the dysfunctionalities that are rife in our education.

“With the colloquium we manage to bring together the ideas, thoughts, resources and efforts of educators and/or educationists concerned with the creation of a more equitable, equal, free, hopeful, peaceful and socially just society. Through our teaching, our community engagement and research activities we strive towards a more humane, caring, respecting and respectful South Africa and the world,” he said.

According to Prof. Mahlomaholo, education and its research are some of the most potent mechanisms at the very centre of social transformation. The papers at the colloquium focused on investigating, understanding and responding to issues of amongst others:

  • The medium of teaching and learning which continues to be a barrier to many learners to perform to the best of their abilities in the majority of the education institutions in South Africa;
  • Health, sexuality, HIV/Aids, stigmatisation and other deseases plaguing our communities currently;
  • Self-fulfilling prophecies and stereotypes about some learners not being as intelligent as the rest and this finally being reflected and confirmed in their poor academic achievements;
  • Differentiated levels of parental involvement in the activities of their children’s learning due to long absences from their families as they have to work in far-off places of employment;

Papers delivered at the colloquium moved beyond merely identifying the problems; they also suggested possible and plausible research-based solutions to these, such as integrating HIV/Aids education in curricula, listening to the aspirations of significant stakeholders such as mothers and parents generally in teaching and facilitating more rigorous community engagement practices.

At the colloquium gala dinner the book Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South Africa by authors Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education, Prof. Mahlomaholo and Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UFS, was launched. The publication consists of a collection of the best peer-reviewed papers from a conference with the theme Creating sustainable empowering learning environments through scholarship of engagement. The main criterion for inclusion was that the paper should contribute to the theme by means of an original, tight, theoretical and empirical study conducted with the aim of informing the practice of creating sustainable empowering learning environments. The concrete cases examined in many of the chapters are very useful to helping readers understand the specific, on-the-ground concerns related to higher education and schools.

Media Release
Issued by: Leonie Bolleurs
Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2707
Sel: 0836455853
Email: bolleursl@ufs.ac.za  
30 September 2010
 

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