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21 July 2020 | Story Nitha Ramnath | Photo UFS photo archive
The Department of Business Management within the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences is one of four successful recipients of the Nurturing Emerging Scholars Programme (NESP), which aims to recruit honours graduates who demonstrate academic ability and express an early interest in the possibility of an academic career. 

 “The NESP is a mechanism that addresses a potential shortcoming in the department in the medium to long term. Most of the academics in the department specialise either in entrepreneurship or marketing. As such, the availability of academics with interdisciplinary business knowledge who can teach and do research across the different sub-fields of business management is limited,” says Prof Brownhilder Neneh, Associate Professor in the Department of Business Management.

Once graduates enter the programme – as NESP master’s graduates they form part of a resource pool from which new academics can be recruited. 

Prof Neneh continues: “Considering the imminent retirement of academics in the department, the NESP provides an opportunity to recruit an academic who is able to work with experienced academics, gain experience, and ‘prepare’ the person to become an expert across the different fields in the department.”

“This programme would assist in succession planning within the department as well as training individuals within academia,” she says. 

According to Prof Neneh, access to this funding opportunity will further strengthen and expand the path that the department has embarked upon as far as striving for excellence in teaching, research, and community engagement is concerned, thereby contributing to address key societal challenges. “Appointing an NESP candidate would be an ideal opportunity to recruit an academic who will be able to work with the senior staff and gain experience and teaching/research competencies relevant to the 4IR, and ‘prepare’ the person to become the business management expert in the department,” she says.

News Archive

Minister praises MUCPP initiative
2004-10-04

The Minister of Labour, Mr MMS Mdladlana, singled out the Mangaung University of the Free State Community Partnership Programme (MUCPP) for high praise during a conference at the MUCPP complex on 30 September 2004 .

“I am very pleased with what the partnership of different stakeholders can do and I thank all stakeholders for contributing to this initiative. This is the kind of energy that our country needs,” the minister told delegates to the conference.

He said the MUCPP was a very unusual and important partnership that is related directly to the mandate of government and supports two strategic objectives of government, namely halving poverty and halving unemployment.

The MUCPP was launched in 1991 as a partnership between the University of the Free State , the local community of Mangaung, local and provincial government and the private sector, in an effort to develop skills and contribute to fighting poverty.

Some of the existing projects of the MUCPP include:

  • Health centre (including a 24-hour maternity ward)
  • Dairy producing yoghurt and amasi
  • Sewing and knitting project
  • Indigenous food production (Tsa se tso)
  • Bakery
  • Bed and Breakfast accommodation
  • Etsa phapang (a hydroponic facility growing various vegetables)
  • Welding project
  • Low cost housing project
  • Sport and recreation facilities and programmes

According to the Minister, hundreds of young people, adult learners and people with disabilities have benefited from training and skills development and have become involved in carpentry, welding, painting, cleaning services, gardening and HIV / AIDS awareness programmes.

Minister Mdladlana said he was pleased that through partnerships with several Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) which fall under the Department of Labour, the MUCPP could access hundreds of thousands of rands for such training and development.

“I can just salute those that have made it possible, and to encourage you to keep up the good work,” the minister said.

The MUCPP also provides a means for students of the UFS to render community service. The UFS was one of the first universities in South Africa to adopt a comprehensive community service policy in 2002. In terms of the policy, community service is integrated into curricula through service learning modules.

It is therefore of great importance that the UFS should support community sites such as the MUCPP where a holistic and integrated approach to mutual and reciprocal development of all partners is followed.

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