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16 July 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba
Add these emergency safety contacts to your speed dial.

Staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic extends to ensuring that students at the University of the Free State (UFS) are safe from crime. Crime in South Africa remains an unfortunate reality which continues to affect students, staff and the institution in general. 

“Crime requires constant vigilance from the community and this can only be achieved through initiatives that are aimed at informing the community on what to do and what not to do. To this end the BSafe Safety First flyer is geared at informing specifically the student community on safety measures that must be taken,” said Cobus van Jaarsveld, Assistant Director: Threat Detection, Investigations and Liaison at Protection Services.

The Safety First flyer is a guide for students to be crime-conscious whether at their accommodation, on the street, or in their vehicles. It also offers tips on how to act responsibly as far as alcohol and drugs are concerned.

Engaging students on their safety 

UFS Protection Services recently engaged with off-campus residence students in Bloemfontein in order to provide tips on how to stay safe in their neighbourhoods. During the engagement, the new Safety First pamphlets were distributed, and students were encouraged to join the Student Crime-Stop Brandwag WhatsApp group.

As from 15 June 2020, Nissi Armed Response was deployed from 18:00 to 06:00. This initiative has already led to them responding to several suspicious persons and vehicles, as well as some minor incidents and disturbances. Two arrests were made on different occasions as a result of the deployment. In the first incident, a suspect was arrested on 27 June 2020 after a burglary in Brandwag, and the second relates to a suspect who was arrested on 10 July 2020 after threatening students at Universitas.

These successes were the result of student and community participation in providing information, coupled with excellent response from private security companies, including Nissi Armed Response, VR Security, and BloemSec.

News Archive

UFS sets trend for higher education institutions
2005-09-21

The University of the Free State (UFS) offers more service-learning courses than any other higher education institution in the country and has the highest number of students enrolled for these service-learning courses.

This was the research findings on higher education institutions conducted between 2001 and 2004 by the Joint Education Trust (JET) into service-learning courses. These are courses which seek to integrate service to the community into the academic core of higher education institutions.

The results of this research indicated that the UFS is one of the few higher education institutions in South Africa that have made progress in integrating community engagement into the mainstream academy.

According to the findings 2 233 students at the UFS participated in service-learning courses supported by JET, while 858 students at the University of Transkei (UNITRA), 636 students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and only 600 students at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) participated in service-learning courses.

In total there were 6 930 students participating in service learning courses supported by the JET at 10 institutions throughout the country.

The research also found that out of a total of 182 service-learning courses supported by JET countrywide, the UFS had the highest number of such courses at 42, followed by WITS with 28, the University of Kwazulu Natal with 26, UWC 24 and UNITRA with 22.

Nationally, most of the service-learning courses at higher education institutions are offered in the human sciences (62), followed by health sciences (37), education (26), agriculture (14), and economic sciences (11).

According to leading academics, service-learning is a credit-bearing, educational exercise in which students participate in an organised service activity that meets identified community needs and helps the student to gain a deeper understanding of course content and a sense of civic responsibility.

Reacting to the research findings, the Rector and Vice-chancellor of the UFS, Prof Frederick Fourie, said the university feels strongly that there should be integration of service-learning into the academic core of the institution.

“Through service-learning modules the UFS can give expression to its role of service to the community as an institution of higher learning, producing quality graduates who understand the communities in which they will have to function for the rest of their lives,” Prof Fourie said.

According to Mr Jo Lazarus, the project manager of the Community-Higher Education – Service Partnership (CHESP), which falls under the JET, a number of institutions have identified community engagement as a strategic priority and have allocated significant resources from their central budget towards its implementation.

Mr Lazarus said most students have an overwhelmingly positive attitude towards service learning.

“A large percentage of students surveyed indicated that their service-learning course helped to improve their relationship skills, leadership skills and project planning abilities. As significant is the fact that these courses also benefited them in terms of their awareness of cultural differences and opened their eyes about their own cultural stereotypes,” said Mr Lazarus.

“The key challenge still hampering the integration of service-learning as a core function of academic activity is that some institutions still see service-learning as an add-on, and nice-to-have activity,” he said.

According to Mr Lazarus higher education must demonstrate social responsibility and commitment to the common good by making available expertise and infrastructure for service-learning as a form of community engagement.

Media release
Issued by:  Lacea Loader
   Media Representative
   Tel:  (051) 401-2584
   Cell:  083 645 2454
   E-mail:  loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
   20 September 2005

 

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