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31 July 2020
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Story Lacea Loader
As a public higher-education institution in South Africa with a responsibility to contribute to public discourse, the University of the Free State (UFS) will be presenting the 3rd UFS Thought-Leader Series in collaboration with Vrye Weekblad as part of the Vrystaat Literature Festival’s online initiative, VrySpraak-digitaal.
This year, higher-education institutions
globally are placed in the challenging context of COVID-19. Aware and grounded in the reality that the world will not return to the normality of pre-COVID-19, our responsibility as scholars still remains to contribute to public discourse and to offer
innovative solutions that will impact the lives of people nationally and globally in order to help them understand and adapt to a new world order.
Against this background and context, this year’s debates focus on ‘Post-COVID-19, Post-Crisis’,
with Health and Modelling, Politics, Economy, and Predictions for 2021 as the sub-themes. Placed in a COVID-19 context, and in lieu of the Vrystaat Arts Festival,
the series will be presented virtually in the form of one webinar per month during the period August 2020 to November 2020.
Date: 13 August 2020
Topic: Health
and Modelling
Time: 11:30-13:00
RSVP: Alicia Pienaar, pienaaran1@ufs.ac.za
Facilitator:
Max du Preez
Editor: Vrye Weekblad
Biography
Introduction and welcome:
Prof Francis Petersen
Rector and Vice-Chancellor, UFS
Panellists:
Prof Salim Abdool Karim
Director: Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)
Chair: South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on COVID-19
Biography
Prof Glenda Gray
President and CEO: South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC)
Biography
Prof Felicity Burt
NRF-DST South African Research Chair in vector-borne and zoonotic pathogens research
Biography
CHE lifts notice of withdrawal of UFS LLB degree’s accreditation status
2017-11-16
The Council on Higher Education (CHE) has lifted the notice of withdrawal of the accreditation status of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) LLB degree. The degree is conditionally accredited with a progress report required in October 2018.
The Faculty of Law received this response to its Improvement Plan for the LLB degree from the CHE on 14 November 2017.
During 2016, a national review was conducted on all LLB programmes in order to strengthen the quality of legal education provision at all South African universities. On 30 March 2017, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) approved the findings of the National Reviews Committee (NRC) with regard to the LLB programme at the UFS, and placed the qualification on a notice of withdrawal of accreditation.
The decision of the CHE this week comes after the faculty submitted the Improvement Plan during early October 2017. This plan sets out for the CHE the changes that will be effected in the LLB programme for 2018 and 2019 and provides an outline of the new LLB curriculum it intends to introduce in 2020.
“The university’s executive management is extremely pleased about the outcome and welcomes the lifting of the notice of withdrawal of accreditation status, as it comes during a critical time of the year when the new cohort of Law students is completing their Grade 12 exams. Prof Caroline Nicholson, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and her team are commended for the considerable effort put into the submission and the extensive attention that was specifically given to concerns raised by the CHE in terms of the number of credits in the degree,” says Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS.
“There is hard work to be done going forward in ensuring that the UFS LLB degree is the very best on offer in South Africa, but with the continued support and commitment of the staff and students in the Faculty of Law, this vision is achievable,” says Prof Nicholson.
Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
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