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UFS partners with national government to train public officials

22 June 2020 | Story Amanda Tongha

The University of the Free State (UFS) will play an instrumental role in equipping senior government officials with skills to fulfil their roles in the delivery of public services. The UFS is one of five higher education institutions that the national government has partnered with to provide management training for public servants across South Africa.

The Minister of Public Service and Administration, Mr Senzo Mchunu, announced on Friday 19 June 2020 that the National School of Government (NSG) will work with the UFS, North-West University, University of Fort Hare, University of the Western Cape, and the Tshwane University of Technology to deliver its Integrated Management Development Programme (IMDP) across the country. The Minister described the IMDP as “a comprehensive professional development framework for public sector supervisors, managers, and leaders, which promotes the application of sound management and leadership principles in a context of people-oriented development and service”.

Working with the NSG – a state training institution tasked to build public sector capacity – the UFS will provide training in various areas of public management.

Dr Lyndon du Plessis, Head of the Department of Public Administration and Management, says the UFS will provide management training at executive level through its Executive Development Programme (EDP), and on supervisory and middle-management level through the Emerging Management Development and Advanced Management Development programmes. This will be presented by the UFS Business School and the Department of Public Administration and Management. The latter will accredit the course content and ensure that experts are available to teach the course.

“It is a feather in the cap of the UFS and the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences that it has been selected together with only four other higher education institutions to provide these programmes. It is the continuation of a long-standing constructive relationship with government in an attempt to improve the quality of public sector management in South Africa, and the faculty is proud to be a role player in this key area.”

• The EDP has catered for about 130 students annually over the past three years.

News Archive

#Women'sMonth: Kovsie entrepreneur making waves in business world

2017-08-25

Akhona Monakalali to take on the business world.
Photo: Rulanzen Martin

Whoever came up with the idea that ‘a woman’s place is in the kitchen’, has definitely not met Akhona Monakalali. Monakalali, a postgraduate student busy with an Accounting diploma on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS), is a force to be reckoned with. She was born in Katlehong Township in Gauteng, and moved to Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape a few years later.

Making international waves in business
Monakalali is a Professional Accountant and an entrepreneur who continues to make her mark in the entrepreneurial world. She just recently participated in the Progressive African Network’s (PAN) Annual African Entrepreneurship Expo in Boston, USA, which was hosted by PAN and the Hult Women in Business Club. She was invited to the expo to share her insights on entrepreneurship in South Africa. “I and four other Africans participated in the expo via Skype. It was a very successful event and very insightful,” she says.

Awarded for positive contribution in communities
While she was doing her undergraduate degree, she was elected as the President/CEO of the Golden Key UFS Chapter in 2007. After competing with other universities in the national championships, they won and qualified for the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) World Cup in New York City. SIFE is an international non-profit organisation working with university students who want to change their communities positively, and gain practical knowledge to become socially responsible business leaders.

This international acknowledgement influenced her peers – among millions of other South African teens – to vote for her in the Seventeen Magazine’s Top Teen Achiever Award for her community contribution. Later in that same year, she received a special Service Leadership Award from the Dean of her faculty for her contribution towards creating a better world through business.
She has since established an in-home tutoring foundation called Monakali Academy, which offers parents and struggling students affordable, one-on-one tutoring in the comfort of their homes.
“Tutoring is performed in the student’s home in order to provide a comfortable and non-competitive environment for learning,” says Monakalali.
She will also be involved with various entrepreneurs throughout Africa, working on ways to improve youth entrepreneurship on the African continent.

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