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06 March 2020 | Story Ruan Bruwer | Photo Supplied
Nomsa Mathontsi
Nomsa Mathontsi has been training with the South African senior women’s football team since Monday (03/02).

Whether she takes to the field or not, being part of the senior national women’s soccer team is already an accomplishment, says Nomsa Mathontsi. 

The BAdmin student in Economic and Management Sciences has been chosen for the Banyana Banyana squad for the first time. They face Lesotho on Sunday, 8 March 2020 in an international friendly in Johannesburg. There could be two Kovsies on the field, as Mating Monokoane, another University of the Free State student, was selected for Lesotho’s team. Both of them are midfielders.

The 21-year-old Mathontsi, who has been part of the Kovsie football team since 2018, says it will be a dream come true for her to wear the national colours. “Even if I don't get to play, I will still be proud of myself for being able to take on the challenge of going to camp and giving myself a chance to show my talent.”

“We have been together since Monday, 2 March 2020 and it has been the best experience, especially the fact that football has put me in the high-performance centre (South African Football Association girls’ academy), and now I get an opportunity to be with Banyana for the first time.”

“I was shocked when I got the call, but excited to face the challenge because it's never easy to get a call-up to Banyana, you need to work for it,” she says.

According to Mathontsi, who grew up in Mamelodi, Pretoria, her first love was athletics, but that changed during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
“I was an athlete back in primary school and it just so happened that I was selected to play football, which I never really enjoyed. I also had the opportunity to be part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup ceremonies, where I developed a love for football.”

News Archive

PSP rejuvenating the South African professoriate
2016-10-25

Description: Dr Olihile Sebolai  Tags: Dr Olihile Sebolai

Dr Olihile Sebolai (Microbiology) is
one of two Fulbright scholars the
UFS Prestige Scholars’ Programme
has produced. He was a Fulbright
scholar at the University of Missouri
(Kansas City) and before that
conducted work at the University
of Birmingham in the UK.
Photo: Anja Aucamp

Twenty years. That is the difference between the average age of a UFS Prestige Scholar (35) and the average age of a South African academic (55). Since its inception in 2011, the UFS’s Prestige Scholars’ Programme (PSP) has pro-actively addressed the ageing profile of academia and the need to transform the social composition of the South African academy. In doing so it has generated more than R67 million in research funding, including R10 million in student and post-doctoral funding.

The programme seeks to identify, cultivate and promote outstanding scholarship among “young” members of the UFS academic staff – those who have acquired a doctorate within the last five years. It provides support (funding applications, report writing, etc.) and helps with international placements in order to accelerate the establishment of an international footprint in expectation of the participants’ entry into the professoriate.

The programme mentors scholars from five faculties at the UFS. PSP scholars have conducted research and established collaborations in North America, Europe and Japan at institutions such as Harvard, UCLA, Cornell University, University of Michigan, University of Missouri, University of British Columbia, Oxford University, Cambridge University, University of Manchester, University of Birmingham, Basel University, University of Bologna, Leiden University, Uppsala University, Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology and Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine.

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