Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
28 October 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
Prof Edilegnaw Wale Zegeye, who has joined the UFS Department of Agricultural Economics, believes university education is not just a requirement for learners to receive a certificate; it is a means to change their character, capacity, and reasoning.

Edilegnaw Wale Zegeye joined the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of the Free State (UFS) as Professor of Agricultural Development Economics and Policy on 1 October 2020.

True to his belief that life is like riding a bicycle – to keep your balance, you must keep moving (Albert Einstein) – Prof Zegeye is not planning to wait for life to happen. He says that he is looking forward to engaging with his colleagues in the department regarding new challenges in the areas of teaching, research, and community engagement.

Teaching and learning

Prof Zegeye believes COVID-19 has made it necessary to come up with new ways and means of realising effective teaching and learning. He is convinced that even though online teaching has suddenly become the norm, many universities, including the UFS, will in future have to adopt some form of a hybrid, merging online with contact classes. 

“Given the uncharted territories we have to navigate, I foresee operational and content-related challenges in this area,” he says. 

These challenges, he believes, will require disrupting the status quo courageously, without neglecting the implications for teaching and learning outcomes.

Prof Zegeye is of the opinion that university education is not just a requirement for learners to receive a certificate. “It is a means to change their character, capacity, and reasoning. It is not about learning facts but enabling learners to think critically.”

His goal for his students is to enable them to master the subject matter content, not just memorise lecture notes to pass examinations. “Students should not expect everything from us, as teaching and learning is a two-way process. It is not a transfer of knowledge from a lecturer to students,” he says.

According to Prof Zegeye, success in teaching and learning is the outcome of the collective engagement of the lecturer, students, and the subject matter. He believes that was why Benjamin Franklin once said: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”

Research

“In relation to research, the biggest challenge I anticipate is in terms of linking evidence-based knowledge with policy, implementation, and impact on the ground.”

He says the biggest challenge was to ensure that the knowledge generated is taken up by the relevant organisations and authorities in order to address the development-policy problem being examined. “This would, among other things, call for fixing the knowledge-action gap, addressing conflicts of interest, and engaging all the relevant stakeholders along, what I would call, the Research-Knowledge-Policy-Impact Nexus,” says Prof Zegeye. 

Prof Zegeye has more than twenty years of experience with higher education institutions, including the positions of Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, Professor, and Honorary Professor (current appointment) in Agricultural Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). 

Although he spent several years at UKZN, he started his academic career at Alemaya University in Ethiopia. It was also at this university that he received a BSc in Agricultural Economics. He continued with his studies and obtained a master’s degree in Agricultural Development Economics from Wageningen University (the Netherlands), and later a doctoral degree in Agricultural and Natural Resources Economics from the University of Bonn. He obtained all degrees with distinction. 

Prof Zegeye has also gained valuable experience from working as an economist on the Genetic Resources Policy Initiative (GRPI) project of Bioversity International in Kenya. He has also been a consultant to, among others, the International Food Policy Research Institute and the International Livestock Research Institute. 

“Building on my experiences, I strongly believe that there is always room for improvement in whatever we do. If we all agree with that philosophy, all of us have a unique contribution to make to achieve excellence in what we do. There is a need to remind ourselves that excellence is not a destination; it is a journey that all of us need to take as a collective responsibility,” states Prof Zegeye. 

Published articles

To date, he has published more than 80 papers on water use in smallholder agriculture, agrobiodiversity conservation and technology adoption on smallholder farms, agricultural development policy, and impact assessment of development projects/programmes/policies. Prof Zegeye is also associate editor of the International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management and serves as a reviewer for various internationally accredited journals.

News Archive

University tips its hat to final-year students
2013-09-13

 
From the left: Lauren Marais, Werner Landman, Herloise Jordaan and Louis Rossouw (PwC).
13 September 2013

The Alumni Office at the University of the Free State (UFS), in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), held its first Alumni Evening for final-year students.

The students received valuable advice from various speakers during the event. Werner Landman – also a UFS graduate – highlighted the differences in approach between the current and previous generations. Landman explained that Generation Y students have greater influence and are extensively connected socially as they enter the work environment. “You are people who will work to live, unlike us, Generation X, who live to work,” he said. With their degrees – some already busy with their post-graduate studies – they are more likely to be appointed in professions which will allow them to live better, he added.

Heloise Jordaan, former 2008/9 SRC president, who holds three degrees from Kovsies to her name, also addressed the final-years. She currently holds the position of brand manager at Urban Hotels, although she only started working recently. Through sharing her personal work experiences, she gave the audience a glimpse into the workplace."You guys need to realise that when you step into the working sphere, you need to be open minded and also work to the best of your abilities,” Jordaan encouraged.

The evening was concluded on a high note with a prize-giving. Pieter du Toit, UFS Alumni Chair, was in charge of handing over the awards. Residences were compared to find which ones generated the most residing final-year and postgraduate students. House Tswelopele and Soetdoring clinched the honours and walked away with R2 000 each for their house.

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept