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21 October 2020 | Story Andre Damons | Photo Supplied
Monique Tangah (Economic and Management Sciences Faculty) won the PhD category of UFS Institutional Three-Minute Thesis competition hosted by the Postgraduate School.

Monique Tangah, a postgraduate student from the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), will represent the university on 13 November 2020 at the National Three-Minute Thesis, also known as the ‘3MT’, competition after she won the UFS competition. 

The UFS Postgraduate School hosted its Institutional 3MT on 9 October 2020 and winners chosen from each faculty competed against each other for the UFS Three-Minute Thesis title. Tangah, with her thesis titled, Cameroonian women’s empowerment through higher education: An African-feminist and Capability Approach Analysis, emerged victorious from a total of 20 students who are registered for their PhD and master's degrees. Tensions were high as the participants brought their research products of a very high standard forward in the virtual competition.

Willard Morgan, a student in the Faculty of Education, won the category for the Master’s Degree students with his title, Ideological representations of entrepreneurship in high school economic and management sciences textbooks.

The Three-Minute Thesis competition is an annual competition held at 200 universities across the world. It is open to PhD and master's students and challenges participants to present their research in just 180 seconds – in a way that is understood by an audience with no background in their specific research area.

Universities need to focus on the generation of new knowledge to solve critical problems in the country, continent and globally. The Three-Minute Thesis competition aims to achieve this by encouraging the increase of research output produced by master’s and PhD students. 


Winners and runners-up of the UFS competition for 2020 are:

For the PhD category
Winner: Monique Tangah (Economic and Management Sciences Faculty)
1st runner-up: Tamson Foster (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)
2nd runner-up: Monique Basson (Humanities)

For the Master’s category
Winner: Willard Morgan (Education)
1st runner-up: Kyla Dooley (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)
2nd runner-up: Bonolo Makhalemele (Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty)

The National Three-Minute thesis will be hosted virtually on 13 November 2020. PhD finalists from South African universities will compete for the 3MT SA title. Whose research thesis will stand the test of time? Join to find out.

Date: 13 November 2020
Time: 10:00-13:00

For more information, email Reabetswe Mabine at mabiner@ufs.ac.za

News Archive

HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’, says Prof Petersen
2017-08-22

 Description: HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’ Tags: HEMIS training ‘shares insights across institutions’

UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor Prof Francis Petersen
presents the welcoming address at the 2017 HEMIS Institute
in Bloemfontein.
Photo: Eugene Seegers

Higher education institutions such as universities need information and accurate data to make critically important management decisions. Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS), expressed these sentiments during his introduction at the 2017 HEMIS Institute recently held in Bloemfontein.

Reporting a critical part of HE practice
The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) uses its Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) to manage and verify performance data from Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) regarding four crucial datasets, namely students, staff, space, and postdoctoral information and research fellows. HEMIS data is collected for quality control, funding, and planning purposes, in particular for steering the system and for monitoring the sector. This data must then be audited, since it is used for subsidy allocations to HEIs.

“Institutional reporting on aspects of what we do as public universities is a critical part of practice in Higher Education,” said Prof Petersen. He added, “Whether about insourcing statistics, … student accommodation, or transformation and indicators within that domain, it’s really all about accurate data with which informed, evidence-based decisions can be made. This HEMIS Institute 2017 ultimately enables us to share insights across institutions, which can grow and strengthen the sector as a whole.”

‘It’s about accurate data with
which informed decisions can
be made’—Prof Francis Petersen

Public and private HEIs attend training alongside government reps
The Institutional Information Systems Unit of the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP) hosted and presented the Southern African Association for Institutional Research (SAAIR) HEMIS Foundations workshop and the annual HEMIS Institute in Bloemfontein. These training opportunities were attended by university data managers and representatives from 26 public and private HEIs, as well as representatives from the Council on Higher Education (CHE), DHET, and the Namibian National Council for Higher Education (NCHE). The Foundations workshop was designed to assist those new to the platform to be better acquainted with this data management tool, while the two-day Institute was structured to answer complex questions and address issues around the use of the relevant reporting structures and software.

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