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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

UFS welcomes unanimous judgement about its Language Policy in the Supreme Court of Appeal
2017-03-28

The University of the Free State (UFS) is pleased with the unanimous judgment handed down in the Supreme Court of Appeal this morning, in which the application from AfriForum and Solidarity to review and set aside the decision by the UFS Council to adopt a new Language Policy was dismissed.
 
The court accordingly directed that AfriForum and Solidarity pay the legal costs of the UFS, which include the costs of two Counsel. This is the second time that the two applicants were ordered to pay the university’s legal costs.
 
The UFS further welcomes the decision by the Full Bench that the Free State High Court made a mistake last year by indicating that the UFS Council made an irrational decision when it approved the new Language Policy on 11 March 2016.
 
“Today’s decision is a milestone in the history of the University of the Free State and underlines the importance of the decision made by the Council last year. The decision comes with a responsibility, as we now have to ensure that all our students can become part of the global community of scholars by providing them with the necessary support. We also have to make our staff and students understand the implication of the court’s decision,” said Prof Nicky Morgan, acting Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS.
 
The effect of today’s judgment is that the UFS may proceed to implement the new Language Policy according to its Implementation Plan. The new policy entails English as primary medium of instruction, but with the introduction of a tutorial system in Afrikaans and progressively in Sesotho to support students’ learning in their first and second year of study.
 
The policy has been piloted since January 2017 with first-year students in three faculties: Law, Health Sciences, and the Humanities. In these faculties, the majority of students indicated their preference to be taught in English. The Afrikaans-English policy will be maintained in the rest of the faculties in 2017 and phased out according to an implementation plan as from 2018.
 
Current registered students are able to complete their studies in the language they selected upon registration.

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
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

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