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04 February 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Sonia Small (Kaleidoscope Studio)
Prof Hendri Kroukamp has been appointed to the Accreditation Committee of the International Commission on Accreditation of Public Administration Education and Training.

Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS), has been appointed to the Accreditation Committee (AC) of the International Commission on the Accreditation of Public Administration Education and Training (ICAPA) in January 2021.

He is serving on this committee with, inter alia, John-Mary Kauzya, Chief of the Public Service Innovation Branch of the United Nations (UN); Lichia Saner-Yiu, President of the Academy for Quality in Training and Education, Geneva, Switzerland; and Allan Rosenbaum, Public Service Adviser to President Joe Biden of the USA and President of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA). 

Ensuring accountability and transparency 

Prof Kroukamp supports the belief that an effective government and public administration are essential in the promotion of economic development and in ensuring the kind of accountability and transparency that are central to sustaining a democratic society. 

He is convinced that high-quality education and training is key in producing effective and accountable public administrators and government officials.

Consequently, he says that providing the highest quality of public administration education and training must be a central objective of all those concerned with promoting and sustaining democratic and prosperous societies. “It is of critical importance to preparing the next generation of public administrators and government officials. The current generation of public administrators and government officials also need constant development in terms of their competencies, skills, and capabilities,” he adds.

Standard of excellence prescribes programmes 

ICAPA, which provides quality assurance services for education and training programmes in public administration, will address these objectives. 

Based on self-evaluation reports and site visits, programmes are confronted with the Standards of Excellence for Public Administration Education and Training. These are jointly developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) and the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration (IASIA). 

Serving on the Accreditation Committee, part of his role will include adopting the accreditation criteria, constituting site-visit teams, deciding on accreditation, submitting the annual plan and report, and serving in this main pool of site reviewers. 

News Archive

Registrar takes leadership role at Golden Key International
2012-03-08

 

Dr Derek Swemmer
8 March 2012

The world’s premier academic honour society, the Golden Key International Honour Society, has recognised academic excellence at our university by appointing Dr Derek Swemmer, Registrar of the UFS, as chairperson of its international board of directors.

Dr Swemmer is the first South African to serve as Chairperson of the governing body of the society. He will take up office in July 2012. Dr Swemmer, who has served as a board member for two terms, was appointed at a recent board meeting of the society in Georgia, Atlanta in the United States.
 
Dr Swemmer's role as Chairperson of the board is to ensure that the society’s values of academic excellence, leadership and service are followed in the more than 375 chapters worldwide. He will serve a three-year term on the board, which oversees the awarding of scholarships worth $1 million to its members annually.
 
Dr Swemmer says he is honoured to serve the UFS and South Africa in this capacity. “The appointment is humbling when you know you have hundreds of volunteers that could have been asked to serve.”
 
Dr Swemmer, who is co-advisor of the UFS Golden Key chapter, says he hopes to help the society to expand its service activities in order to provide an excellent example to the world of how highly skilled academic students render meaningful service to their communities, both at university and to the broader community.
 
He says the Golden Key International Honour Society is a very important part of the UFS’s Academic and Human project.

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