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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

Communication Science lecturers walk away with Best Teachers Award
2015-11-26

The winners: Jolandi Bezuidenhout, Rentia Engelbrecht, Jamie-Lee Nortje with Prof Milagros Rivera (Head of Department of Communication Science).

Jolandi Bezuidenhout, Rentia Engelbrecht, and Jamie-Lee Nortje are the names behind the award-worthy A-Step programme. These lecturers in the Department of Communication Science at the University of the Free State (UFS) have been facilitating extra class for students in the extended programme since 2008. On 12 November 2015, they celebrated a major milestone when the programme received the Excellence in Teaching and Learning Innovation Award.

The annual awards are hosted by Dr Lis Lange Vice-Rector: Academic at the UFS, and administrated through the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL).

It was the first time that the Faculty of the Humanities had received the award. The lecturers were named the Best Teachers in the UFS, emerging in first place in the category: Student Engagement and Learning.

The A-Step sessions form part of a governmental programme dedicated to supporting students by offering diverse curriculum-related activities. Students attend two classes per week where they are equipped with language and life skills. As of 2015, the sessions were expanded to benefit not only the extended programme but all 788 students in Introduction to Verbal and Nonverbal Communication (KOM114).

“The activities are based on theoretical work we do in the mainstream classes,” explained Nortje. Primarily, the activities are meant to “help the student engage the work in a meaningful way so that they can understand it,” she said, which is why the sessions are designed in a fun and creative way.

The ‘Best Teachers’ organised and developed the A-Step sessions collectively and diligently over the years. The award, and the improved students’ academic performance, bears testimony to the effectiveness of their teaching style.

Marissa Grobbelaar, the Academic Staff and Development Project coordinator at the CTL, commended the lecturers’ efforts. Grobbelaar believes that “the way they approached their teaching and the passion which was evident in it,” was one of the reasons they deserved the award.

A former A-Step student, Rorisang Sekhasa, attested that, “the programme was very helpful because you get to have one-on-one sessions with your lecturer, and understand the work better. What was done in class is elaborated on in detail.”

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