Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Dr Ria de Villiers: training the trainers of a next generation

11 January 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Ria de Villiers_web read more — Dr Ria de Villiers is passionate about education as a vehicle to ensure that people are fully engaged in work and life.

The world is rapidly changing, and the Department of Education (DBE) is responding with a plan that aims to prepare learners to adapt to a new world. Ecubed (E3), a DBE programme using playful project-based learning as a learning methodology, unlocks an entrepreneurial mindset in school learners. The E3 programme focuses on entrepreneurship, employability, and education, emphasising learning as a lifelong process. Dr Ria de Villiers is the Curriculum and Schools’ Implementation Manager for E3.

Dr De Villiers, an alumna of the University of the Free State (UFS), is passionate about education as a vehicle to unlock competencies and agency, ensuring that people are fully engaged in work and life. Dr De Villiers therefore invests great effort in contributing to a more relevant education system. “I feel compelled to do something about the challenges we see in education, especially since it is such a vital part of our human (and societal) development,” she says.

Loving the buzz at schools, the smell of dust and chalk, Dr De Villiers really has a heart for teachers. “Teachers are often unacknowledged, and the work they do is critical,” she believes. She realised that as a teacher, her reach was too small to solve the problems in the South African education system. Therefore, she works as a teacher trainer, where she feels she can have a broader impact.

Her work as implementation manager for E3 allows her to make a positive impact on the education sector, while managing the creation of new learning materials online and face to face, as well as working in teacher development.

The difference in a changed world

Talking about E3, she says the programme prepares learners to acquire skills, knowledge, attitude, and mindset to be business owners or employers while being lifelong learners. The traditional way of teaching is changing, and with skills acquired through the E3 programme, school leavers will be ready to attend a tertiary institution, be prepared for the job market, and/or be able to start a business.

This is not the first time that Dr De Villiers has found herself in the education arena. She received her doctorate in Applied Linguistics from the UFS Faculty of the Humanities under the supervision of Prof Willfred Greyling in the Department of English. Her dissertation was titled, The impact of a discourse-based teacher counselling model in training language teachers for outcomes-based education. Assisting government and teacher unions with the training of teachers helped her to obtain the data for her PhD, in which she proposed a teacher-counselling model to promote teacher efficacy and agency.

Teaching across borders

A big part of her career was spent in the education environment, although she worked as a businesswoman and freelance consultant for more than 30 years – first as teacher and university lecturer, and later as co-founder of Future Entrepreneurs, a publishing and teacher-support business.

But it was when she started a language school that her communication business, Jika Communication and Training, came into being; it was not long before this enterprise developed into a leading training organisation for entrepreneurship education programmes endorsed by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Together with the ILO, she worked on a series of 30 business simulation games and role-plays to promote progressive teaching methodologies, learner-centredness, and activity-based experiential learning.

Teaching others about learning also allowed Dr De Villiers to cross South African borders when she facilitated the reworking of the vocational curriculum for the Indonesian government. She has done training at all teacher-training colleges in Dar-es-Salaam and Zanzibar for the Ministry of Education in Tanzania.

A more humane, learner-centred approach

In our changing world, and as it pertains to the education system, Dr De Villiers truly believes that training and teaching needs a more humane, learner-centred approach, with mutual respect between trainer and learner.

She remains inspired to continue making a difference in the sector. “I want schooling to improve and gear itself for a rapidly changing world. I want young people who are out of work to find their voice and place in the economy. I want every school learner to develop the agency and confidence to stand up in class and ask a question without any fear of losing face. And I want teachers to develop that agency too as they become more and more autonomous, self-reliant, and confident enough to teach using progressive methodologies.”

News Archive

Student leaders 2012/13 announced

2012-08-30

Ready for the task - Sabelo Khumalo, SRC President of the Qwaqwa Campus and William Clayton, SRC President of the Bloemfontein Campus.
Photo: Johan Roux
31 August 2012

The 2012/13 elections for the Student Representative Councils (SRC) of the University of the Free State were completed successfully and show meaningful support for the changes in student governance adopted by students across campuses over the past two years.

The SRC elections at the Qwaqwa Campus were completed on 23 August 2012, while the elections at our Bloemfontein Campus took place on 27 and 28 August 2012.

The SRC Elections at our Bloemfontein Campus showed a voter turnout of 4516 votes (30.8%), with the elections at the Qwaqwa Campuses showing 1753 votes (46%) – both campuses reached the required quorums and the IEA (Bloemfontein Campus) and IEC (Qwaqwa Campus) declared the elections free and fair and announced the results as a true reflection of the will of the student bodies at the campuses.

The full SRC at Bloemfontein Campus now consists of 62% black and 38% white, and 53% female and 47% male members.

In the Qwaqwa elections, SADESMO achieved 46, 38% of the vote, with SASCO, PASMA and NASMO each achieving 30,23% and 8,39% and 14,26%, respectively.

The successful elections at Bloemfontein Campus show that the detailed transformation of student governance introduced by students at the Campus in 2010 and adopted by the university in 2011, succeeded in mobilizing greater participation of students in governance and representation. These changes in the main included a shift to independent candidacy for elective portfolios (12 seats) and organizational candidacy in nine sub-councils that holds ex officio seats on the SRC. Changes also included the establishment of student representative seats in faculty governance and management forums and the adoption of a reviewed Central SRC Constitution. Ex officio seats hold full and equal constitutional authority in the SRC.

Students at Qwaqwa Campus introduced additional portfolios to its SRC, including ex-officio seats for academic affairs, arts and culture, commuter students, Rag Community Service, religious affairs, residences and sports.

A joint sitting of the Campus SRCs will establish the Central SRC 2012/13 on 9 September 2012.

As a further opportunity for participation in and the development of student governance and representation, the current Central SRC herewith also announces its recent adoption of a student governance advisory programme, namely the UFS Student Elders Council (SEC).

The SEC is established as a combined programme between the Central SRC and the Dean of Student Affairs and will consist of selected senior student leaders from all campuses who completed their terms of office, apply and are appointed to the Elders Council by the Central SRC.

The Council will serve as an advisory structure to the Central SRC and other student structures in support of the continuous development of student governance and representation of the student body at the university.

The SEC will advise the Central SRC to be constituted following the constitution of the respective Campus SRCs.

The SRC members at the Bloemfontein Campus are:

President: Mr William Clayton

Vice-President: Mr Bonolo Thebe

Secretary: Ms Karis-Robin Topkin

Treasurer: Mr Pieter Coetzee

Arts & Culture: Ms Chanmari Erasmus

Accessibility & Student Support: Ms Gene McCaskill

First-generation Students: Ms Tanya Calitz

Legal and Constitutional Affairs: Ms Nokuthula Sithole

Media, Marketing & Liaison: Ms Neo Chere

Sport: Mr Tshepo Moloi

Student Development & Environmental Affairs: Ms Thabisile Mgadi

Transformation: Ms Koketso Mofokeng

Dialogue & Ex officio: Associations Council: Mr Anesu Ruswa

Academic Affairs & Ex officio: Academic Affairs Council: Ms Nombuso Ndlovu

Residence Affairs & Ex officio: Residences Council: Mr Johann Steyn

City Residence Affairs & Ex officio: Commuter Council: Mr Michael van Niekerk

Postgraduate Affairs & Ex officio: Postgraduate Council: Mr Fadeyi Akinsuyi

International Affairs & Ex officio: International Council: Ms Tumelo Moreri

Student Media Affairs & Ex officio: Media Council: Mr Jamal-Dean Grootboom

RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Fundraising Council: Mr Jaco Faul

RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Community Service Council: Ms Keneue Mahloana

The SRC members at the Qwaqwa Campus are:

President General: Mr S Khumalo

Deputy President: Mr P T Lenka

Secretary General: Mr D Khethang

Treasurer General: Mr S I Sithole

Media & Publicity: Mr S N Ntombela

Politics & Transformation: Tbc

Student Development & Evironmental Affairs: Tbc Academic Affairs: Mr T Molawude

Arts & Cultural Affairs: Mr T Nkohli

Off-Campus Students: Mr B Mtshali

RAG, Community Service & Dialogue: Ms S F Mlotya

Religious Affairs: Ms D C Khau

Residence & Catering Affairs: Ms Z Mzolo

Sports Council: Mr S Mngomezulu

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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