Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
04 January 2021 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe | Photo Anja Aucamp
Dr Sekanse Ntsala

Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences and Language Education at the University of Free State, Dr Sekanse Ntsala, collaborated with colleagues from eight universities across South Africa to produce instructional reading strategies for Sesotho and isiZulu students in the Faculty of Education.

The project will see Dr Ntsala partner in the production of learning material in Sesotho and IsiZulu for Foundation and Intermediate phase lecturers, academics, and students. The project is centred in the Centre for African Language Teaching at the University of Johannesburg. 

Designing African language material is a progressive move 

He said there was a gap in the learning material currently being produced, as it was all produced in English, even for African languages. 

"The dilemma is that thus far, all the material that we use for teaching has been written in English. This means that lecturers have to rely on material written in English, and in some instances, they have to translate into the relevant African language. The challenge with translation is that the final product does not always come out the same. You find that even when lecturers have to compile study guides, they still have to rely on the same material. It's a challenge that affects even students themselves, as discussions and assessments have to be done in the African language in question."

He said rather than to translate the content that has been written in English, the collaboration will result in newly created material for Sesotho and IsiZulu.

The two languages were selected as pilot languages; Dr Ntsala said the aim of the project is to expand the creation of material to other languages in order to eliminate English as the main focus in teaching.

"The main rationale is that it's only fair that we have material that will be relevant to a particular language. The manner in which it is happening now is sort of degrading to other languages," he said.

Dr Ntsala said the material would be completed by the end of 2020 and would then go through the process of getting approval from the deaneries of the approved universities, as well as from the Department of Education.

"We are trying to ensure that every language gets recognition in classrooms. Having material that is language-specific is a step in the right direction to ensure that each language is given the respect it deserves."

News Archive

Former architecture student takes part in Archiprix in Moscow
2013-06-24

Jurie Swart in Moscow.
24 June 2013

 

“I am proud that I could honour the UFS’ name,” says Jurie Swart. He participated in the prestigious Archiprix in Moscow in May 2013.

Archiprix is an international competition where the world’s top architecture students are selected. Architecture departments, schools and faculties of 1 500 universities from 78 countries worldwide are invited to enter their top master’s students over two study years.

In 2012, Jurie Swart was honoured as regional winner of the Corobrik Architectural Student of the Year Award and also received an honourable mention in the 2012 International Graduate Architecture Projects.

After several months of careful evaluation by a panel of five experts, his thesis, Borderline – mediated landscape, A water research centre for the University of the Free State, Qwaqwa Campus, was nominated as one of the world’s 25 master’s projects to take part in the Archiprix in Moscow. His thesis was also on display at the Central House of Artists in Moscow for a couple of months.

The judges were Yuri Grigoryan (architect and director of the Moscow-based Project Meganom, as well as director of educational programmes at the Strelka Institute in Moscow); Susan Herrington (professor of architecture and landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada); Kristin Jarmund (architect and director of the Norwegian-based Kjark, an architectural house); Hubert Klumpner (architect, director of the Venezuela-based Urban-Think Tank, and professor of architecture and urban design at the ETH, Zürich ); and Lesley Lokko (architect, academic and author from the UK).

Jurie Swart was selected as the participants’ favourite. “From the top 25, seven winners were announced, and although I didn’t win, it is still an amazing achievement and I am proud to have honoured the university’s name,” he said.

During his visit to Moscow, he also attended a workshop with the rest of the nominated students. This project, with the theme Railroads, was an exercise to help solve Russia’s transport problems.

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