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21 July 2021 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Charl Devenish
Even after her premiership, Helen Zille has remained a powerful force within the South African political landscape. Here she is pictured during a workshop hosted by the Department of Political Science and Governance in February 2020.
We have all heard or seen the expression #StayWoke. It is a term with its origins in the United States, implying an awareness of social issues such as racial injustice and other societal issues. It is often seen as a left-wing political movement – and now a new book, #StayWoke, Go Broke: Why South Africa won’t survive America’s culture wars (and what you can do about it), by Helen Zille, Chairperson of the DA Federal Council, aims to explore how wokeness can be bad for South Africa. 

Zille will be talking to Prof Hussein Solomon in the Department of Political Studies and Governance at the University of the Free State.   

You can join this interesting discussion on: 

Date: 29 July 2021

Time: 10:00-11:00

 

About the author:
Helen Zille is a South African journalist, activist, and politician who served as the national leader (2007-2015) of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the official opposition party in South Africa. She was also Premier of the Western Cape from 2009 until 2019. Zille’s autobiography, Not without a Fight, was published in 2016. 

 

 

 

News Archive

Universities join hands in developing literacy tests
2010-03-19

 
At the signing ceremony, from the left, are: Prof. Driekie Hay (Vice-Rector: Teaching and Learning), Prof. Albert Weideman (Head: Department of English) and Prof. Lucius Botes (Dean: Faculty of the Humanities).
Photo: Supplied


The development of academic literacy tests recently took a step into the future with the formal establishment of the Inter-institutional Centre for Language Development and Assessment (ICELDA).

ICELDA, under its first executive head, Prof. Albert Weideman, Head of the Department of English at the University of the Free State (UFS), is a cooperative venture between the multilingual Universities of Pretoria, North-West, Stellenbosch and the Free State.

It is dedicated to the development of reliable state-of-the-art academic literacy tests and currently makes 32 000 tests available to partnering universities annually.

Most notably, it has produced three of the most reliable academic literacy tests in the country. These include an Academic Listening Test and the Test of Academic Literacy Levels (TALL) for undergraduate students, with reliability levels that are more than 20% above international benchmarks.

“We are even more excited about our Test of Academic Literacy for Postgraduate Students (TALPS), which is already a crucial instrument in determining the literacy levels of postgraduate students at the Universities of the Free State, Pretoria and North-West,” said Prof. Weideman.

In addition, ICELDA is currently piloting studies for language tests for financial advisors, nurses, students of disaster management, as well as police studies at Unisa.

ICELDA will also collaborate with the Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) at the National University of Singapore.

“One of the undertakings I made on my visit to Singapore a year ago was that I would assist in every way I could with the building of joint expertise with CELC in language testing,” said Prof. Weideman.

“However, our focus will remain firmly on research.”

He said his goal was to employ the surpluses generated by selling tests to provide promising students with bursaries to stimulate further study and design of academic literacy and other language tests.

By drawing more researchers into the field, Weideman said, ICELDA could provide the capacity for developing reliable language tests that South Africa had always lacked.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
19 March 2010
 

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