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16 July 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
According to Prof Gerhard Bosman (bottom left), the biggest advantage of the COIL exchange for Architecture students was their cultural and online collaboration development while addressing urban diversity, multiplicity, and complexity in the built environment. During an online engagement between academics, were from the left: Prof Mark DeBoer and Prof Chiara De Santi; and bottom, right: Prof Carlo Citter.

In South Africa, student exchange programmes – especially at undergraduate level – remain extremely limited. The national Policy Framework for Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa, however, makes internationalisation of the curriculum mandatory and directs that it ‘must not negate curriculum transformation imperatives which higher education institutions in South Africa have an obligation to fulfil'.

The University of the Free State (UFS), through its Office for International Affairs, coordinates the iKudu project, which seeks to transform curricula through internationalisation and virtual exchanges. iKudu, a Capacity Building for Higher Education (CBHE) project, is funded by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme with EUR999 881 (approximately R20 million) and is implemented over a three-year period. Partner universities in the project are the South African Central University of Technology, Durban University of Technology, University of Limpopo, and University of Venda, with the University of Antwerp, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Coventry University, and the University of Siena the European partners in the project.

The dream

According to Cornelius Hagenmeier, Director of the UFS Office for International Affairs, at least 50 academics and 5 250 students from South Africa and Europe will participate in the project through the collaborative online international learning (COIL) exchange model. Academics are receiving training on accredited courses in a virtual setting where the classrooms (each located in a different country or cultural setting) of two or more higher education institutions are linked, working with colleagues from partner universities to implement COIL virtual exchanges for the benefit of their students. 

He says: “Students with different cultural and geographical perspectives and experiences have the opportunity to learn from each other through cross-cultural dialogue, bringing a global dimension to the course content. Apart from developing the intercultural competence, technological skills, and the ability to work in groups, students also enhance their employability.”

Another major advantage of this model is that it gives effect to the South African Policy Framework by contributing to internationalisation at home through purposeful integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the formal curriculum. 

Hagenmeier believes that, besides a transformed curriculum at all partner universities, this process will also influence policy development at national and regional level.  

The opportunity

BArchHons students from the History of Urban Settlement module in the UFS Department of Architecture are but one example of a group of students who benefited from the exchange programme. UFS associate professor and researcher in Earth Architecture, Prof Gerhard Bosman, collaborated with academics from Italy, Japan, and the USA to engage with 85 students across four continents. 

From the University of Siena, Italy, Prof Carlo Citter, an associate professor in Medieval Archaeology, participated in the programme. He was joined by Prof Mark deBoer, a lecturer from the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at the Akita University in Japan, and Prof Chiara De Santi, an assistant professor of Modern Languages, teaching film and cultural courses in English and Italian at the Farmingdale State College in the USA.

Prof Bosman says the COIL exchange programme, which started on 12 April 2021, was executed in three parts. He shares his account of the nine-week journey: “After students introduced themselves on Padlet, they were divided into twelve teams to collaborate in groups of seven to eight students (while creating a digital presence on Google Drive) to discuss, explore, and reflect on the urban environment and the portrayal of society during war/the aftermath of a war as depicted in a selected main steam film. Six weeks later, the groups had to submit final video and slide presentations on these topics. In the last part of the exchange programme – where students benefited from the perspectives of academics in four different cultures – a group and individual assessment reflecting the course discipline of the four student groups had to be accommodated. 

Overcoming challenges

The process unfortunately also had its challenges. Due to the time difference at most of the institutions, students found it difficult to meet. They also had to overcome the language differences, since not all students at the four institutions were English first-language speakers. However, the use of Google Meet (an online tool) with its English caption function helped individuals to follow the text from English voices.

As academics and students worked through the challenges, Prof Bosman confirmed that the COIL exchange programme has significant advantages. He states that the biggest advantage of the COIL exchange for Architecture students was their cultural and online collaboration development while addressing urban diversity, multiplicity, and complexity in the built environment. 

A follow-up COIL exchange between the four new partner universities in 2022 is well underway in the development and planning phases.

News Archive

#Women’sMonth: Men should help change narrative on violence against women – Prof Solomon
2017-08-23

 Description: Issues affecting women Tags: Prof Hussein Solomon, Department of Political Studies, violence against women, Gender and Sexual Equity Office, Women’s Month, Embrace a Sister, Boko Haram 

The panellists at a discussion on Issues
Affecting Women
at the UFS Sasol library were
Zane Thela, Head of the Gender and Sexual
Equity Office Programme, Pumla Mgobhozi, founding
member of Embrace a Sister, and
Prof Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor in the
Department of Political Studies.
From the left, are: Thela, Mgobhozi, Prof Solomon,
and Betsy Eister, Director: Library and
Information Services.
Photo: Jóhann Thormählen

The fight to eradicate violence against women is one which men should be involved in. According to Prof Hussein Solomon, Senior Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS), men have to help change the narrative of physical abuse and sexual violence which they perpetrate against women and children.
“Let them (men who might be offended by the #men are trash) reject violent masculinities, and in the process let them redefine what being a man is about. Let fathers teach their sons that no means no.”

Panel discussion on Issues Affecting Women
Prof Solomon was part of a panel discussion on Issues Affecting Women, organised by the UFS library, in collaboration with the Gender and Sexual Equity Office and Embrace a Sister, as part of Women’s Month in the UFS Sasol library on 3 August 2017.
The other panellists were Zane Thela, Head of the Gender and Sexual Equity Office Programme at the UFS, and Pumla Mgobhozi, founding member of Embrace a Sister. Prof Solomon’s book Understanding Boko Haram, focusing on the kidnapping of 200 young women in Nigeria was also launched.

Don’t accept things as they are
Prof Solomon says that responses by the SA government have no credibility and a lot more could be done. “What is clear is that outrage alone will not end this violence.”
Even at SA universities there are many examples of how women are mistreated. “We need to ask: What more can we do as a university to assist these (female) students.”

According to Thela, it is sad that these issues are only talked about seasonally (like during Women’s Month).
Thela says people should raise their children differently in order to change the narrative. “Then men won’t think they have to prove themselves to women.”
And we shouldn’t accept things as they are: “The most dangerous statement in society is to say: ‘It has always been done this way."

Role of women in their fate
Mgobhozi emphasised that women have a hand in the way they are being seen and treated in society. She therefore asked: “What is the role of women in making sure that we dismantle patriarchy”.
According to her women, especially black women, should dismantle the status quo. She added that cultures and parents often influence the way women are seen.
“Women should fight these social problems together,” Mgobhozi says.

 

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