Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Previous Archive
09 December 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Barend Nagel
From the left: Rulanzen Martin, Lacea Loader, Dr Nitha Ramnath, and Martie Nortjé.

Another year, another round of national and international awards for the Department of Communication and Marketing’s (DCM) campaigns and projects. This year saw DCM pick up an International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Africa Silver Quill Award of Excellence for Communication Research for Narrative Building Storytelling. This project and subsequent award were in partnership with Development Communication Solutions (DevCom), led by Lacea Loader, Director: Communication and Marketing. 

During the 2022 annual Marketing, Advancement and Communication in Education (MACE) Excellence Awards, DCM won four excellence awards. Dr Nitha Ramnath, Deputy Director: Corporate Relations, won a Silver Award of Excellence for the 2021 Rector’s Concert, and a Bronze Award of Excellence for the 2022 Rector’s Concert. 

Lacea Loader and Martie Nortjé, Manager: Reputation, Brand and Marketing Management, won a Bronze Award of Excellence for the project ‘UFS – Our Story: The building and implementation of a brand narrative.’ Rounding up the UFS’ winning tally was Website Editor, Rulanzen Martin, who won a MACE Bronze Award of Excellence for the 2021 UFS Deaf Awareness Month (DAM) Campaign. The DAM campaign also received recognition during the 2021 IABC Silver Quill awards, where it won a Silver Quill Award of Excellence. 

Awards a perfect opportunity to benchmark 

“The awards give recognition to the communication efforts and endeavours undertaken by DCM as the strategic communication partner at the UFS; it also serves as a perfect opportunity to benchmark against peers and the industry. I am extremely proud of what the team has achieved,” says Loader.  “It is an honour when our projects receive awards, given the calibre of entries submitted for both the IABC and MACE awards programmes. The IABC awards programme is for all industries, while the MACE awards only recognise higher education institutions,” she says. 

For the 2022 MACE Excellence Awards, a total of 95 awards were awarded to 12 institutions from a total of 171 entries.

News Archive

Projects of the South Campus inspire excellence
2014-12-18

The University of the Free State’s (UFS’s) South Campus in Bloemfontein runs several projects to make a difference in the lives of learners and educators in the central region. These projects are based on the very essence of the UFS – to ‘inspire excellence, change lives’.

Three projects which have been very successful since the outset are the UFS Schools Partnership Project, the Family Math and Family Science Project and the Internet Broadcast Project.

The Schools Partnership Project attempts to empower teachers by improving their teaching skills in critical Gr 10 – Gr 12 subjects (Physical Science, Mathematics and Accounting).

Poorly performing schools are invited to join in the programme. A mentor, providing guidance to teachers in the planning of lessons, transferring knowledge and creating a healthy learning environment in the classroom, is assigned to each subject teacher. Management and leadership skills are also improved.

Hercules Dreyer, Programme Manager, says the success of the programme can be seen in the lessons, the results and the progress which have been made.

“In 2013, the pass rate of participating schools has grown from 71.5% to 85%. We had an increase in donors and the project went from 22 schools with 12 mentors in 2013 to 72 schools and 34 mentors in 2015.”

The UFS Family Math and Family Science Project, which is already in its sixth year of existence, are extremely popular. This intervention programme focus on bringing about a better understanding of Mathematics and Science in learners, teachers and parents.

Dr Cobus van Breda, Programme Director of the Family Math and Family Science Project, says that judging by the feedback from teachers, it is evident that the programme is growing from strength to strength and that it is making a real difference in Mathematics and Science education in the early school years.

The UFS’s Internet Broadcast Project (IBP) has thus far received four awards for their successes. In this project, lessons in Mathematics, Accounting and Physical Science are broadcasted from the UFS’s South Campus through internet presentations to schools in rural areas.

“To date, the IBP catalogue contains over 2 000 video lessons and in 2013 alone, the 68 schools accessed and used these videos 69 305 times. The project has the potential to reach more than 40 000 learners and 1 765 teachers every week,” says Sarietjie Musgrave, Project Manager.

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