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UFS proud of remarkable 2021 Free State NSC matric results

26 January 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Charl Devenish

Matric_Web read more — The Free State once again excelled in the NSC matric results. Pictured here is a broadcast of a celebratory event held by the FSDoE on the UFS South Campus in 2021 for the matric class of 2020.

The Free State has claimed the top spot in the National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination results for the third consecutive year, with a pass rate of 85,7% in 2021.

“On behalf of the executive management, staff, and students of the University of the Free State (UFS), I would like to extend our warmest congratulations to you and your executive team on the Free State being the top-achieving province,” Prof Francis Petersen, UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, wrote in a congratulatory letter to Dr Tate Makgoe, MEC for Education in the Free State.

“The UFS is proud to be associated with the Free State Department of Education and we salute you and your team for the many initiatives in schools across the province, which have contributed to the outstanding matric results this year,” Prof Petersen said.

The UFS will welcome several first-year students on its three campuses in February – many of whom hail from schools in the Free State. The 2021 NSC results were released on 20 January 2022.

Several UFS-led interventions thrive to make impactful change

The UFS is leading several projects with the Department of Education to address education-related problems in the province. The UFS, through its South Campus, presents the In-Service (InSET) programme, the Internet Broadcast Project (IBP), and the Schools Partnership Project. “It is projects such as these that make a huge difference in the lives of many learners and teachers in our province and that have given so many schools the opportunity to rise to the occasion,” Prof Petersen said.

The IBP supports learners from 80 schools, with lessons for learners in Grades 8 to 12 being transmitted to three centres across the Free State on a daily basis. Electronic access to learning material is also made possible through the IBP. The Schools Partnership Project, as part of the Social Responsibility Project at the UFS, is focused on the efficacy and quality of school management, subject teaching, and learning development. Well-trained mentors visit project schools on a daily basis, sharing knowledge, materials, and demonstrating the use of technology in an effort to improve the standard of teaching.

News Archive

Official opening: UFS earmarks R10-million to support national priorities

2006-02-06

The University of the Free State (UFS) is to align key areas of its academic and research efforts with national priorities through the introduction of five strategic clusters which would be funded by seedmoney of R10-million in 2006.

Speaking at the Official Opening of the UFS on Friday (3 February 2006), the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Frederick Fourie, said the academic and research work that will be done in the five strategic clusters would contribute to the development of Mangaung, the Free State, South Africa and Africa.

“It makes sense to concentrate the university’s human resources, our infrastructure, financial resources and intellectual expertise to ensure that the UFS makes a contribution to the country and the African continent,” Prof Fourie said.

“Strategic clusters will be organised on the basis that these areas of knowledge could become in the short term the flagships of the UFS, meaning those areas where the university currently has or in the very near future is likely to have some competitive advantage,” Prof Fourie said.

According to Prof Fourie, this strategic-cluster approach will be in line with the approach being designed by the National Research Foundation (NRF) to take national priorities into account and would enhance the quality of scholarship at the UFS.

The five strategic areas in which research and academic investment at the UFS will be clustered are the following:

Enabling technologies / Technology for the future;
Food production, quality and food security for Africa;
Development;
Social transformation;
Water resource and ecosystem management;

“Such strategic clusters are understood not only as research areas but as areas that also encompass strong undergraduate and particularly postgraduate teaching and a potentially solid scientific basis for service learning and community service research,” Prof Fourie said.

Within each of these clusters specific niche areas will be identified. Clusters could focus on one or more aspects of a particular discipline or could involve more than one discipline in researching a particular issue.

He said not all academic work and research being done at the UFS would be clustered in this way. Sufficient resources and support have been put in place for general research excellence in the past five years.

“Some of the spin-offs can have an important impact on industrial development, for example in the chemicals industry and may also create a basis for cooperation with provincial, national and international partners,” he said.

Media release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Media Representative
Tel: (051) 401-2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl.stg@mail.uovs.ac.za
5 February 2006

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