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16 May 2022
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Story Lacea Loader
The academic programme on the Qwaqwa Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) will mostly continue online for this week, and students will be informed by their faculties about the revised schedule as well as arrangements regarding tests and assessments scheduled for this week on the campus.
This decision came after about 100 students blocked the entrance to the campus on the morning of 16 May 2022 and were dispersed by members of the South African Police Service (SAPS). This was followed by the stoning of some of the staff cottages from outside the periphery fence as the police again dispersed students. The students’ action was preceded by a night vigil at the main gate of the campus on 15 May 2022 by a group of about 200 students demanding that private accommodation payments be made to them and not to their chosen landlords.
The university management condemns today’s destructive behaviour by the students in the strongest terms – especially after the campus experienced violent protest action and arson this year, which affected the academic programme negatively.
The campus remains open; the university's Protection Services is on high alert and is closely monitoring the situation on campus in cooperation with the SAPS.
Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Marketing)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
UFS shares expertise in Sign Language
2009-05-07
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The University of the Free State (UFS) is continuing in its commitment to reach out to other universities on the African continent. Mr Philemon Akach (pictured), a senior lecturer in the Department of Afro-Asiatic Studies, Sign Language and Language Practice, recently visited the University of Ghana to share his expertise and assist in the introduction of the Ghanaian Sign Language (GSL) as an academic course in that institution. The course will first be piloted as an “elective course” and if successful it will be a permanent feature of the University of Ghana's calendar.
Mr Akach has been instrumental in the development of GSL since the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sent him on a fact-finding mission regarding the education of deaf children in Ghana in 1993. Since then he has trained interpreters as well as parents and teachers of deaf children in Ghana in using the South African Sign Language multimedia grammar teaching materials. He has also guided the GSL Dictionary Project. The University of Ghana will use his books as the basis for the teaching of the GSL. This session was a follow-up to the one he had with that university in February this year.
The UFS is widely regarded as a beacon of light in the teaching of sign language on the continent and, together with the University of Witwatersrand, are the only universities in South Africa that offer sign language as an academic course.
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe |