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28 November 2022 | Story Edzani Nephalela | Photo Edzani Nephalela
UFS Creative Clubs
Joleen Hamilton assists learners with their activities.
In an ever-changing, increasingly complicated world, the youth must be prepared to bring knowledge and skills to solve issues, make sense of information, and know how to acquire and analyse evidence to make judgements. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education encourages discussions and problem-solving among students, developing practical skills and an appreciation for collaborations. 

The Social Responsibility Projects department on the UFS South Campus is running a Creative Clubs programme that speaks to STEM education and collaboration.

Opening opportunities 

The primary goal of Creatives Clubs, a MerSETA-funded programme, is to open opportunities to develop problem-solving, critical thinking, and reasoning skills. One aspect Creative Clubs focuses on is identifying potential in the pupil and supporting them in participating in the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists. Learners participate in mathematics, science, and coding activities at the club.

According to Joleen Hamilton, the coordinator and founder of Creatives Clubs, they currently host top-achieving learners in maths from eight schools from Grades 8–12 in Bloemfontein. These schools are split into two groups, which meet at the South Campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays. “We need maths daily, since it stimulates the intellect and aids problem-solving. That’s why, no matter how complicated the sum looks, keep trying and do not give up,” Hamilton said at one of the maths sessions.

Enhancing critical thinking

Matheko Thamae, also a coordinator, mentioned that this programme significantly improves maths and science outcomes for high school learners. “With a dynamic world of innovation and the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR), the club also assists learners with critical thinking and in solving their communities’ socio-economic issues,” Thamae said. 

“Attending these sessions assists me in thinking out of the box and realising that every problem has a solution. I will continue to attend the programme so that I can find solutions to unresolved problems,” Sechaba Ramakatsa, a Grade 9 learner from Lekhulong Secondary School, said. Ramakatsa, who enjoys assisting others, aspires to be a medical doctor so that people might have better healthcare experiences.

News Archive

IRSJ marks five years of championing social justice
2016-08-12

Description: IRSJ 5 year Tags: IRSJ 5 year

Members of the Advisory Board of the IRSJ,
Prof Michalinos Zembylas (Open University
of Cyprus), Prof Shirley Anne Tate (Leeds
University, England), and Prof Relebohile
Moletsane (University of KwaZulu-Natal),
listen to a speaker on the programme.
 Photo: Lihlumelo Toyana

The Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice (IRSJ) marked its fifth anniversary with a function on 27 July 2016 in the Reitz Hall of the Centenary Complex on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS). Earlier that day, the Advisory Board of the IRSJ, chaired by Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the UFS, hosted their annual meeting.

A new book was also launched, co-authored by JC van der Merwe, Deputy-Director at the IRSJ and Dionne van Reenen, researcher and PhD candidate at the IRSJ. It is entitled Transformation and Legitimation in Post-apartheid Universities: Reading Discourses from ‘Reitz’. The function featured not only reflections on the IRSJ, but a four-member panel discussion of the book and higher education in 2016.

The IRSJ came into being officially at the UFS in January 2011. Prof André Keet, Director of the IRSJ, said: “With a flexibility and trust not easily found in the higher education sector, the university management gave us the latitude and support to fashion an outfit that responds to social life within and outside the borders of the university, locally and globally.”

The IRSJ has not hesitated to be bold and
courageous in reforming ... traditional policies."

 

Prof Jansen went on to mention three things he finds appealing about the IRSJ: “Thanks to Prof Keet and his team’s vision and understanding of how important it is for students to have a space in which they can learn how to be, learn how to think, and learn how to contribute, the IRSJ has become a place where students can learn about things that they might not learn in the classroom. Second, it created, for the first time, a space where members of the LGBTIQ community could gather in one place. And third, it speaks to the intellectual life of the university, as evidenced by the research and publications produced over the past few years.”

Prof Jansen added: “The IRSJ will only be successful to the extent that we have safe spaces, courageous spaces, in which not only black students talk to themselves, but where black and white students talk together about their difficulties. If you’re entangled, you can’t get out of [that] unless you speak to the other person.”

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Prof Michalinos Zembylas of the Open University of Cyprus and member of the Advisory Board, said of the IRSJ: “The works produced by the institute in this short time have been valuable to this community and beyond, because they recognise the complexities of education, ... while pushing the boundaries of how to translate theoretical discussions into practical, everyday conditions. ... For example, the IRSJ has not hesitated to be bold and courageous in reforming some traditional policies in this university—remnants of an ambivalent past that reproduced inequality and disadvantage.

In reflecting on how the IRSJ came into being during her opening remarks, Dr Lis Lange, Vice-Rector: Academic at the UFS, said that it has always been “dedicated to transformation.” She added that it “gathered the energy and creativity of some of our most promising student leaders.” She concluded: “For me, the greatest success of the Institute, besides publications and local and international networks, is the fact that something that started in the margins is being asked today to come closer to the centre, to play a larger role in the structural transformation of the university.”

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