Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

Dr Namakula leads UN talks on Human Rights of People of African descent

17 November 2022 | Story Valentino Ndaba

Dr Catherine Namakula — Dr Catherine S. Namakula, Senior Lecturer of Public Law at the UFS and Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent.

During the 77th General Assembly of the United Nations (UN), the plight of children of African descent was a main topic of conversation. The conversation was led by Dr Catherine Namakula, Senior Lecturer of Public Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) and Chairperson of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD).

On Monday 31 October 2022, in New York, she presented the group’s yearly report, titled ‘Children of African Descent’ to the third committee of the General Assembly. Dr Namakula urged the UN and other stakeholders to avoid using photos of African children and children of African descent in deplorable situations for fundraising and marketing purposes. She stated that "children of African heritage are not synonymous with poverty".

Some of the issues discussed at the meeting included conflicts of law with regard to children of African descent, their disproportionate criminalisation, the intense policing of their families and homes, the racial conditioning of their education, and the use of images of them in degrading circumstances in UN and other stakeholder messaging for marketing and fundraising.

The Working Group recommended the creation of a racial justice index to assess how well states are performing and making progress in improving the well-being of children of African heritage. South Africa was one of the nations that intervened to affirm the report. Among the countries that affirmed other related issues were Russia, Cameroon, China, and Syria.

Dr Namakula also had private meetings with the leaders of the World Council of Churches, UN Women, UNICEF, and other UN agencies to talk about human rights-based approaches to programming aimed at mainstreaming racial justice in their work.

African Commission on Human and People’s Rights

In addition, Dr Namakula headed the WGEPAD team to the 73rd regular meeting of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights. She made a statement at the session that brought attention to the opportunities for and necessity of African civil society participation in the work of the Working Group and the UN anti-racism machinery. She made reference to the 'Declaration on People of African Descent' being drafted, to which they may add African perspectives.

Dr Namakula also called attention to the precarious status of victims of modern forms of enslavement, torture, and exploitation in the Middle East and Gulf States, emphasising the important role of civil society in documenting and publicising the tales of vulnerable victims. She emphasised the need for work on the reparations agenda to start right now in order to document Africa's claims and create the necessary institutional and normative frameworks.

She added that efforts are under way to have the UFS Faculty of Law serve as the academic alliance's anchor for the reparations agenda in Africa.

News Archive

Qwaqwa Campus’s Teaching and Learning Champs scoop up award

2014-10-24

Dr Elize Smuts (right) proudly displaying the UFS Vice-Chancellor’s Team Award. Equally ecstatic, is Qwaqwa Campus’s CTL Manager, Fred Mudavanhu.
Photo: Thabo Kessah

Action research to improve classroom practice and student success rates, recently received a boost when the Qwaqwa Campus’s Teaching and Learning (TL) Champions were honoured with the prestigious UFS Vice-Chancellor’s Team Award. The award was in recognition of the team’s efforts to enhance professional development and was accompanied by a R50 000 prize that will be utilised to further encourage and develop a scholarly culture on the Qwaqwa Campus.

“An active learning community has developed over the past four years, which led to the creation of a scholarly forum for sharing problems, experiences and new knowledge”, revealed Dr Elize Smuts, who has been the pillar of strength in the development of TL Champs.

“This”, Dr Smuts said, “has continuously motivated the group to persevere in challenging and often under-resourced circumstances.”

“Over a four-year period, 44 projects were undertaken, many with great success. Thirteen scholars participated in a pilot of CLASSE (Classroom Assessment of Student Engagement) in 2013. This survey, contextualised by staff from the Centre for Teaching and Learning, was a first in South Africa,” said Dr Smuts.

“The team undertook extensive literature reviews and attended numerous workshops on principles and practices of good teaching, research and writing. The two summarising booklets they prepared from two publications (How Learning Works: 7 Research-based Principles for Smart Teaching and Student Engagement Techniques) in 2013, will serve as guides and inspiration for the larger academic community of the UFS for many years.”

Since the formation of this team, TL scholars have presented 25 papers at 12 national and two international conferences.

“Taking into consideration that it is not easy to get an abstract accepted for presentation, these are impressive achievements,” Dr Smuts said.

“Some of the immediate results of scholars engaged in this project, include improved student success rates averaging 20% compared to only 8% improvement by academics who are not part of the project.”

“In 2013, one TL scholar reported student success rates that increased by 29%; another reported 80% on average; and another reported an increase from 65% to 95% in a class bigger than previous years.”

In congratulating the team, Centre for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) Prof Annette Wilkinson said that she was very proud of the team.

“The team’s dedication and growth in scholarly practice – amidst challenging circumstances – are in my mind, the outstanding features of the project. I am very proud of the entire team”, said Prof Wilkinson.

The two presentations at international conferences were delivered by Ms Lea Koenig at the 32nd Annual Conference on the First-Year-Experience in Orlando, Florida and by Dr Elize Smuts in North Carolina. Both of these were presented in 2013.

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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