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14 October 2022 | Story Dr Cinde Greyling | Photo Iflair Photography
UFS Business school
The UFS Business School.

The University of the Free State Business School (UFSBS) was established in the late 1990s and is fully accredited by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and the Central and East European Management  Development Association (CEEMAN). Since its inception, the school has operated as a boutique business school focusing on personal attention to adult learners.

Late 2021, the UFSBS appointed a new Director, Dr Udesh Pillay. In conjunction with the change in leadership, the UFSBS is embarking on a new strategic journey, while maintaining the focus on its core business – in other words, its official academic offerings. The strategic journey of the UFSBS has been underway for the past year, and significant time has been allocated to the recurriculation of programme offerings; decolonisation of the academic agenda; and orientating the UFSBS so that it makes a larger practical contribution to the SME sector locally and nationally, especially in relation to business continuity and resilience in the wake of unforeseen externalities.  These developments will ensure that the UFSBS remains a premier academic institution and contributes to the success of South Africa and its people. It also ensures that the twin principles of academic excellence and social justice become mutually reinforcing.

The UFSBS’s strategic direction for the next five years aligns neatly with the Vision 130. By 2034 – when the university commemorates its 130th anniversary – the UFS wants to be recognised and acknowledged by peers and society as a top-tier university in South Africa. Similarly, the UFSBS has aspirations to become a top-ten business school in SA over the next five years.

Given the history of South Africa, it is of utmost importance to empower people to add value, particularly in the field of business and management leadership. The UFSBS will contribute to building an ecosystem of entrepreneurialism, with the more traditional academic programmes based upon the conventional practices of teaching and learning, research, and mentorship to be supplemented by ‘opportunity-driven initiatives’, such as executive education, consulting support, coaching, incubation services, and the commercialisation of intellectual property.

Globally, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has catalysed processes of digital transformation in business, to which the UFSBS will align to ensure that students are equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills in a fast-changing, technology-enabled world. With the support of the Centre for Business Dynamics (CBD) housed in the UFSBS; the establishment of the Small Business Academy (SBA) in early 2024 in the UFSBS; the soon-to-be-established High-Growth Business Incubator (in collaboration with the NAS faculty); and with the process of strengthening relationships with the Paradys Experimental Farm gaining traction, a differentiated medium has been created to nurture responsible,  ethical, and socially conscious business leaders. The foundation then – to create the next generation of business leaders and entrepreneurs to become agents of change and value co-creators for business and society – will thus have begun.

The UFSBS will align to ensure that students are equipped with relevant knowledge and skills in a fast-changing, technology-enabled world. – Dr Udesh Pillay.
The slogan, ‘BE WORTH MORE’, embodies what the UFSBS strives for, and is consistent with new developments in global discourses, which are rethinking and transforming many of the traditional dogmas that have informed the mandates of business schools. 

As a critical bridge between academia and business, the UFSBS is uniquely poised to reimagine a better and intelligent future that is data-informed, collaborative, innovative, and inclusive.

News Archive

University gets support to improve student success
2014-11-26

From the left are: Prof Francois Strydom (Director: Academic - Centre for Teaching and Learning at the UFS), Mr Rip Rapson (Chief Executive Officer, Kresge Foundation), Dr Marcus Ingram (UFS Director for Institutional Advancement) and Mr Bill Moses (Programme Director for the Kresge Foundation's Education Programme).
Photo: Hannes Pieterse

The Kresge Foundation has awarded $400 000 (about R4 million) to the University of the Free State (UFS) to increase student success through improved data analysis.

This four-year grant, as part of Kresge’s Siyaphumelela initiative, was recently announced by Mr Rip Rapson, Kresge’s President and Chief Executive Officer. This announcement was made at a symposium on South African higher education and philanthropy in Cape Town.

“Universities across South Africa are grappling with how to improve persistence and graduation rates for their black students in particular,” Mr Rapson said. “These universities will work together with the South African Institute for Distance Education to develop their data analytics capacity to find and share solutions and interventions based on solid information to improve student success.”

The UFS was only one of four universities receiving funding from Kresge. The other universities include the Nelson Mandela metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and the University of Pretoria.

The grants will help the universities build their capacities to use data to better integrate institutional research, information communication technology, academic development, student services and academic departments. Beyond the improvements sought for the UFS, Kresge hopes to see new approaches to data become mainstream for higher education in South Africa.

The Siyaphumelela initiative provides four years of institutional support and hope to create a community of practice that learns lessons that may benefit not only individual institutions and the cohort, but also potentially all of South African higher education.

Dr Lis Lange, Vice-Rector: Academic at the UFS, said improving student successes is a university goal that operates in the interface between the Human and Academic Projects of the university.

“We are delighted to be part of an initiative that is going to help us develop greater capability for data analytics and deeper integration between data and teaching and learning practices; and, at the same time, will bring the Centre for Teaching and Learning, the Directorate for Institutional Research and Academic Planning (DIRAP) and the faculties into a closer cooperation.”

Over the past four years donor income to the UFS increased considerably, both from governmental sources, trusts and foundations. By the end of 2013, governmental funding increased from about R5 million in 2011 to over R35 million. Funding by trusts and foundations increased from R5 million in 2011 to over R15 million in 2013. A general increase of 25% in funding is expected for 2014.

Dr Marcus Ingram, UFS Director for Institutional Advancement, says as the UFS begins to settle into a refined academic identity, the Department for Institutional Advancement intends to support these efforts by helping to facilitate the telling of a more integrated narrative to the university’s friends, prospects and donors.

 

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