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11 July 2023 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
iKudu Coil Chevon Slammbee
Chevon Slambee says the COIL approach connects students and educators from different cultural backgrounds through online platforms, allowing participants to engage in cross-cultural learning and collaboration.

Internationalisation of the curriculum has been mandatory for institutions of higher education since 2020, according to the National Policy Framework for the Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa.

The iKudu project, an Erasmus+Capacity-Building in Higher Education (CBHE) co-funded project, which aims, among others, for universities to include internationalisation and decolonisation dimensions to transform their curricula, recently published the document: Considerations for enabling guidelines, strategies, and policies for internationalised curriculum renewal for universities with a focus on the diverse South African contexts. 

The University of the Free State (UFS) Office for International Affairs (OIA) played a key role in the publication of this document.

In his editorial of the document, Dr Cornelius Hagenmeier, Director of the OIA, states that in the spirit of the iKudu values – which include Ubuntu, trust, and equality – the project stakeholders have developed a document that will serve as a repository of ideas from which all consortium member universities can intelligently borrow when developing their institutional guidelines, strategies, and policies for curriculum renewal, Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), or other forms of virtual exchange.

He says they are publishing this document to make the ideas available to the broader higher education community, in the hope that they will contribute to further debate on internationalised curriculum renewal processes.

The iKudu project is one of the few major EU-funded capacity-building projects coordinated by a South African university.

UFS coordinates iKudu

According to Chevon Slambee, iKudu Project Manager in the UFS OIA, the consideration document serves as a guiding document for all universities, but specifically focuses on South African universities, taking into account the unique and diverse contexts of South Africa’s higher education landscape and how these contexts influence the curriculum renewal processes.

Slambee explains that the COIL approach connects students and educators from different cultural backgrounds through online platforms, allowing participants to engage in cross-cultural learning and collaboration within the existing curriculum. 

Through joint projects, shared courses, and virtual exchanges, it aims to foster intercultural competence, global awareness, and mutual understanding among students. Moreover, the initiative creates inclusive opportunities for all students who take part in COIL, as the inequalities due to financial resources are factored out. “It expands the classroom beyond classroom borders, and grants students the opportunity to engage in a digital international world,” says Slambee. 

The five participating South African universities – the UFS, Durban University of Technology, University of Limpopo, University of Venda, and the Central University of Technology – together with the five European universities – the University of Siena (Italy), Coventry University (England), The Hague University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (The Netherlands), and the University of Antwerp (Belgium) – have implemented 51 of their target of 55 COIL programmes, with almost 10 months remaining in the project. “For us, this is a milestone in the iKudu journey,” says Slambee. 

Sharing COIL experiences

One of the UFS lecturers who completed a COIL project is Prof Mariette Reyneke, Associate Professor in the UFS Department of Public Law.

Prof Reyneke recently completed her second COIL experience, this time with Prof Alessandra Viviani from the University of Siena. She says one of the best aspects of this initiative is giving our students the opportunity to broaden their horizons by exposing them to peers from a different country and culture. “Moreover, one also gets to expose students from developed countries to the realities and challenges of a developing country,” she adds.

“Through this initiative, we also get the chance to teach South African students that they have valuable contributions to offer the world. In some instances, our legal solutions to problems are fascinating and enriching for international students. Our theory and implementation of human rights are also sometimes more liberal than what students from Europe experience in their own countries,” says Prof Reyneke, who believes that COIL fosters an innovative and enriching experience for students, while also enhancing academic networks.

“It was very satisfying for me to realise that the students not only enjoyed the experience, but also found it beneficial for their personal growth,” she remarks.

Moving forward, Slambee says the OIA is working closely with the Centre for Teaching and Learning and is in the process of establishing a COIL/virtual engagement hub for the university. Furthermore, the Curriculum Internationalisation Project (CIP) has been approved and is being piloted in specific departments and faculties. For more information about the CIP, contact Prof Lynette Jacobs, Slambee, or Nooreen Adam from the OIA.

News Archive

Migration is a developmental issue - experts
2010-06-01

Pictured from the left, front, are: D. Juma, Mr Williams and Prof. Hussein Solomon (University of Pretoria); back: Prof. Bekker, Prof. Lucius Botes (Dean: Faculty of the Humanities, UFS) and Dr Wa Kabwe-Segatti.
Photo: Stephen Collett


“Migration offers more opportunities for economic growth than constraints. It is an integral part of the processes of globalisation and regional integration.”

This was a view shared by one of the speakers, Dr Monica Juma from the Africa Institute of South Africa, during a panel discussion hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS) last week as part of the celebrations of Africa Day on 25 May 2010.

The discussion was premised on the theme, Migration and Africa: From Analysis to Action.

Dr Juma said migrants could be assets for host countries or cities because of their resourcefulness. She said they brought along essential skills that could contribute immensely to the economic development of their host countries or cities.

“Governments are beginning to see migration as a tool for development and working together in developing immigration policies,” concurred another speaker, Mr Vincent Williams from the Institute for Democracy in South Africa (IDASA).

He said, if managed properly, migration could yield positive results. He said effective management of migration should start at local and provincial levels.
And for this to happen, he said, the current immigration laws should be amended as he felt they were no longer relevant, because they were based on what countries wanted to achieve in the past.

“Reform national immigration legislation to encourage permanent settlement and improve service delivery mechanisms and bureaucracy to match population movements,” Dr Aurelia Kazadi Wa Kabwe-Segatti, from the Forced Migration Studies Programme at the University of the Witwatersrand recommended.

However, Mr Williams pointed out that policy convergence was a difficult thing to achieve as migration was a politically sensitive issue. He said decisions that countries made on migration could have a negative or a positive bearing on their relations with one another.

Dr Juma also raised the issue of unskilled migrants which, she said, could be a burden to governments. This was reflected in the current South African situation where foreigners offered cheap labour and thus rendered South Africans who demanded higher salaries unemployable. This was a contributory factor to the xenophobic attacks of 2008. What was essentially a labour problem then manifested itself as a migration problem.

Prof. Simon Bekker from the University of Stellenbosch said South Africa was still losing a significant number of skilled professionals to Europe and North America due to an assumption that spatial mobility led to social or economic mobility.

He also suggested that the government should not restrict internal migration but should address the problem of migration across the borders into South Africa.

Senior Professor at the CAS, Prof. Kwandiwe Kondlo, said while the discussion covered a broad scope, there were some gaps that still needed to be filled in order for an all-inclusive view to prevail. One such gap, he said, was to also accord indigenous traditional institutions of governance space in such deliberations and not base discussions on this issue only on the Western way of thinking.

Africa Day is the day on which Africa observes the creation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on 25 May 1963, to promote the unity and solidarity of African states and act as a collective voice for the African continent; to secure Africa’s long-term economic and political future; and to rid the continent of all remaining forms of colonialism. The OAU was formally replaced by the African Union in July 2002.

Media Release
Issued by: Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za  
1 June 2010
 

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