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16 May 2023 | Story André Damons | Photo Charl Devenish
Prof Mokgadi Matlakala
Prof Mokgadi Matlakala, Academic Chairperson of the Department of Health Studies at UNISA and Deputy Chairperson of the Forum for University Deans in South Africa (FUNDISA), was the keynote speaker and acknowledged the contribution of nurses and the courage to continue to advocate for improved health and healthcare.

Nurses serve with pride, and they should be protected, valued, and respected.

This was the recurring thought from speakers at the University of the Free State (UFS) School of Nursing’s International Nurses Day celebrations.

“We celebrate this day to highlight the importance of nurses in the healthcare services, and to honour our heroes – us being the heroes as well,” said keynote speaker Prof Mokgadi Matlakala, Academic Chairperson of the Department of Health Studies at UNISA and Deputy Chairperson of the Forum for University Deans in South Africa (FUNDISA). “We acknowledge the contribution of nurses and the courage to continue to advocate for improved health and healthcare – and this amid the challenges confronting us.”  

Prof Matlakala said the theme of the day, “Our Nurses. Our Future”, comes at a very critical time for the nursing profession, given the circumstances following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the ongoing transformation needed in nursing education, particularly in South Africa. 

International Nurses Day is celebrated annually on 12 May, and this year the UFS School of Nursing also hosted a tree-planting to commemorate nurses who lost their lives during the pandemic. Several other activities, including an Amazing Race, outdoor events, and stalls portrayed nursing services in various contexts. 

Prof Matlakala said the day also serves as a way of sharing ideas about changes taking place in nursing, and imagining a nurse of the future, both in practice and academia. “In the African context, it is important for us to reflect and understand who our nurses are, where are they, and where have they been trained.”

World mistakenly took nurses for granted

“Today we have an opportunity to celebrate ourselves as nurses, and I encourage you to acknowledge the good work you are doing. And I include the student nurses as well, because they are our future.”

Prof Matlakala said during the pandemic the world mistakenly took nurses for granted. “They treated us as invisible, and as an inexhaustible resource,” she said, outlining areas such as illness among nurses, fear of the pandemic, death, work overload, and unprecedented changes in nursing environments and nursing education as areas where nurses were “taken for granted as superheroes”.

“The pandemic is over, but the question is: Did the nurses receive any counselling after surviving the pandemic? Did they get special leave to rest? In the nursing practice it is business as usual. In nursing education institutions, they are speaking of catching up on the time lost during the pandemic. Nobody is thinking of exhaustion as a non-communicable disease. Yet, many of our nurses are suffering from exhaustion both mentally and physical. It is thus important that we advocate for wellness for our nurses.”

Protect. Respect. Value

Prof Matlakala said protecting nurses relates to how the government or health system can address the growing nursing shortage and provide positive practice environments, especially with regard to safety in the workplace. She also said the ongoing shortage of nurses is a pandemic that is felt across the globe.

Her message to future nurses is that the profession needs nurses who will be available to confront the many challenges nurses are experiencing. “You need to be assertive and take control of your professional status despite the problems we are hearing. One of the values that we need to have is a positive attitude, which means we need to focus on solutions, not only on problems.”

Celebrating the impact of nursing services

Prof Gert van Zyl, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Health Sciences, welcomed guests and said International Nurses Day celebrates the impact of nursing services in providing high-quality healthcare to patients and improving their overall wellbeing. 

“Nurses play a critical role in the healthcare system, providing care, support, and education to patients and their families. Thank you for your dedication and passion for your profession,” Prof Van Zyl said. “Thank you for all the sacrifices you made to provide the highest level of care and support to people in need in the recent COVID-19 time. Moreso, your contribution to the healthcare industry is immeasurable. We are grateful for everything you do and have done. Keep up the excellent work.”

He added that he believes professional nurses are motivated by many factors, including three main ones: “A desire to help others, a sense of purpose, and the satisfaction of making a difference in people’s life. To motivate nurses for the future, it is important to recognise their achievements, to support them, and to provide opportunities for development and growth.” 

Dr Jeanette Sebaeng, Head of the School of Nursing, said she is privileged to be part of this “very sacred” profession. “I had an opportunity to see life for the first time. I had an opportunity to close someone’s eyes for the first time. I don’t think I would be anything else, even in the next life, other than a nurse.” 

She said when 2020 was declared the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, by year-end the meaning had become grim. “We did not expect that it would be our year in that manner. We lost close to 300 nurses in South Africa due to COVID-19. Even after losing our colleagues, here we are, still strong. That is resilience, and for that I salute you.”

News Archive

‘Is the South African university curriculum ‘colonial'?’ asks Prof Jansen
2017-11-24

Description: Jansen readmore Tags: Prof Jonathan Jansen, colonial, university curriculum, western knowledge

From left; Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research; former Rector and Vice-
Chancellor of the UFS, Prof Jonathan Jansen; Prof Michael Levitt, and
Prof Francis Petersen at the celebration lecture at the UFS.
Photo: Johan Roux

One of the critical issues that emerged from the South African student protests during 2015 and 2016 was a demand for the decolonisation of university curriculums. 

A senior professor at the Stellenbosch University, Prof Jonathan Jansen, said the number of people, including academics, who joined the cause without adequately interrogating the language of this protest, was astonishing. “The role of social scientists is to investigate new ideas … when something is presented to the world as truth.” Prof Jansen was speaking during a celebration lecture at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein on 15 November 2017. 

Large amount of knowledge not African

He said the accusation is correct to a limited degree. “The objection, in essence, is against the centring of Western, and especially European knowledge, in institutional curricula.” There is no doubt that most of what constitutes curriculum knowledge in South African universities, and in universities around the world, derive from the West. “The major theories and theorists, the methodologists and methods are disproportionally situated outside of the developing world,” Prof Jansen said. 

The dilemma is, how will South Africa and the continent change the locus of knowledge production, considering the deteriorating state of public universities? “In the absence of vibrant, original, and creative knowledge production systems in Africa and South Africa, where will this African-centred or African-led curriculum theory come from,” Jansen asked. He says the re-centring of a curriculum needs scholars with significant post-doctoral experiences that are rooted in the study of education and endowed with the critical independence of thought. “South Africa's universities are not places where scholars can think. South African universities’ current primary occupation is security and police dogs,” Prof Jansen said. 

Collaboration between African and Western scholars
“Despite the challenges, not everything was stuck in the past,” Prof Jansen said. South African scholars now lead major research programmes in the country intellectually. The common thread between these projects is that the content is African in the subjects of study, and the work reflects collaboration with academics in the rest of the world. These research projects attract postgraduate students from the West, and the research increasingly affects curriculum transformations across university departments. There is also an ongoing shift in the locus of authority for knowledge production within leading universities in South Africa. Prof Jansen feels a significant problem that is being ignored in the curriculum debate, is the concern about the knowledge of the future. How does South Africa prepare its young for the opportunities provided by the groundswell of technological innovation? “In other parts of the world, school children are learning coding, artificial intelligence, and automation on a large scale. They are introduced to neuroscience and applied mathematics,” he said.

Prof Jansen said, in contrast, in South Africa the debate focuses on the merits of mathematics literacy, and what to do with dead people’s statues.

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