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05 May 2023
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Story EDZANI NEPHALELA
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Photo Supplied
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This audit process will assess the resources available and required for the implementation of a Language policy framework for higher education (2020) – such as the development of multilingual terminologies, translation services for teaching and learning materials, campus signage, as well as various multimedia collateral – including their quality and relevance to the needs of the students and faculty. The audit will include an assessment of existing resources and whether they are furthering implementation goals, and may also include the gathering of feedback from students and faculty to identify improvement areas.
Dr Nomalungelo Ngubane, Director of the UFS Academy for Multilingualism, said the process will help the UFS identify the essential languages resources that are available for the successful implementation of the 2020 Language Policy for Higher Education framework (LPHE). “The audit will identify how much has been done at the UFS and which institutions we can collaborate with, for example, in the development of Sesotho, so that we do not reinvent the wheel, but we close the gaps.”
Once the audit is completed, the institution will develop a plan for resource allocation to address the identified gaps. This may involve acquiring new resources, upgrading existing ones, or reallocating existing resources better to meet the needs of students, staff, and faculties.
Due to the impact this audit will have on various stakeholders, all staff and students are encouraged to participate. To attend the audit, please RSVP here by 30 May 2023.
I-DENT-I-TIES to shine at the Free State Arts Festival
2016-07-08
Erwin Maas with members of the student cast from the
Qwaqwa Campus. They are, from left: Mpho Xaba,
Lebohang Molefe and Tankiso Mofokeng.
Imagine this: A student cast from a rural campus; Production team consisting of a New York-based Dutch director, a South African screen and stage legend, a The Hague/Vienna-based Dutch theatre designer, and a Vienna-based Serbian performance-craft-artist and designer.
This sounds like a far-fetched flight of the imagination. But it is real and it is called ‘I-DENT-I-TIES’, a large-scale interdisciplinary performance project with international theatre professionals and students from the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Qwaqwa Campus.
According to the director of the project, Erwin Maas, the production explores the ‘dents’ and ‘ties’ of both individual and communal identification and distinctiveness and does this through the famous Basotho story of ‘Moshanyana Sankatana’ as a point of departure.
“We explore questions like ‘what are dents in our society as well as in ourselves’, ‘what ties me to who I really am and who I want to be’, ‘what does it mean to be me’, ‘what does it mean to be South African’,” said Maas, who has been working on this project since last year.
The production also celebrates personal, communal, and universal narratives and identities through song, dance, story-telling, and music. It explores the past, the present, and the future.
“This production will certainly reveal an extraordinary journey into what makes us unique and binds us together,” he added during the rehearsals that started in May at the Qwaqwa Campus.
Maas has teamed up with a well-known South African film and stage legend, Jerry Mofokeng, as consultant. Mofokeng, who introduced Maas to the ‘Sankatana’ story, has featured on a number of critically-acclaimed films that include ‘Cry, The Beloved Country’ as well as the Academy Award-winning ‘Tsotsi’. Maas has also worked with the Hague/Vienna-based Dutch designer Nico de Rooij and Djana Covic, a Vienna-based Serbian designer.
The production is a partnership between the UFS Student Affairs, Vrystaat Arts Festival, the Programme for Innovation in Artform Development, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands in South Africa. It will premiere at the Free State Arts Festival, held in Bloemfontein from 11 to 16 July 2016. This will be followed by a performance at the Qwaqwa Campus on 19 July 2016.