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Launching the South African Chapter of the SANRAL Chair alumni programme

25 October 2023 | Story Dr Kwazi Magwenzi | Photo supplied

SANRAL Chair launch — The SANRAL Chair in Mathematics and Science , Prof Loyiso Jita with the Programme graduates, the PhD and Masters SANRAL Alumni at the event held on 28 September 2023 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The South African Chapter of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) Chair alumni programme at the University of the Free State (UFS) was recently launched at the Silverstar Hotel and Casino in Johannesburg. The event aimed to showcase and celebrate the achievements made and lessons learnt in the programme, highlight the key elements and outputs to the Faculty of Education stakeholders and reimagine the future. The Faculty of Education has increased its footprint in Engaged Scholarship activities, aligning itself with the UFS Vision 130. Multiple stakeholders and community partners were invited to witness the outstanding achievements of this programme.

Since its inception in 2014, the SANRAL Chair has produced over 40 PhD graduates in three countries, namely South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. One of the key goals of Vision 130 is for the UFS to be regionally engaged and to contribute to pressing societal needs. This involves knowledge generation that contributes to local and regional development and building sustainable partnerships. The PhD and Masters graduates have become a highly valued human resource in the South African education system and the region, and are now positioned as leaders in Institutions of higher learning in South Africa, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe.

The SANRAL Chair currently supervises a cohort of doctoral and master's students, providing guidance in mathematical research and publications. The internship programme represents SANRAL's commitment to building skilled capacity in communities, along with driving social and economic transformation. SANRAL has also identified common challenges faced by Small, Medium, and Micro-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) in its projects and has implemented training programmes to address these issues.

South Africa has implemented a range of programmes designed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 1 (SDG 1), which includes land reform, agriculture, free higher education and growth. Despite the significant progress made on South Africa’s developmental journey since the advent of democracy in 1994, the country remains one of the most unequal societies in the world. Achieving the SDGs is, therefore, in South Africa’s best interest as the country pursues the vision of a united, non-racial, non-sexist, and prosperous nation living in harmony with itself and the rest of the world.

As South Africa looks ahead to 2030, it seeks to build on the substantial progress achieved thus far, and on the robust policy, legislative, and planning foundation. The focus will be on consolidating and expanding the many areas where public welfare and development are at the forefront.

News Archive

Enhancement of social justice focus at research colloquium

2010-10-07

At the third Education for Social Justice Research Colloquium the publication Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South were handed to Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS. At this occasion were, from the left: Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the UFS Faculty of Education; Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University; Prof. Moraka; and Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education.
Photo: Leonie Bolleurs

This year, the University of the Free State (UFS) was the host for the Research Colloquium: Education for Social Justice for the very first time. It is the third time that this colloquium has been presented.

Prof. Ezekiel Moraka, Vice-Rector: External Relations at the UFS, opened the colloquium, stating that academics, through their research, are ultimately in a good standing to advise government on important issues such as social justice for them to address these issues accordingly.

Prof. Sechaba Mahlomaholo, Research Professor in the Faculty of Education Sciences at the North-West University, delivered the opening address on the theme: Validating community cultural wealth towards sustainable empowering learning environments for social justice. He said that the legacy of our recent past as South Africa still continues to haunt us, especially as exemplified in the dysfunctionalities that are rife in our education.

“With the colloquium we manage to bring together the ideas, thoughts, resources and efforts of educators and/or educationists concerned with the creation of a more equitable, equal, free, hopeful, peaceful and socially just society. Through our teaching, our community engagement and research activities we strive towards a more humane, caring, respecting and respectful South Africa and the world,” he said.

According to Prof. Mahlomaholo, education and its research are some of the most potent mechanisms at the very centre of social transformation. The papers at the colloquium focused on investigating, understanding and responding to issues of amongst others:

The medium of teaching and learning which continues to be a barrier to many learners to perform to the best of their abilities in the majority of the education institutions in South Africa;
Health, sexuality, HIV/Aids, stigmatisation and other deseases plaguing our communities currently;
Self-fulfilling prophecies and stereotypes about some learners not being as intelligent as the rest and this finally being reflected and confirmed in their poor academic achievements;
Differentiated levels of parental involvement in the activities of their children’s learning due to long absences from their families as they have to work in far-off places of employment;

Papers delivered at the colloquium moved beyond merely identifying the problems; they also suggested possible and plausible research-based solutions to these, such as integrating HIV/Aids education in curricula, listening to the aspirations of significant stakeholders such as mothers and parents generally in teaching and facilitating more rigorous community engagement practices.

At the colloquium gala dinner the book Praxis towards sustainable empowering learning environments in South Africa by authors Dr Milton Nkoane, Senior Lecturer in the UFS Faculty of Education, Prof. Mahlomaholo and Prof. Dennis Francis, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UFS, was launched. The publication consists of a collection of the best peer-reviewed papers from a conference with the theme Creating sustainable empowering learning environments through scholarship of engagement. The main criterion for inclusion was that the paper should contribute to the theme by means of an original, tight, theoretical and empirical study conducted with the aim of informing the practice of creating sustainable empowering learning environments. The concrete cases examined in many of the chapters are very useful to helping readers understand the specific, on-the-ground concerns related to higher education and schools.

Media Release
Issued by: Leonie Bolleurs
Strategic Communication
Tel: 051 401 2707
Sel: 0836455853
Email: bolleursl@ufs.ac.za
30 September 2010

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