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Prof Peter Rosseel delivers guest lecture during UFS visit

13 August 2024 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Sibahle Dayimani and Amandla Kulu

The Business School at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted Prof Peter Rosseel, Managing Director of Management Consulting and Research – a spin-off of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium – for a guest lecture during his visit to the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS).

The guest lecture took place on 19 July 2024 in the Business School Auditorium and was attended by academics from the UFS.

Reflecting on the lecture

The lecture presented by Prof Rosseel focused on how combining strategy, strategy implementation, culture transformation, leadership, and learning successfully leads to sustainable growth, creates engagement, and delivers tangible results. Throughout the lecture, Prof Rosseel spoke about how experts tend to make bad leaders and therefore stop change from happening within an organisation. In fact, he highlighted that, “Experts stop change from happening within the workplace because experts, by definition, look through the eyes of their expertise, but you cannot reduce the world to different forms of expertise, as it is holistic.” As such, he argued that to change an organisation, one must see things from the point of view of others.

Furthermore, Prof Rosseel delved deeper into the hierarchical operating model within organisations. He indicated that the above model should be one community within organisations; however, unfortunately it is not. This is because organisations are made up of several departments such as finance and human resources. As such, he regards these departments to be silos that could prove to be detrimental to organisations, as each silo can create its own culture as opposed to an organisational culture. These are some of the points he discussed throughout the lecture.

After the lecture concluded, the audience had the opportunity to engage with Prof Rosseel on his viewpoints. In fact, Lyle Markham, Academic Head of Department and Lecturer in Industrial Psychology at the UFS, was one of the audience members and described the lecture as insightful.

News Archive

UFS awarded tenders worth R22,5 million for Maths and Science teacher-training

2010-03-17

The Centre for Education Development (CED) at the University of the Free State (UFS) has received tenders worth about R22,5 million over the past two years from four provinces to train Mathematics and Science teachers from underperforming schools.

The CED has received tenders from the following provincial departments of education: Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Mpumalanga.

“The centre has a good reputation for the training of teachers in these disciplines and has been involved with the upgrading of Maths and Science teachers for at least 15 years,” said Prof. Daniella Coetzee, Director of the CED.

It is currently busy with the training of North West teachers after being awarded a R13,5 million tender by the Province as part of its quest to improve pass rates in Mathematics and Natural and Physical Sciences in underperforming schools.

“The tender is for the upgrading of the knowledge and methodology of teachers for Mathematics and Natural and Physical Science, as well as the upgrading of the knowledge of subject specialists in the North West Province,” said Prof. Coetzee.

For this project the centre trains 1 000 teachers and 90 subject specialists from underperforming schools over a period of three years.

The programme commenced in February this year with a baseline assessment of the teachers to determine knowledge and methodology gaps upon which to focus in the training.

“After the programme has been completed we will also do a post-assessment to see if there had been progress,” she said.

The training is offered only on Saturdays at Vryburg, Klerksdorp, Makapanstad, Brits and Zeerust and is presented by lecturers from the CED as well as selected and trained tutors from the North West province.

“We have successfully completed another Maths, Science and Technology project for the North West Department of Education. We have also completed similar projects for the Northern Cape and one for the Free State Department of Education,” she said.

These completed projects entailed formal qualifications (Advanced Certificate in Education) in Maths, Science and Technology and were worth in excess of R5 million.

The CED has just been recently awarded yet another tender in excess of R4 million over a period of two years by the Mpumalanga Department of Education.

Prof. Coetzee had the following to say about the CED being the preferred choice of these provincial Departments of Education: “It has to do with the fact that the CED has been performing well with the upgrading of teachers. It has proven itself as a leader in the in-service training of Maths and Science teachers in South Africa.”

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

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