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e-Service Learning initiative helps CEM students to make an impact locally

02 April 2025 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Dr Marinda Avenant, Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Environmental Management at the University of the Free State (UFS), is working with her master’s students on a project to develop strategies to reduce the volume of solid waste reaching the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality’s already overburdened landfill sites.

All this came about through ‘Co-Producing Knowledge on Sustainable Growth through Service-Learning Pedagogy between African and European Higher Education Institutions’ (COPAFEU) – a project focused on ensuring that graduates have the skills they need for employment and entrepreneurship, while also contributing to sustainable local development. To do this, COPAFEU is developing a new approach where students follow the enhanced service-learning (e-service learning) route, working on real-world challenges and producing free, innovative educational resources on sustainable growth.

Dr Avenant became involved in the COPAFEU initiative two years ago when she was invited to be part of a consortium of universities applying for funding for the e-service-learning project from the ERASMUS+ funding programme, an EU funding programme for projects supporting education, training, youth, and sport.

She is leading the COPAFEU project on behalf of the Centre for Environmental Management (CEM) and the UFS.

A first time

Together with Prof Olusola (Shola) Oluwayemisi Ololade, Associate Professor and Director of CEM, and other academics, Dr Avenant is developing the e-service learning component to be incorporated into the structured Master of Science programmes specialising in Environmental Management and Integrated Water Management, respectively.

“Our postgraduate programmes in Environmental Management and Integrated Water Management are following a blended delivery approach catering to working professionals, with short contact sessions on campus before they return to their jobs.” Dr Avenant says that their curricula have never included a service-learning component due to the limited time students spend on campus as well as their work commitments.

Providing more clarity on the e-service learning concept, she explains that an entrepreneurial component is integrated into the conventional service-learning pedagogy. “As part of the project, students will collaborate closely with lecturers and community partners to co-produce knowledge and develop digital open educational resources.”

According to Dr Avenant, the master’s students started with the first phase of the project in January this year, working with the community partner – the Solid Waste Management section at the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM). In this phase, they visited a waste recycling pilot project, engaging with various stakeholders, including MMM environmental officers, residents from Mandela View, and waste pickers from the South African Waste Pickers Association, to reduce the volume of solid waste reaching landfill sites.

Following the visit, students are conducting situation analyses of different aspects of the pilot project and are developing solutions to optimise the recycling initiative. They will present their findings and recommendations to stakeholders in an online webinar in June 2025.

In the second phase of this project, students will use the experiences and knowledge acquired in the first phase to create short videos exploring how civil society can contribute to reducing solid waste. Dr Avenant states that these videos will form part of open-access short-learning courses developed by the students themselves. “The courses will be hosted on a web-based platform, contributing to the creation of several massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the project’s final phase,” she adds.

For Dr Avenant, it is important to make an impact at the local level. “I believe that this is where environmental management truly ‘happens’ and where our students can have the greatest impact. It is also the level where environmental interventions are most urgently needed in South Africa. Real sustainable solutions and growth must happen within local communities,” she comments.

“By focusing on local actions, our students can help to bring about meaningful and practical change,” she says.

Aligning with Vision 130

Although the Centre for Environmental Management’s involvement in the COPAFEU project has a local impact, it also aligns with Vision 130’s goal of expanding the university’s influence regionally and internationally. By collaborating with a consortium of two European and eight African universities, the project strengthens professional networks and increases the UFS’ global presence.

Just as these partnerships create opportunities for knowledge exchange and capacity building, they also provide a valuable platform for students to gain real-world experience and broaden their perspectives. Dr Avenant’s dream for her students is to see them grow into well-rounded environmental and water managers who can think critically, work across disciplines, and address complex real-world problems with innovative solutions. She hopes that this service-learning component will not only shift their perspectives, but also help them develop a diverse skill set, create a sense of social responsibility, and apply their knowledge in meaningful ways – whether by solving immediate environmental challenges or contributing to an open-access short learning course.

Beyond technical expertise, she believes that perseverance, accountability, resilience, teamwork, and ethical decision-making are just as important, and she is confident that this experience will help to establish these qualities in her students.

News Archive

MBA Programme - Question And Answer Sheet - 27 May 2004

2004-05-27

1. WHAT MUST THE UNIVERSITY OF THE FREE STATE (UFS) DO TO GET FULL ACCREDITATION FOR THE MBA PROGRAMMES?

According to the Council on Higher Education’s (CHE) evaluation, the three MBA programmes of the UFS clearly and significantly contribute to students’ knowledge and skills, are relevant for the workplace, are appropriately resourced and have an appropriate internal and external programme environment. These programmes are the MBA General, the MBA in Health Care Management and the MBA in Entrepreneurship.

What the Council on Higher Education did find, was a few technical and administrative issues that need to be addressed.

This is why the three MBA programmes of the UFS received conditional accreditation – which in itself is a major achievement for the UFS’s School of Management, which was only four years old at the time of the evaluation.

The following breakdown gives one a sense of the mostly administrative nature of the conditions that have to be met before full accreditation is granted by the CHE:

a. A formal forum of stakeholders: The UFS is required to establish a more structured, inclusive process of review of its MBA programmes. This is an administrative formality already in process.

b. A work allocation model: According to the CHE this is required to regulate the workload of the teaching staff, particularly as student numbers grow, rather than via standard management processes as currently done.

c. Contractual agreements with part-time staff: The UFS is required to enter into formal agreements with part-time and contractual staff as all agreements are currently done on an informal and claim-basis. This is an administrative formality already in process.

d. A formal curriculum committee: According to the CHE, the School of Management had realised the need for a structure – other than the current Faculty Board - where all MBA lecturers can deliberate on the MBA programmes, and serve as a channel for faculty input, consultation and decision-making.

e. A system of external moderators: This need was already identified by the UFS and the system is to be implemented as early as July 2004.

f. A compulsory research component: The UFS is required to introduce a research component which will include the development of research skills for the business environment. The UFS management identified this need and has approved such a component - it is to take effect from January 2005. This is an insufficient element lacking in virtually all MBA programmes in South Africa.

g. Support programmes for learners having problems with numeracy: The UFS identified this as a need for academic support among some learners and has already developed such a programme which will be implemented from January 2005.

The majority of these conditions have been satisfied already and few remaining steps will take effect soon. It is for this reason that the UFS is confident that its three MBA programmes will soon receive full accreditation.

2. WHAT ACCREDITATION DOES THE UFS HAVE FOR ITS MBA PROGRAMME?

The UFS’s School of Management received conditional accreditation for its three MBA programmes.

Two levels of accreditation are awarded to tertiary institutions for their MBA programmes, namely full accreditation and conditional accreditation. When a programme does not comply with the minimum requirements regarding a small number of criteria, conditional accreditation is given. This can be rectified during the short or medium term.

3. IS THERE ANYTHING WRONG WITH THE ACADEMIC CORE OF THE UFS’s MBA PROGRAMMES?

No. The UFS is proud of its three MBA programmes’ reputation in the market and the positive feedback it receives from graduandi and their employers.

The MBA programmes of the UFS meet most of the minimum requirements of the evaluation process.

In particular, the key element of ‘teaching and learning’, which relates to the curriculum and content of the MBA programmes, is beyond question. In other words, the core of what is being taught in our MBA programmes is sound.

4. IS THE UFS’s MBA A WORTHWHILE QUALIFICATION?

Yes. Earlier this year, the School of Management – young as it is - was rated by employers as the best smaller business school in South Africa. This was based on a survey conducted by the Professional Management Review and reported in the Sunday Times Business Times, of 25 January 2004.

The UFS is committed to maintaining these high standards of quality, not only through compliance with the requirements of the CHE, but also through implementing its own quality assurance measures.

Another way in which we benchmark the quality of our MBA programmes is through the partnerships we have formed with institutions such as the DePaul University in Chicago and Kansas State University, both in the US, as well as the Robert Schuman University in France.

For this reason the UFS appreciates and supports the work of the CHE and welcomes its specific findings regarding the three MBA programmes.

It is understandable that the MBA review has caused some nervousness – not least among current MBA students throughout the country.

However, one principle that the UFS management is committed to is this: preparing all our students for a world of challenge and change. Without any doubt the MBA programme of the UFS is a solid preparation.

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