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UFS welcomes international students through EU-funded MAINSTREAM Project

24 April 2025 | Story Martinette Brits | Photo Barend Nagel

Mainstream Final Project — Five postgraduate students from Ethiopia and Togo with Prof Corli Witthuhn, coordinator of the MAINSTREAM project, during their academic exchange visit to the University of the Free State. From the left: Prudence Bilabina, Ame Houngo, Prof Corli Witthuhn, Gemedo Shengu, Fanny Sibabi, and Debela Bedada.

The University of the Free State (UFS) has welcomed a cohort of international students as part of the Mobility 4 Agricultural International Networks Supporting Thematic Resilience and Enhancing Adaptation and Mitigation (MAINSTREAM) project, a significant European Union-funded initiative aimed at boosting agricultural education and research across the African continent.

A group of postgraduate students from Togo and Ethiopia have recently joined the University of the Free State as part of the MAINSTREAM project. “Two doctoral students from Togo – Ame Houngo and Fanny Sibabi – are based in the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development and will be supervised by Dr Alba du Toit and Prof Maryke Labuschagne,” says Prof Corli Witthuhn from the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development at the UFS, who serves as the coordinator of the MAINSTREAM project. Master’s student Prudence Bilabina, also from Togo, is hosted by the Department of Agricultural Economics under the supervision of Prof Henry Jordaan.

From Ethiopia, doctoral student Debela Bedada and master’s student Gemedo Shengu are both pursuing their research in the Department of Agricultural Economics, supervised by Prof Nicky Matthews and Dr Janus Henning respectively.

A Ugandan student will soon join them on 22 April for a three-month traineeship. “He is an undergraduate Agriculture student who will register for a service-learning module at the UFS and spend the three months working on a farm,” explains Prof Witthuhn. The student hails from the Mountains of the Moon University in Uganda.

By June 2025, the university anticipates the arrival of four more students from Uganda – three at master’s level and one traineeship participant – bringing the total number of MAINSTREAM students hosted by UFS this year to ten.

Building a climate-resilient future through agricultural education

The MAINSTREAM project aims to foster education and skills improvement in agricultural knowledge systems, with a strong focus on climate change resilience. According to Prof Witthuhn, the project “strives to influence the common agenda for addressing education and skills improvement … targeting transformations with the tertiary agricultural education community, policy, and industry actors”.

An important aspect of the initiative is its emphasis on inclusion, particularly regarding African women who remain underrepresented in higher education agricultural programmes. “Mobility schemes will also be used to break cross-African gendered perceptions of agriculture … and to further provide for a gender-sensitive learning environment and institutional culture,” Prof Witthuhn notes.

The UFS’ participation forms part of a larger network of partner institutions across Africa and Europe, including Arsi University (Ethiopia), the University of Kara (Togo), the Mountains of the Moon University (Uganda), Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology (JOOUST, Kenya), the University of Sine Saloum El Hadji Ibrahima Niasse (USSEIN, Senegal), and the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Science (Germany).

Strengthening research, networks, and collaboration at the UFS

This four-year project, running from 2024 to 2027, will host two cohorts of students. “We are a partner in the project that will run over four years … one of the UFS master’s students, Rinus Behrens from the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development, is currently spending four months at JOOUST in Kenya as part of the programme,” adds Prof Witthuhn.

The presence of these students at the UFS marks a pivotal moment for both the institution and its international counterparts. “For the institution, it creates the opportunity for new networks, new research opportunities, internationalisation of our research endeavour, and increased research outputs,” she says.

During their stay, master’s and doctoral students will engage in academic research aligned with their fields of study, while traineeship students will gain hands-on agricultural experience on farms in the Bloemfontein area.

Bedada says the programme is already making a meaningful impact on his academic journey. “I am analysing the impact of agricultural mechanisation on food security and production. It is a big opportunity, because it gives me a chance to expand my knowledge and skills, and to develop my research work to international level.”

Similarly, Houngo says the experience so far has been enriching. “I have already learned a lot, and I hope to replicate the experience in my hometown,” he shares.

Behind the scenes, UFS staff and departments are instrumental in ensuring the programme’s success. “They provide host departments, academic leadership, and supervision to the six students,” says Prof Witthuhn, emphasising the collaborative effort required to support this international initiative.

News Archive

Historians must place African history on world stage – Dr Zeleza

2017-05-30

From the left: Panellists Rev Henry Jackson,
Prof Irikidzayi Manase and Arno Van Niekerk at a book
launch and panel discussion on Africa Day hosted by the
UFS Sasol Library.
Photo: Mamosa Makaya

“African historians must take seriously the challenge of placing African history in world history, and in the history of our species, Homo sapiens.”

With these words, Dr Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Vice Chancellor of the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi, Kenya, stressed the continent’s challenge.

According to him the contest should continue to recover and reconstruct Africa’s long history. Liberating African knowledges can be done by: “Provincialising Europe that has monopolised universality, universalising Africa beyond its Eurocentric provincialisation, and engaging histories of other continents on their own terms.”

University celebrates Africa Month in various ways
Dr Zeleza delivered the ninth Africa Day Memorial Lecture, titled The Decolonisation of African Knowledges, at the University of the Free State (UFS). The lecture, hosted by the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), took place on 24 May 2017 in the Equitas Auditorium on the Bloemfontein Campus and was one of the ways in which the UFS celebrated Africa Month.

Scholars should immerse themselves in these thoughts
Dr Zeleza focused on two issues, which he said were interconnected. They were the unfinished project of decolonising African knowledges and the continent's positioning in global knowledge production.

He said Africa’s scholars and students should “immerse themselves in the rich traditions of African social thought going back millennia”. According to him the continent’s research profile still remains weak in global terms.

“It is imperative that the various key stakeholders in African higher education from governments to the general public to parents, and to students, faculty, staff, and administrators in the academic institutions themselves, raise the value proposition of African higher education for 21st century African societies, economies, and polities.”

“Colonialism is associated with injustice
and inequality, but what happens when
our liberators become our oppressors?”

Library celebrates with panel discussion and book launch
The UFS Sasol Library celebrated Africa Day by presenting a book launch and panel discussion on 25 May 2017, on the pertinent and current political theme of land redistribution with a comparative basis of land invasions in Zimbabwe.

Prof Irikidzayi Manase discussed his book White Narratives: The Depiction of Post-2000 Land Invasions in Zimbabwe, accompanied by Rev Henry Jackson who wrote Another Farm in Africa. A perspective of the economic implications of land redistribution in South Africa was discussed by panellist Arno Van Niekerk: Senior Lecturer of Economics at the UFS Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences.

Inequality still an African problem
The content of the books are a stark reminder of the burning issues of inequality and loss of identity of those who lost their farms in Zimbabwe, a collection of memoirs by white farmers and their families. Rev Jackson gave a religious perspective on reconciliation, forgiveness and the question of land ownership, saying that healing of injustice begins with forgiveness of past transgressions.

Van Niekerk highlighted that while land issues were important, “social cohesion is affected by the economic decisions that will be made”. In closing, Prof Manase called for serious consideration of what the future may hold. “Colonialism is associated with injustice and inequality, but what happens when our liberators become our oppressors?”

The panel discussion was attended by staff and students of the university, and was lit up by robust discussions on possible historical and future solutions to the question of land, decolonisation and political power struggles in Southern Africa and lessons to be learned from Zimbabwe.

UFS celebrates Africa Month (24 May 2017)

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