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26 May 2025 | Story Tshepo Tsotetsi | Photo Stephen Collett
From left: Prof Anthea Rhoda (UFS Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic), Prof Henk de Jager (CEO, THENSA), Prof Joyce Nduna (ETDP SETA Chair, CPUT), Prof Hester C. Klopper (UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal), and Prof Vasu Reddy (UFS Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research and Internationalisation) at the UFS Senate Conference 2025.

The University of the Free State (UFS) hosted its second Senate Conference on 19 and 20 May 2025 at its Bloemfontein Campus, drawing together the university’s leadership, senators, and key stakeholders from across three campuses. 

Centred on the theme ‘A Call for Innovation: Reimagining Work-Integrated Learning at the UFS’, the two-day conference offered space for robust and critical dialogue on how work-integrated learning (WIL) can be deepened, diversified, and more purposefully embedded into the university’s academic project.

The conference was conceptualised and coordinated by Prof Vasu Reddy, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Internationalisation, and Prof Anthea Rhoda, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic, supported by a university-wide organising committee.

Over the two days, WIL was framed not as a supplementary offering but as central to shaping responsive, relevant academic interventions. In her address, UFS Vice-Chancellor and Principal Prof Hester C. Klopper, who is also Chairperson of the UFS Senate, urged members of the Senate to move beyond surface-level adjustments. “Real positive change will not come by merely panel-beating and tweaking what we already have, but rather by fundamentally reimagining work-integrated learning for the higher education landscape and the future we aspire to create,” she said.

Prof Reddy said the theme was a logical choice, as it incrementally builds upon another key component of UFS’s academic project, namely ‘engaged scholarship’ – which was the focus of the Senate Conference’s 2024 theme, ‘Making Change through Engaged Scholarship’. “WIL is known by many names – work placements, internships, practicums, cooperative education, field work, etcetera,” he said. “In fact, it represents a range of approaches and strategies that integrate theory and practice to explore self-identity, develop employability skills, and acquire professional acumen with deliberate and intentional action.”

 

Connecting learning and practice

“WIL is not additive, it is integral and must be integrated into our teaching, learning, research, and engaged scholarship,” Prof Klopper said. She emphasised a human-centred approach despite increasing digital integration: “Technology without human interaction is meaningless. We must ensure that we remain human-centred in all our endeavours, because being disembodied means that we are also disengaged.”

Prof Rhoda reflected on UFS’s potential to advance the conversation: “We have the human capital, the academic acumen, and the vast potential to take [WIL] to a new level, and to tangibly improve the quality and work-readiness of the graduates we produce.”

Faculties also shared their existing WIL practices through case studies, while structured group discussions on both days allowed participants to engage in smaller breakout sessions where they explored guided questions and provided feedback.

A key moment of the conference was the screening of Work Shoes, a documentary produced by Charlene Stanley, a UFS alumna and award-winning television producer. The film,  commissioned by Prof Reddy and Lacea Loader, UFS Senior Director: Communication and Marketing, followed the WIL journeys of four UFS students from diverse disciplines, offering a student-centred perspective on how learning translates into community impact.  

“The film, typical of all documentaries, offers a visual and cinematic format to spotlight opportunities to explore, reveal, interpret and understand and examine the errors of our world,” Prof Reddy said. He emphasised that “the film was not simply framing fault lines, but also captured connections and prospects for how we reflect on our teaching, learning and practice.” 

Prof Rhoda added, “These were four very diverse students with very different stories, but what they clearly have in common is a keen sense that work experience is all about service and about making a difference and improving the lives of individuals and communities.” 

 

Guest voices on innovation and integration

The programme included insights from four external guest speakers, each representing key areas of expertise (industry, academic, and practice), who addressed the evolution of WIL from different angles:

Advocate Navilla Somaru, Director of Public Prosecutions in the Free State, shared insights into the ‘In the Shadow of the Prosecutor’ programme, a partnership between the NPA and the UFS Faculty of Law which enables final-year law students to shadow prosecutors, bridging the gap between academic theory and practice.

Prof Joyce Nduna, Education, Training and Development Practices Sector Education and Training Authority (ETDP SETA) Research Chair at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), focused on designing innovative WIL practices that support transdisciplinary engagement. She spoke on the role of mutual learning, interdisciplinary teams, and curriculum flexibility in aligning academic goals with societal needs.

Prof Per Assmo, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Internationalisation at Sweden’s University West, presented on rethinking WIL as an academic discipline. He highlighted University West’s Master’s in Work Integrated Political Studies (WIPS) – a two-year international programme combining theory with research internships – as well as the institution’s unique PhD in Work-Integrated Learning.

Prof Henk de Jager, CEO of the Technological Higher Education Network South Africa (THENSA), discussed stakeholder engagement in the context of WIL. He shared key principles for strengthening collaboration and encouraged UFS to develop an engagement model suited to its own identity and institutional goals.

 

Reflections and forward momentum

Prof Rhoda noted the value of partnerships that create mutual benefit. Referring to Advocate Somaru’s presentation, she observed: “Not only has the ‘In the Shadow of the Prosecutor’ programme been a learning opportunity for our students, it has also been an opportunity for the relevant prosecutors to look with new eyes at their profession … and to maybe even recognise issues and shortfalls in their workplace environment that they have become used to.” She also noted the continuity of thought from last year’s inaugural Senate Conference and its focus on engaged scholarship. “I find it quite significant and beautiful how our discussions today actually dovetailed with many of the sentiments that transpired from that first conference,” she said.

Prof Reddy reflected that, “It was clear to me there was a greater level of intellectual and participatory energy demonstrated by our Senators, evident in their presence, ideas, and constructive engagement with the topic. It seems that our colleagues were curious to passionately explore how better to be innovative in our collective effort to further drive the teaching, learning, and research agenda triggered by the topic into the future.”

In her closing remarks, Prof Klopper stated that the reimagining of WIL connects deeply with the three pillars of the university’s Vision 130: “Academic excellence with quality and impact; maximum societal impact through sustainable relationships; and being a diverse, inclusive, and equitable university are the foundation on which our approach to WIL must be built.”

The 2025 Senate Conference reinforced that meaningful WIL cannot happen in silos. It demands shared responsibility, innovation through connection, and a clear commitment to putting students and society at the centre of the academic project.

 

Programme

Click to view document UFS 2025 Senate Conference Programme

 

Documentary Film: Work Shoes

 

Presentations

News Archive

Stem cell research and human cloning: legal and ethical focal points
2004-07-29

   

(Summary of the inaugural lecture of Prof Hennie Oosthuizen, from the Department of Criminal and Medical Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of the Free State.)

 

In the light of stem cell research, research on embryo’s and human cloning it will be fatal for legal advisors and researchers in South Africa to ignore the benefits that new bio-medical development, through research, contain for this country.

Legal advisors across the world have various views on stem cell research and human cloning. In the USA there is no legislation that regulates stem cell research but a number of States adopted legislation that approves stem cell research. The British Parlement gave permission for research on embryonic stem cells, but determined that it must be monitored closely and the European Union is of the opinion that it will open a door for race purification and commercial exploitation of human beings.

In South Africa the Bill on National Health makes provision for therapeutical and non therapeutical research. It also makes provision for therapeutical embryonical stem cell research on fetuses, which is not older than 14 days, as well as for therapeutical cloning under certain circumstances subject to the approval of the Minister. The Bill prohibits reproductive cloning.

Research on human embrio’s is a very controversial issue, here and in the rest of the world.

Researchers believe that the use of stem cell therapy could help to side-step the rejection of newly transplanted organs and tissue and if a bank for stem cell could be built, the shortage of organs for transplants would become something of the past. Stem cells could also be used for healing of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spinal injuries.

Sources from which stem cells are obtained could also lead to further ethical issues. Stem cells are harvested from mature human cells and embryonic stem cells. Another source to be utilised is to take egg cells from the ovaries of aborted fetuses. This will be morally unacceptable for those against abortions. Linking a financial incentive to that could become more of a controversial issue because the woman’s decision to abort could be influenced. The ideal would be to rather use human fetus tissue from spontaneous abortions or extra-uterine pregnancies than induced abortions.

The potential to obtain stem cells from the blood of the umbilical cord, bone-marrow and fetus tissue and for these cells to arrange themselves is known for quite some time. Blood from the umbilical cord contains many stem cells, which is the origin of the body’s immune and blood system. It is beneficial to bank the blood of a newborn baby’s umbilical cord. Through stem cell transplants the baby or another family member’s life could be saved from future illnesses such as anemia, leukemia and metabolic storing disabilities as well as certain generic immuno disabilities.

The possibility to withdraw stem cells from human embrio’s and to grow them is more useable because it has more treatment possibilities.

With the birth of Dolly the sheep, communities strongly expressed their concern about the possibility that a new cloning technique such as the replacement of the core of a cell will be used in human reproduction. Embryonic splitting and core replacement are two well known techniques that are associated with the cloning process.

I differentiate between reproductive cloning – to create a cloned human embryo with the aim to bring about a pregnancy of a child that is identical to another individual – and therapeutically cloning – to create a cloned human embryo for research purposes and for healing human illnesses.

Worldwide people are debating whether to proceed with therapeutical cloning. There are people for and against it. The biggest ethical objection against therapeutical cloning is the termination of the development of a potential human being.

Children born from cloning will differ from each other. Factors such as the uterus environment and the environment in which the child is growing up will play a role. Cloning create unique children that will grow up to be unique individuals, just like me and you that will develop into a person, just like you and me. If we understand this scientific fact, most arguments against human cloning will disappear.

Infertility can be treated through in vitro conception. This process does not work for everyone. For some cloning is a revolutionary treatment method because it is the only method that does not require patients to produce sperm and egg cells. The same arguments that were used against in vitro conception in the past are now being used against cloning. It is years later and in vitro cloning is generally applied and accepted by society. I am of the opinion that the same will happen with regard to human cloning.

There is an argument that cloning must be prohibited because it is unsafe. Distorted ideas in this regard were proven wrong. Are these distorted ideas justified to question the safety of cloning and the cloning process you may ask. The answer, according to me, is a definite no. Human cloning does have many advantages. That includes assistance with infertility, prevention of Down Syndrome and recovery from leukemia.

 

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