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27 October 2025
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Story Sefako Mokhosoa
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Photo Supplied
Ten Grade 12 learners from Mampoi Secondary School in Phuthaditjhaba.
On 1 October 2025, the Projects and Innovation Directorate in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Free State (UFS) proudly hosted a certificate ceremony to honour ten Grade 12 learners from Mampoi Secondary School in Phuthaditjhaba on the Qwaqwa Campus. These learners completed a Skills Development Initiative and Workshop Series focused on digital literacy and ICT skills – a programme designed to equip rural youth with the tools they need to thrive in a digital world.
The initiative, which ran from May to August 2025, was made possible through a strategic partnership with BANKSETA to bridge the digital divide in rural communities. The learners received hands-on training in essential digital tools. Each learner also received a tablet to support continued learning and personal growth beyond the classroom.
The Director of the office in the Faculty of Education, Dr Kwazi Magwenzi, stressed that digital skills promote independence and self-directed learning. “Grade 12 is a time when learners should manage their studies, meet deadlines, and explore their options,” she said. “Digital fluency supports that autonomy. It enables learners to use online research, interactive tools, e-learning, and collaboration platforms to make learning more effective, flexible, and aligned with their pace and style. In Grade 12, where the stakes are high – with exams, tertiary entrance, and career choices – this ability helps learners become more self-directed, confident, and equipped.”
The programme not only built learners’ confidence in using ICT tools for learning and communication but also prepared them for the technologically driven environments they will encounter in institutions of higher learning.
Beyond developing digital skills, the project offered learners valuable exposure to the university environment, as their training took place on campus. Inspired by the success of this pilot, the Faculty of Education now aims to expand the initiative to reach more schools and learners across the region. The vision is to scale up access to digital education and empower more young people in rural areas with the skills necessary for academic and professional success.
This ceremony marked the conclusion of a successful training programme and the beginning of a long-term commitment to digital empowerment and lifelong learning in rural communities.
Prof Tredoux turns theories regarding the formation of metals on its head
2013-09-17
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Prof Marian Tredoux
17 September 2013 |
The latest research conducted by Prof Marian Tredoux of the Department of Geology, in collaboration with her research assistant Bianca Kennedy and their colleagues in Germany, placed established theories regarding how minerals of the platinum-group of elements are formed, under close scrutiny.
The article on this research of which Prof Tredoux is a co-author – ‘Noble metal nanoclusters and nanoparticles precede mineral formation in magmatic sulphide melts’ – was published in Nature Communications on 6 September 2013. It is an online journal for research of the highest quality in the fields of biological, physical and chemical sciences.
This study found that atoms of platinum and arsenic create nanoclusters, long before the mineral sperrylite can crystallise. Thus, the platinum does not occur as a primary sulphur compound. The research was conducted at the Steinmann Institute of the University of Bonn, Germany, as well as here in Bloemfontein.
Monetary support from Inkaba yeAfrica – a German-South African multidisciplinary and intercultural Earth Science collaborative of the National Research Foundation (NRF) – made this research possible. Studies are now also being conducted on other metals in the precious metal group, specifically palladium, rhodium and ruthenium.
The discovery of the nanoclusters and the combination with arsenic can have far-reaching consequences for the platinum mine industry, if it can be utilised to recover a greater amount of platinum ore and therefore less wastage ending up in mine dumps. This will signify optimal mining of a scarce and valuable metal, one of South Africa’s most important export products.
For Prof Tredoux, the research results also prove thoughts she already had some twenty years ago around the forming of platinum minerals. “Researchers laughed in my face, but the evidence had to wait for the development of technology to prove it.” Young researchers were very excited at recent congresses about the findings, since the new models can bring new insights.
“Chemistry researchers have been talking about platinum element clusters in watery environments for quite a while, but it was thought that these would not appear in magmas (molten rock) due to the high temperatures (>1 000 degrees celsius).”
Prof Tredoux has already delivered lectures at congresses in Scotland, Hungary, Sweden and Italy on this research.
Read the article at: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130906/ncomms3405/full/ncomms3405.html