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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.
Pauline Gutter’s metaphorical representations of South Africa
2016-04-07
Art student, Thamsanqa Malgas views the Purgatorium exhibition at the Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus (UFS).
Photo: Rethabile Isaacs
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Purgatory is a temporary condition of torment or suffering. This is the central thread of the renowned artist’s exhibition, Purgatorium, at the University of the Free State (UFS). Pauline Gutter’s exhibition was opened by Harry Siertsema on 9 March 2016 at the Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus.
The artist, who grew up on a farm in the Free State, is influenced by animals and farm life. “My work is on many levels a metaphorical representation of the violence of current South Africa. Some people want to move away from stigma, others adopt hysteria. The impressive yet vulnerable bulk of the bulls depicted in uncomfortable positions manifests the voiceless and powerless generation of food producers in their daily struggles for survival,” she wrote in the catalogue of the exhibition.
Prof Dirk van den Berg of the UFS Department of History of Art and Image Studies wrote an essay about the exhibition, in which he captures the lived endurance of stress and suffering which Pauline Gutter depicts vividly in Purgatorium.
“The paintings, drawings, and prints in this exhibition have, in various ways, the effect of disseminating the basic tenor of the weaning metaphor of struggle for survival into the farming domains of the land, its creatures, and its people,” said Prof van den Berg.
Art student, Thamsanqa Malgas, was very impressed with the exhibition, saying that it was a fascinating collection, and a must-see for art lovers. The exhibition closed on 1 April 2016.