The Universities South Africa (USAF) Transformation Managers Forum (TMF) is collaborating with SA’s 26 universities on a series of transformation webinars. CPUT will host the virtual Transformation Webinar, Series 2: Teaching and Learning Practices and Assessments on 7 August from 16h00 to 18h30.

The panellists are Prof Rishidaw Balkaran, DVC: Teaching and Learning, Prof Penelope Engel-Hills, Dean: Health and Wellness Sciences and Siya Sabata, Acting HOD: Curriculum, Fundani. The respondent is Prof Chris Winberg, Ministerial Transformation Oversight Committee, and South African Research Chair (Work and Learning) while it will be moderated by Brightness Mangolothi, Director: HERS-SA.   

Prof Paul Green, Chairperson of the CPUT Institutional Transformation Forum (ITF), says the main purpose of this collaboration is to encourage universities to promote transformation and decolonisation agenda discourse across their areas of focus. “These conversations are part of a journey towards redressing past inequalities and social justice deficits as well as addressing digital transformation in responding to fundamental mandates of teaching, learning, research, and community engagements in the context of social justice,” Green explains.

In encouraging the staff to be part of the Webinar, Green who is also the Dean of Faculty of Business and Management Sciences says: “I also urge DVC’s, executives, deans, and directors to ensure that transformation is incorporated in the performance management of all line managers and assessed as such. A transformation is therefore a powerful tool for reinventing our university to be ‘One Smart CPUT’ and enhance ‘Oneness and Smartness’ through diversity and inclusivity”. 

He encourages faculties, units, and departments to ensure that transformation is a standing agenda item for their meetings. 

The TMF is representative of all Transformation Directors of the 26 universities and they work in partnership with the ITFs of all universities. TMF accounts to the USAF and Ministerial Transformation Oversight Committee of Higher Education.

Director of Transformation, Social Cohesion and Diversity Unit, Nonkosi Tyolwana who also serves on the Steering Committee of the TMF, says this programme will assist CPUT to accelerate the transformation imperatives of higher education and ensure that “No Student is left Behind” due to equity and socio-economic background. “Transformation is a constitutional obligation and not a choice. It is high time that everyone takes responsibility and ensures that it is mainstreamed in our work,” she says.

She adds that the university community needs to have a continuous conversation on how ‘we can build Our Smart CPUT from the transformation lens’. “We need more conversations, dialogues public lecture and above all transformation and decolonisation must find expression in the content of what we teach, research agendas, and curriculum.

“Student and staff [member] life and experiences must be informed by a transformed agenda. Transformation can reinvent CPUT for a Smart CPUT with the digital transformation that takes cognisance of social justice,” Tyolwana remarks.

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Written by Aphiwe Boyce
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The state of TV journalism was the focus of a thought-provoking webinar recently presented by the Media Department.

The panellists were eTV journalist Natalie Malgas, acting cameraman for the SABC’s George bureau, Sphiwe Hobasi and multi award-winning investigative journalist, documentary producer, visual art critic, writer on contemporary culture and author, Hazel Friedman.

Journalism lecturer Sisanda Nkoala said the webinar formed part of a series that will deal with different sectors of media including film, photography and communication and media broadly. “Journalism is the most topical at the moment, hence it was a starting point. The changes that are happening locally in terms of how newsrooms function and how news is understood, make exploring journalism particularly relevant,” she said.

Prof Nirvana Bechan, Head of the Media Department, said it is important to track where the professions currently are and to keep interest going in students apart from their academic studies during the unprecedented times of Covid-19.

Bechan said the next webinar, scheduled for next month, would focus on the future of motion picture and cinemas in particular.

Written by Ilse Fredericks
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