MEDUNSA UPGRADE - University of Limpopo

LIMPOPO
NUMBER 22
WINTER 2010
LIMPOPO
Ieader
DISPATCHES FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
MEDUNSA UPGRADE –
new state-of-the-art additions make a difference
THE BELGIAN CONNECTION –
a most important relationship
CALLING ALL ALUMNI – turn to page one

UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO ALUMNI
SEARCH
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so that we can continue to be in touch with all University of Limpopo alumni.
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Tel: (+27) 011 791 4561 Fax: (+27) 011 791 2390 Cell: 072 545 2366
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Email: info@developmentconnection.co.za
(Photocopies are accepted)

CALLING ALL ALUMNI:
GET IN THE NEWS!
lLAST YEAR WE PUBLISHED A SPECIAL ALUMNI MAGAZINE, On the
Move, WHICH FEATURED ALUMNI WHO WERE GOING PLACES IN
THEIR CAREERS. This year we’re devoting an entire issue of Limpopo
Leader to this vital constituency of the University of Limpopo’s extended
family. So the Spring 2010 edition (Number 23), due out at the end of October, will be
full of news and views of interest to alumni – and full of alumni themselves.
PRIZES TO BE WON
We’re inviting alumni to participate. This is what you need to do. Send us a paragraph (no more than 100 words)
about what you’re doing and where your old campus friends can get hold of you. Include a photograph of yourself.
We’ll try to publish every response we receive. What’s more, we’ll select the most promising entries for fuller profile
coverage (including a photograph). Each entrant selected in this way will receive a special prize of recently published
South African books.
INTERACTIVE ALUMNI
Write to us, phone us, be interactive. It’s your magazine. Feature in it. Get your contact details published. Here’s a
chance to re-establish contact with old friends. Use it to get a bit of free advertising for your business. Win prizes.
Enjoy some special offers. Your alma mater is a rising star: let’s celebrate it together.
Dr Arnold Msimeki Zola Dantile Dr Molefi Sefularo Lebo Matlala
Mogwera Khoathane Angie Makwetla Dr Morokolo Sathekge Phumzile Hlongwa
P A G E 1

LIMPOPO LEADER is
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P A G E 2
EDITORIAL iIT
WAS IN THE WINTER 2008 EDITION OF Limpopo Leader
(NUMBER 14) THAT WE FIRST REPORTED THAT ‘SERIOUS MONEY
FOR UPGRADING MEANS THAT THE MEDICAL SCHOOL (MEDUNSA)
IS STAYING PUT’. IT WAS THIS SERIOUS MONEY, R185-MILLION IN
TOTAL AND EARMARKED FOR infrastructure development and improved
clinical training capacity, that finally put paid to the uncertainty, first
raised by the merger, surrounding Medunsa’s future. Now there’s
irrefutable proof that the money is being advantageously spent. Look at
the stories – and the pictures – on pages 16 to 21 to get a taste of the
major improvements to the Dental Hospital, and Medunsa’s brand new
multi-million rand Skills Centre packed with state-of-the-art equipment.
There’s a lot happening at Turfloop as well, developments that are
impacting on both main campuses of the university. Perhaps the most
significant development is the new research relationship that has been
forged between the University of Limpopo and universities in Belgium
under the banner of VLIR-UOS. Take a look at the story on page 22 to
find out what this relationship means, and how it impacts on the
university’s avowed mission and vision. In short, the VLIR programme will
dominate research on both campuses for years to come. No wonder a
revamped physical infrastructure has been named VLIR House.
Infrastructure of an electronic kind – it’s usually called ICT architecture
– is the subject of the article on page 27. It is actually a profile of the
university’s new Executive Director of ICT, an expert in his field who can,
if he stands up at his desk on the Turfloop campus, see the hills where he
was born. Another profile deals with a rural Limpopo girl who had never
worked on a computer until she started on her first post-graduate degree.
She, later in the United Kingdom, linked more than 100 processors in
parallel to get the materials modelling results she was looking for. Finally,
a Medunsa graduate has become the MEC for Health in a South African
province. His enthusiasm and commitment to improving the health of
ordinary people is an inspiration.
In fact, the entire issue is brim full of inspiration. Read it – and don’t
be afraid to be inspired!
NEXT ISSUE
THERE’S MORE INSPIRATION IN STORE FOR READERS OF Limpopo
Leader 23. It will be an issue devoted to alumni and to that crucial
relationship between alumni and their alma mater. We’ve all heard that
famous dictum of erstwhile American President John F Kennedy: ‘Ask not
what your country can do for you: ask what you can do for your
country’. The central message of our next issue will turn that dictum on its
head. Alumni must ask what their university can do for them quite as
directly as their university should be asking what past students can do for
it. Don’t miss it.

IN THIS ISSUE UNIVERSITY
cover picture:
Theatre Sister, Francina Ramashita, in one of the upgraded operating
theatres in the Medunsa Oral Health Centre
page 4:
The University’s Audit Year: WE’RE READY FOR INSPECTION!
page 7:
ONE KEY PLAYER GOES OFF, ANOTHER COMES ON.
Profiles of Professor Mbudzeni Sibara and Professor
Peter Franks
page 12:
Student mentoring: MEET PROFESSOR MONIE NAIDOO
page 14:
Student mentoring: MEET GERDA BOTHA
page 16:
Medunsa upgrades: DENTAL HOSPITAL GETS A FACELIFT
page 19:
Medunsa upgrades: NEW SKILLS UNIT OPENS
page 22:
HUMAN WELLNESS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL CHANGE:
The VLIR-UOS programme at the University of Limpopo
page 26:
The VLIR-UOS programme: THE AIDS THREAT TO HUMAN
WELLNESS
page 27:
MEET THE GWAVA BUSTER: Profile of Geoffrey Letsoalo
page 29:
WHAT KEEPS HER BATTERIES CHARGED? Profile of
Dr Regina Maphanga
page 31:
THE MEC FOR HEALTH IN MPUMALANGA: Profile of
Dr Mhlangu
OF LIMPOPO
INSTITUTIONAL AUDIT
SEPTEMBER 2010
teaching and learning and research
community outreach and infrastructure
solutions for African problems
financial and quality control
human development
support services
P A G E 3

The University’s Audit Year
WE’RE READY FOR INSPECTION!
IN THE LAST EDITION OF Limpopo
iLeader (NUMBER 21, AUTUMN
2010) WE INTRODUCED READERS
TO THE IDEA OF THE INSTITU-
TIONAL AUDIT. On the two main
campuses of the University of
Limpopo (UL) the audit, instigated
by the Council on Higher Education
to comply with the provisions of
the Higher Education Act of 1997,
was quickly seen as ‘another step
on the road to excellence’. That,
at any rate, was how Dr Abbey
Ngoepe, the university’s Director
of Quality Control, was looking at
it – and since the middle of 2009
the Audit Steering Committee and
its various working groups have
been working in preparation for
this important event that is to take
place in the form of a visit by a
high-powered audit panel next
month (September 2010).
Now the news is unequivocal.
‘We’re ready,’ said Ngoepe in an
interview recently. ‘We’ve
completed the self-evaluation
report and have managed to
collect all the relevant evidence to
support it.’
This relevant evidence comes in
the form of an array of existing
documents, as well as large
amounts of supporting data. The
documents in question include:
The university’s Strategic Plan,
first drafted in 2007 and now
updated for the five year
period 2010 to 2014
P A G E 4
The Institutional Operating Plan
(IOP) that resulted from the
introduction in 2007 of an
independent assessor (Professor
Ben Khoape) to examine the
parlous financial and
administrative situation. The
IOP was successfully
implemented in 2008 and
completed in 2009.
The PQM (programme and
qualifications mix) that clearly
indicates the university’s
response to the education and
training needs of the socioeconomic
environment in which
it operates in terms of what is
being taught in the various
faculties and to what academic
levels.
The university’s Academic
Structure, which shows how the
programmes shown in the PQM
are managed and
administered.
It is worth noting that the Strategic
Plan shows in detail how the
university, in its day-to-day
operations, strives to achieve the
broad aims set out in its vision
and mission. Worth noting, as
well, that both mission and vision
were suspended while the IOP
was being worked out due to
structural and systemic challenges
of the merger. The idea of being
a world-class African university
responding to the needs of a
developing province, nation and
region was put on hold as the
institution concentrated its efforts
on merger challenges and
sustainability.
‘The good news now,’ says
Ngoepe, ‘is that our vision and
mission are back. They have
certainly been at the centre of our
preparations for our Institutional
Audit, a process that will look
specifically at our core business
targets and the support services
necessary to achieve them.’
At the heart of the audit lies
19 areas of special interest. These
are expressed in the form of 19
criteria. A few of the main ones
were listed in Limpopo Leader 21,
but all have been dealt with in the
draft self-evaluation report. Of
course, the Institutional Audit will
concentrate on what Ngoepe
refers to as ‘our core business
targets’ in relation to teaching and
learning, research, and community
engagement.
TEACHING AND
LEARNING
To face the challenges in the
sphere of teaching and learning,
the university has submitted as
evidence to the HEQC, throughput
and graduation rates against
the average national norm. An
attempt is also made to evaluate
the quality of the university’s

efforts in this direction by looking
in particular at three key
indicators.
The first is the appropriateness
of UL programmes in the
manpower market. This is
measured by means of user
surveys in the marketplace
among employers, government
departments, etc.
The second is a system of
comparison with the
competition, via a process of
benchmarking UL’s programmes
and results with other
universities, both at a national
and an international level.
The third attempts to measure
UL’s responsiveness to student
and end-user needs. Impact
studies show whether our
programmes and teaching
methods are having a positive
impact and whether they are
sensitive to changing needs.
An important part of the teaching/
learning action plan is keeping
tabs on the transformation aspect,
particularly with regard to gender,
and acting to correct any
imbalances. For example, while
the student population is now
fairly evenly balanced between
male and female, this is not the
case at post-graduate level, nor in
the academic staff complement
where males still predominate.
Dr Abbey Ngoepe
UNIVERSITY
OF LIMPOPO
INSTITUTIONAL AUDIT
SEPTEMBER 2010
teaching and learning and research
community outreach and infrastructure
solutions for African problems
financial and quality control
human development
support services
P A G E 5

The University’s Audit Year
WE’RE READY FOR INSPECTION!
RESEARCH
The university has established
systems whereby its research
performance is constantly
compared with the national
average, not only in terms of
publications in accredited
journals, and posters and papers
at conferences, but also the
number of students proceeding to
Masters and Doctoral studies.
This area of UL’s core business is
fraught with challenges, and the
action plan has begun
methodically to address them.
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Here, too, challenges abound.
But the improvement plan is taking
firm steps to articulate more clearly
what our overarching approach
should be to community
engagement, so that planning our
short, medium and long term
programmes becomes a more
organic process. Community
engagement programmes abound,
but UL’s focus has now shifted to
integration, to enhance the quality
of the university’s performance in
this regard, and also to pay
special attention to the
co-ordination and sustainability
of UL interventions into the rural
communities that surround it.
SUPPORT SERVICES
These important services deal with
everything from the public face of
the university created by
Marketing and Communications,
to the recruiting of high-quality
and high-potential students, as
P A G E 6
well as to the challenge of
attracting and retaining the best
possible academic and
administrative staff. The
university’s new ‘attraction and
retention’ policy pays special
attention to the health, social,
educational and recreational
facilities for staff; to the nurturing
of good leadership and
management practices at all
levels; to career and succession
planning so that talented
employees find meaning and
promotion opportunities in their
jobs; and to piggy-backing on the
positive economic development
taking place in the provinces
where the campuses of the
university are located. All these
services and improvements to
UL’s way of doing things will be
scrutinised by the Institutional
Audit panel when they visit the
university next month.
‘In fact,’ says Ngoepe, ‘the
panel will be looking at how we
use the resources at our disposal,
and how we plan to remain viable
in the present climate of
diminishing state support for
higher education.’
Ngoepe points out as well that
the audit will provide UL an
opportunity to pause and reflect
on where it is situated on the long
road to its ambitious mission and
vision. ‘What’s our direction? How
far are we with the introduction of
our new systems, policies and
procedures designed to manage
and enhance quality in the
merged university, the harmonising
of our various departments and
schools, and with the creation of
one institutional culture out of the
earlier two cultures with which
we started?
‘Quite frankly, we’ve never
before had such a clear
opportunity to take stock of our
merged position and direction.
Now we can do that. One thing
that becomes abundantly clear is
that this Institutional Audit will
closely scrutinise the success or
otherwise of the merger. Our
ability to move forward, and our
ability to overcome our own builtin
resistance to change will be
closely examined. In many
important respects, the audit will
reveal whether as an institution we
can really move towards our goal
of being an excellent and effective
African university.’
In conclusion, Ngoepe refers to
the term PDI (previously
disadvantaged institution). ‘The
harbouring of such a notion can
lead to pessimism,’ he says, ‘and
it has no place in the Institutional
Audit. We want to be judged as
equals, not as victims. So we say
unequivocally to ourselves – and
to the audit panel, don’t use our
history to judge our potential.‘

Changes in the university executive
ONE KEY PLAYER GOES OFF,
ANOTHER COMES ON
Excuse the football terminology, but it’s still quite topical – and in this
case it’s certainly appropriate. Without doubt, the University of Limpopo
is a team effort, and replacements are often necessary. Recently, one
of the most important positions in the institution – Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Academic and Research – required just such a change. Turn the page
to read about the two remarkable men involved.
Sibara
Franks
ON
OFF
P A G E 7

ON – HE HAS PLAYED HERE BEFORE
t‘THERE’S A DEFINITE SENSE,’ SAYS PROFESSOR
MBUDZENI SIBARA, ‘THAT THE UNIVERSITY HAS
FOUND ITSELF AND IS BEGINNING TO MOVE
FORWARD. The institution has got beyond the
complexities and confusions of the merger process,
and we’re asking in a really penetrating way what it
is we’re supposed to be doing and how well are we
doing it. In other words, our attention is turning from
the administrative complexities of merging Turfloop and
Medunsa, to questions of performance and quality.’
Sibara is the newly appointed Deputy Vice-
Chancellor Academic and Research of the University of
Limpopo, a position he assumed in May this year when
he replaced the outgoing DVC, Professor Peter Franks.
‘It’s a remarkable road that higher education has
travelled,’ he went on. ‘So many of us have been –
and still are – involved in institutionalising the changes
for which in the 1970s and 1980s we and thousands
of other students protested. As protesters we were
concerned with the democratisation of our universities,
P A G E 8
ON
with new and relevant missions, and with curricula to
match. Twenty five years later, these are certainly our
current concerns and pre-occupations at the University
of Limpopo.’
Sibara (now 58) knows what he’s talking about.
He studied with Steve Biko at Fort Hare in the early
1970s, and was twice expelled from that troubled
institution. He has had extensive experience in senior
administrative positions in South African universities,
and he has spent time at universities abroad pursuing
a brilliant academic career as a biochemist and
microbiologist. His experience includes deep involvement
with the many higher education mergers that
occurred in South Africa throughout the first decade of
the 21 st century. If these things were counted alone,
his arrival at the University of Limpopo would be an
important acquisition. But one other factor renders his
acquisition invaluable. He has been here before.
‘This is homecoming for me,’ Sibara says.
‘Throughout the 1990s I worked at Turfloop, first as an

associate professor of Microbiology, then as a full
professor, and finally as Dean of the then Faculty of
Mathematics and Natural Sciences.’
Underlying this experience of the institution to which
he has now returned lies his experience of the province
in which it is situated. Indeed, he was in fact born
here: in Venda,; and he matriculated from the thennamed
Vendaland Training Institution.
If Sibara had not been politicised at school, his
enrolment in 1972 at Fort Hare for his biological
sciences undergraduate degree completed his political
education. He met Steve Biko who was busy
establishing health clinics in the rural areas of Ciskei.
The following year, most of the students were expelled.
Sibara found a job. But he was back on campus in
1975, only to be expelled again in 1976, the year of
the Soweto uprisings nearly a thousand kilometres to
the north. In 1977, Biko was murdered while in police
custody. Amazingly, though, in the turbulence of those
times, Sibara successfully completed his BSc degree,
majoring in chemistry, biochemistry and microbiology.
He then proceeded to the University of the
Witwatersrand where, by 1980, he had graduated
cum laude with a Masters in biochemistry. This hugely
talented student, still only 29, went abroad.
‘I was flying to America, via London,’ Sibara
recalled, ‘and I remember my flight was diverted from
Heathrow to Gatwick because of the wedding of Prince
Charles and Diana. The year was 1981, and I was on
my way to the University of Texas to attempt my PhD in
plant pathology.’
He succeeded, graduating in 1985. The following
year he was back in South Africa, working as a postdoctoral
fellow, then as a microbiology lecturer and
senior lecturer at Wits. During the turbulent late
eighties, Sibara became the warden at Glyn Thomas
House, a Wits-controlled residence for black medical
students situated just behind Baragwanath Hospital.
‘It’s hard to imagine now,’ he said, ‘but black students
weren’t allowed into the main university residences in
those days.'
Next move for Sibara was to the University of the
North in 1992 where he took up the post of Associate
Professor in the Microbiology Department. But his
travelling days weren’t over. No sooner had he got to
Turfloop than he disappeared for a nine month stint as
a Fullbright scholar at Cornell University in upstate
New York. He returned to a full professorship and
ultimately to several years as faculty dean. By 2000
he was again on the move, this time going to Oxford
University on a Bram Fischer/Nelson Mandela
scholarship for six months.
‘When I got back, the university was in turmoil,’
Sibara said. ‘During my six or seven years at Turfloop
there had been at least five Vice-Chancellors.
Administrative and financial systems were often in a
state of collapse. Students were often in an uproar of
anger and defiance. But then I was posted to the
university’s Qwa-Qwa campus as acting principal. It
was a posting that finally confirmed that I would be
swimming permanently in the stormy waters of higher
education administration.’
By April 2001, Sibara was working at the North-
West Technikon (now part of Tswane University) as the
deputy Vice-Chancellor for academic affairs’ and five
years later he became the manager of the Merger Unit
inside the national Department of Education.
‘The job of the Unit was to support, financially and
with expertise, all those institutions affected by the
mergers that reduced our number of higher education
institutions from thirty-six to the current twenty-three.
I finally left the Unit earlier this year,’ Sibara added,
‘to take up the challenge of the University of Limpopo,
which as everyone knows has just come through
probably the most complex merger in the country.’
His experience will be invaluable to both main
campuses of the university as they seek to travel a
common road. In welcoming Sibara, Vice-Chancellor
Mahlo Mokgalong stressed that ‘your experience will
greatly assist the university to present a sound
submission to the Higher Education Quality Committee’s
Institutional Audit later this year’.
Sibara himself understands the broader implications:
‘Our efforts must concentrate on improving the quality
of our core business – improving student throughput,
improving the quantity and quality of research,
upgrading staff – and on creating a vibrant institution
with a deepening culture of learning and research.’
There seems to be little doubt that Sibara will play
a significant role in these endeavours.
P A G E 9

OFF – BUT HE HAS NOT HUNG UP HIS
pPROFESSOR PETER FRANKS, WHO VACATED THE
POSITION OF DEPUTY VICE-CHANCELLOR
ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH EARLIER THIS YEAR,
FIRST JOINED THE UNIVERSITY OF THE NORTH
(NOW LIMPOPO) ALMOST TWENTY YEARS AGO.
That’s a long stretch of continuous service for a man as
restless and innovative as Franks.
He began his time at the university as senior
professor and head of the Department of Industrial and
Organisational Psychology in 1992, but was soon
promoted to Dean (1995 – 2001) and then Executive
Dean of what is now termed the Faculty of
Management and Law. With the Turfloop/Medunsa
merger looming, Franks found himself involved with
executive management at Turfloop and then across the
new university as a whole. He served as Interim
Campus Principal at Turfloop, and Deputy Vice
Chancellor of the University of Limpopo from January
2005 to 2007 when his portfolio was more precisely
defined as Deputy Vice Chancellor: academic and
P A G E 1 0
OFF
research. He steered these aspects of the university
juggernaut through the stormiest of merger waters until
a few months ago. He had already passed retirement
age when he finally handed the reins to Professor
Mbudzeni Sibara.
Apart from his steady rise through the administrative
ranks of the university and his increasing weight in its
managerial affairs, Franks’ innovative flair is
particularly visible at Edupark in Polokwane, where the
Turfloop Graduate School of Leadership (TGSL) and the
Development Facilitation and Training Institute (DevFTI)
will remain as reminders of his lively influence. But to
more fully decipher the genesis of these innovations,
we need to learn a little more about the man himself.
Franks was born in Johannesburg during the final
months of World War 2. He did his formative
schooling in Johannesburg and attended high school at
Kingswood College, a highflying private school in
Grahamstown where he matriculated in 1963. Back in
Johannesburg and after a few years of indecision, he

BOOTS
enrolled for a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and
political science at the University of the Witwatersrand.
‘People said my choice of majors was unusual,’
Franks said, ‘but it made perfect sense to me. The
relationship between psychology and politics seemed
obvious, especially in South Africa at that time. Then in
my third year we studied Marx, even though he wasn’t
on the official curriculum, and I discovered linkages
between Zionism and Marxism’. While at Wits he
served on the national executive of NUSAS*.
After graduating in 1970, Franks went overseas.
He got a job in Milan, looking after the children of a
heavy-metal rock star. He immersed himself in the
nightclubs of London. He worked on a kibbutz in Israel.
Then he went to America and entered the State
University of New York at Stony Brook as both student
and psychology lecturer. Five years later he emerged
with a doctorate in Social Psychology.
Canada beckoned. He taught psychology as an
assistant professor at the Wilfred Laurier University at
Waterloo in Ontario for a few years. Then he dropped
out. He worked in the commercial theatre in Austin,
Texas. Then when his money ran out he found work as
a mason’s labourer in New Mexico, a job he did for
18 months. On his return to Canada he worked at
Concordia University in Montreal as a lecturer in the
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and did
social and environmental consultancy work for a private
sector company. He then lived on the dole for six
months, reading books he bought in a shop run by the
Salvation Army, before returning to South Africa in 1982.
Back home Franks worked for the Human Sciences
Research Council for ten years, rising to the position
of Manager of the Environment Management Division
before joining the then University of the North. His
wanderings were over. But his thinking had been
deeply shaped by the diversity of his experiences: it
followed no popular trends, and he continued to be
regarded as something of a maverick by many.
‘Perhaps more of a free thinker and iconoclast,’ he
suggested.
Asked what his doctoral thesis had been about,
Franks replied: ‘ I wrote a history of American social
* National Union of South African Students
psychology between 1900 and 1940. This was the
period in which social engineering developed. A
period in which great illusions were created for the
American people to believe in. My interest focused on
the role played by social psychology in the
development of a manipulative social practice and on
the dangers inherent in this approach.’
All this experience and thinking came more fully
into play when Franks became involved, during the
mid-1990s, in the Edupark venture. The story of how
the actual facility came into being has been told
elsewhere. Suffice to say here that when it had been
established, the then Vice-Chancellor, Professor Njabulo
Ndebele asked Franks, then the Dean of Management
and Law to look at the possibility of launching a
Business School for the university.
The result wasn’t a business school but the TGSL.
‘It was so much more than a business school,’ Franks
explained. ‘It brought together the three crucial strands
of development: the state, the corporate sector and
the civil society in the existing development realities.
We were way ahead of other business schools.’
This claim continues to be reflected in the
postgraduate courses on offer. Certainly, there’s an
MBA, but this basic business degree is supplemented
with an MPA (a Masters in Public Administration) and
an MDev (a Masters in Development). But Franks didn’t
stop there. Thanks to funding from the Mott, Rockefeller
and Ford Foundations, DevFTI was founded. It has
provided management and leadership training for
thousands of community, NGO and traditional leaders
from many SADC and east African countries as well as
locally. Besides this major innovation there were many
other initiatives championed by Franks during his
period of service.
It seems a pity that a man like Peter Franks,
maverick though he might be, must sooner or later
retire. It happens to the best of us. But the good news
is that he’s not thinking of the rocking chair just yet.
‘At the moment I’m taking a break,’ he says. ‘I have
a number of writing projects that I’m planning. After
that – yes, absolutely – I’ll be looking for something
interesting to do.’
P A G E 1 1

The Centre for Academic Excellence
THE RIGHT TO SUCCEED LIES AT
THE HEART OF THE CAE
e‘ENTHUSIASM IS THE YEAST
THAT MAKES YOUR HOPES
SHINE TO THE STARS. Enthusiasm
is the sparkle in your eyes, the
swing in your gait. The grip of
your hand, the irresistible surge of
will and energy to execute your
ideas.’ Henry Ford’s words might
have been uttered with Professor
Monie Naidoo, Executive Director
of the University of Limpopo’s
Centre for Academic Excellence
(CAE) in mind. Naidoo is a
people-centred and positive
personification of enthusiasm.
Naidoo grew up in Durban, in
a home that treasured the value of
education combined with constant
encouragement. It was here that
her love of education was first
triggered. Naidoo’s schooling was
also in nurturing environments.
She first attended St Anthony’s,
a small Catholic school near
Greyville Race Course – ‘where
every child felt valued and loved’
– which was followed by another
supportive schooling experience at
Durban Girls High. She
remembers that during her stint as
head prefect, her still-present
philosophy to take the initiative
and to ‘just do it’ was instilled.
‘I thrived and achieved under
these positive influences.
I appreciated them and became
aware of their overall value in my
life, as well as the impact that
supportive environments can have
P A G E 1 2
on people’s lives in general. After
matric I trained to be a teacher at
the University of Durban-Westville
and started teaching physical
science and biology. I’m delighted
that I have this background in
science and I find it still helps me
today.’
Then came the early 80s and
the government’s bizarre
tricameral parliament proposal.
Naidoo became involved in
activism work, primarily through
SADTU (the SA Democratic
Teachers Union), with her focus
on race and gender equity. ‘A lot
came out of those activism days;
a lot of understanding of people’s
experiences under the systems in
power and a determination to
unite and work against inequality.’
This led to work as a gender
activist. Naidoo is still involved in
voluntary gender and development
work.
‘When I did my honours,
I chose counselling psychology
because by then I recognised that
it would be a valuable skill,
I obviously had no idea just how
valuable it would prove to be in
my life. In fact, when I reflect on
the path my life has taken, the
courses I have done, the projects
I have been involved in, I marvel
at how they have all contributed
so richly to my career – and more
particularly, to the work I am
doing here at this university.’
Naidoo’s string of
qualifications has more than
equipped her for her job, as has
the experience she has gained.
Her qualifications include a UDE
from the University of Durban-
Westville; Diploma Special Ed.
from Unisa; BA and BA (Hons)
from Unisa in Psychology and
Economics and Counselling
Psychology respectively; an MA
from the University of Natal; B.Ed
from Unisa; and more recently a
Certificate in Higher Education
Management from Wits Business
School; and an MBA (cum laude)
and D.Ed, both from Unisa. The
combination of education and
business management has worked
well for her, she notes.
Other experiences that have
added richly to her skills includes
a stint as Chairperson of the
Foundation of Tertiary Institutions
of the Northern Metropolis Board;
membership of the IUT (Improving
University Teaching) Advisory
Board, Partner-Mentor of the
Mandela Rhodes Scholarship
Foundation; and serving as a
panel member of institutional audits.
Naidoo’s first experience at
Medunsa was in 1996, when she
was appointed to establish and
head up the Directorate of Equal
Opportunities, which was the
brainchild of Professor Ephraim
Mokgokong, then VC of the
university. The aim, says Naidoo,

Professor Monie Naidoo
was to ensure that black academic
staff were given the opportunity to
be promoted to the professorial
and senior lecturer ranks. On the
student side, the aim was to
ensure that the learning
environment was a safe one, and
that no student harassment be
allowed.
‘The directorate played a vital
role in transformation on this
campus. It allowed a platform for
many valuable conversations with
staff and students on race and
gender issues. It was an incredibly
interesting period.’
Naidoo then headed up the
Centre for Academic Development
Services (CADS) and was
responsible for staff and student
development, counselling, and
quality assurance.
When the university merged
with the University of Limpopo,
CADS and the Academic
Development Unit in Turfloop were
brought together under one banner
– the CAE. This brings Naidoo to
a favourite subject – her job as
head of CAE, which she describes
as a great job because it’s all
about positive growth and support
for students and staff. It does,
however, come with challenges.
‘The university plays an
incredibly important role in
providing students from one of the
poorest provinces in the country
the opportunity to get into higher
education – while showing total
understanding of how
disadvantaged their schooling has
been. We see students who
haven’t had access to water,
electricity, laboratories, or proper
schooling. This university has
demonstrated the capacity to show
real sensitivity to the backgrounds
of these students’.
‘Our constant focus is on
improving the way we invite those
students to join our community
from the minute they walk into our
gates. The image we strive to
portray is that we care - from the
highest level down; that every
student is important; and that our
desire is to help them succeed to
their best potential.’ Naidoo adds
that this university has developed
the nurturing environment so much
that it’s easy to institute
programmes such as student
mentoring.
It’s the teamwork and the
willingness by CAE staff to go the
extra mile to help students that
makes the difference. And as
Professor Naidoo talks about the
myriad programmes and models
that are making the difference, she
is almost wistful of all that can still
be done – and that no doubt will
be done, with enthusiasm and
excellence.
P A G E 1 3

Student enrichment at Medunsa
HANDS-ON COMMUNITY COURSE
IS A WIN-WIN-WIN
t‘THE CLINIC STAFF LOVE THEM; THE PATIENTS LOVE
THEM; AND THEY SEEM TO BE THOROUGHLY
ENJOYING IT TOO.’ GERDA BOTHA, HEAD OF THE
POME (PRACTICE OF MEDICINE) DEPARTMENT AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO’S FACULTY OF HEALTH
SCIENCES AT MEDUNSA, IS HEARTENED BY THE
OVERALL RESPONSES TO THE NEW COMMUNITY
BASED SERVICE LEARNING (CBSL) COURSE
LAUNCHED FOR FIRST TO FOURTH YEAR MEDICAL
STUDENTS THIS YEAR.
The CBSL course is based primarily in six local
clinics – Madidi, Mmakaunyane, Mercy St Johns,
KT Mothubatsi, and Tlamelong – where supervisor
nurses form the backbone of the programme. These
nurses have been trained and appointed as part-time
lecturers. They collaborate with the patients, community
leaders, other health authorities, and they facilitate
student learning and assessments.
‘Previously, the community work was more
theoretical than practical. There were clinic visits, but
written work was the primary means of evaluating this
block. This has changed dramatically. The students
now spend a compulsory few hours every week at the
clinic and they interact far more intensively with the
patients.’ Botha adds that the whole process has been
explained to the patients who are, on the whole,
extremely keen to be a part of the process of helping
the youngsters ‘become good doctors’. While Botha
says although she anticipated a positive response from
the community; she is thrilled beyond expectations with
just how helpful the nurses and patients are being.
The course is strictly in line with the Faculty of
Health Sciences and Dean, Professor Errol Holland’s
quest ‘to be an institution of social relevance and to
produce health professionals who truly care’.
The CBSL course places students where the patients
are. ‘Hospitalised patients are usually admitted for a
short period. It’s more useful to the patient and the
healthcare process to follow a patient with a chronic
P A G E 1 4
illness to see what happens over a period of time,’
says Botha. In this hands-on approach, the CBSL
course offers a wide range of disease conditions and
students can learn to discover illnesses themselves;
rather than just having them presented in hospital,
as is often the case.
The course also enables students to understand the
dynamics of the community they serve, such as why
patients don’t follow up at clinics to get their repeat
prescriptions – possibly they cannot afford the taxi
fare; whether there are social problems in the
community – alcohol or drug abuse; whether children
are susceptible to diarrhoea – lack of clean drinking
water or incorrect handling of meat products; or why
an asthma patient is not improving despite medication
– possibly there are open fires in the home. Students
will face these and many other community issues and
develop skills to offer realistic solutions to them.
They learn how to work in a multi-disciplinary team,
respecting and appreciating other workers such as
nursing staff, volunteer workers, health promoters, and
lay counsellors. They also learn to involve the
community through the community leaders in
developing and implementing health programmes.
‘The bottom line is that this course gives students
a deeper understanding of being a physician rather
than just collecting enough facts to pass exams.
We believe this adds to job satisfaction, reduces the
likelihood of burnout later on in their careers, and it
creates a win-win situation for both doctors and
patients,’ adds Botha.
In year one of the CBSL course, the basics of
primary health care are covered, which include
learning about how a clinic operates, taking vital signs
from patients, adopting a patient and doing a home
visit, collecting data about the community, presenting
a health promotion talk on a topic identified by the
community, and receiving a witness report completed
by the student’s mentor at the clinic. Year two covers

Gerda Botha
environmental health, which entails students visiting
homes, assessing aspects such as waste disposal,
water sanitation, air pollution, and food and milk
hygiene, and advising patients. Year three is the
consultations skills block, which takes place under the
supervision of family physicians at the clinic, and year
four is more advanced clinic management. Also on the
curriculum is HIV/Aids care and counselling, as well
as palliative care in a hospice.
Relationships become the cornerstone of the
learning process – relationships with both the
supervisor and the patient or patients that have been
allocated to each student. The students stay in the
same clinic for four years and the relationships with the
supervisors and patients living with chronic conditions
continue through out the four years.
‘There’s little in the way of health issues in the
community that isn’t covered in our CBSL,’ notes Botha.
‘We want our students to train in the communities, not
just learn about them. And at the same time they
should provide a service to the community. This can
have greater positive repercussions for the health
profile of the communities going forward. Essentially,
we believe this course can contribute to their becoming
world class doctors.’
Harvey Cushing, US scientist of the late 1800s,
said it well, ‘A physician is obligated to consider more
than a diseased organ, more even than the whole man
- he must view the man in his world.’ The CBSL course
goes even further than that; it doesn’t just view the man
in his world, it allows interaction with him in a way
that is likely to improve his wellness.
P A G E 1 5

One of the upgraded operating theatres in the Medunsa Oral Centre with Operational Manager Martha Lebalo (left) and Theatre Sister Francina Ramashita
Demonstrating the new Phantom Head Laboratory are Professor Neels du Preez (seated), member of the Operative Dentistry department and Project Leader in the laboratory
upgrade. With him is Dr Riaan Lombard, head of Operative Dentistry.
P A G E 1 6

Medunsa upgrades
ORAL HEALTH CENTRE EXPANDS
FACILITIES – AND SERVICE TO
PATIENTS
IT’S SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT. It’s the ongoing
iupgrading of the Medunsa School of Dentistry’s Oral
Health Centre – the dental hospital – located in the
School’s block. Its facilities for its students are steadily
improving, and with them, the services to the community
it reaches; often from as far as Limpopo and North-West
provinces.
Professor Tshepo Gugushe, Director of the School of
Dentistry as well as CEO of the Medunsa Oral Health
Centre (MOHC) says this is all strictly in line with the
School’s pursuit of excellence in the various domains of
scholarship, patient care and community service to
make a significant contribution to the social well-being,
particularly of the poor and disenfranchised. Excellence,
he says, is defined as the continuous improvement of
quality – in all its dimensions.
The dual responsibilities that Gugushe holds work
well together. The hospital falls under the authority of the
Gauteng Department of Health and Social Development.
The school is part of the university – and together they
provide a synergistic offering in terms of the training
and development of students. Beneficial too, he adds, is
that the oral health centre is small and manageable and
is linked to established community-based satellite clinics
which are used as a resource for service learning and
reflective journals by our students.
The hospital may be relatively small, but it commands
a budget of approximately R60-million from the
provincial health department. This includes the wages of
about 80 percent of the academic staff, which are joint
appointments.
The school, which is unique in the country in terms of
the range of courses it offers, trains dental therapists,
oral hygienists, dentists, and dental specialists –
covering all levels of oral health care. It accommodates
a total of about 305 undergraduate students across the
different courses and years. It also has 55 postgraduate
students, including registrars, in the different
programmes.
Professor Tshepo Gugushi
P A G E 1 7

Medunsa upgrades
ORAL HEALTH CENTRE EXPANDS FACILITIES – AND
SERVICE TO PATIENTS
Says Gugushe, ‘The school is attempting in its hybrid
curriculum to focus more on activities that are
meaningful to students and thereby facilitating the
process of deeper learning. The scholarship of teaching
and learning is not sufficiently grounded in South African
dental schools. I honestly believe that there must be a
paradigm shift in this regard because teaching and
learning is part of the core business. We must be
sufficiently creative to stimulate and facilitate learning.
Fortunately there is sufficient energy within the Faculty of
Health Sciences to move in this direction.’
In fact, Gugushe’s fascination with and commitment
to higher education methodology, saw him recently
achieving his M.Phil in Higher Education from the
University of Stellenbosch. ‘Over the years in this office,
I have developed a keen interest in educational
processes, including the dynamics of curriculum
development. An effective director of a school must
provide oversight leadership in this regard.’
The MOHC, naturally a vital adjunct to the student
training, sees about 5 000 people each month, of
which about 3 500 are new patients. ‘The patients are
conduits of training for our students, but at the same
time, they’re given access to excellent oral health care
facilities.’ About 80 percent of the patients who visit the
centre are indigent. Medunsa is surrounded by primary
health care dental clinics that refer patients to the Oral
Health Centre for speciality treatment.
The six specialities within the school – community
dentistry, maxillofacial and oral surgery, oral pathology,
prosthodontics, orthodontics, periodontology and oral
medicine – are all represented in the hospital, with
referrals coming from far afield.
The MOHC has an 8-bed ward and two operating
theatres, which have recently been upgraded with new
equipment. ‘In the current financial year the priority will
be digital radiology equipment,’ says Gugushe, ‘Our
students need access to the latest in sophisticated
technology to be highly effective oral health care
practitioners when they leave this university, and they
must be familiar with the latest equipment available.’
This brings Gugushe to the latest acquisition and
installation in the centre: the new Phantom Head
Laboratory, where a wide range of dental procedures
can be simulated in a safe, realistic, and hands-on
environment. The laboratory consists of 60 heads –
dental simulators – and one demonstration simulator
P A G E 1 8
head, on which demonstrations can be done and
displayed on screens at each work station in front of
each head. It’s state-of-the-art and will sharpen the
competencies of the students in all levels of dentistry.
Professor Neels du Preez, a member of the Operative
Dentistry department and former head of the
department, was Project Leader in the laboratory
upgrade. He worked with Dr Riaan Lombard, head of
Operative Dentistry and Dr Jan Olivier, Senior
Stomatologist in Operative Dentistry. The facility was
funded by the Clinical Training Grant.
Another facility that is proving to be extremely
valuable to patients, students and research, is the Oral
Medicine and Periodontology Clinic (OMPC), which
was established and is headed by Professor Liviu Feller,
previously of the Wits University Dental School. Feller is
an acclaimed researcher who acknowledges that it has
‘been a blessing’ to be at Medunsa because of the wide
range of oral health problems that he’s exposed to.
The OMPC treats about 250 patients per month.
Necrotising periodontal diseases, human papillomavirusassociated
lesions and candidal infections are the most
frequently seen oral conditions diagnosed in HIVseropositive
patients, followed by Kaposi sarcoma and
lymphoma. ‘It’s difficult to estimate how many patients
are HIV-seropositive since the population attending our
clinic is reluctant to disclose their HIV-serostatus.
However, we estimate that between 20-30 percent of
our patients are HIV-seropositive,’ Feller stated in a
recent report.
A creditable number of publications and research
projects, that reflect the HIV-associated oral conditions
treated in this department, have been published – to the
extent that Feller achieved two major research
excellence awards from the university for work in 2008,
but awarded in 2009 – Best Established Researcher in
School of Dentistry, and Best Established Researcher
Overall in the University.
There’s a lot to be proud of in the School of
Dentistry’s OHC, and not least that it has achieved a
five-year accreditation for its Bachelor of Dental Science
degree from the Health Professions Council of SA’s audit
for the second consecutive period. But it’s not in
Gugushe and his team’s nature to rest on their laurels.
‘We will continue to aim to be at the cutting edge in all
the crucial areas within this leading dental school.’
Nothing less than excellence will do.

Medunsa upgrades
NEW SKILLS CENTRE DE-STRESSES
HEALTH SCIENCE PROCEDURES
Dr Ross Scalese and Professor Ina Treadwell
P A G E 1 9

Medunsa upgrades
NEW SKILLS CENTRE DE-STRESSES HEALTH SCIENCE
PROCEDURES
aALL ATTENTION IN THE ROOM IS ON HARVEY, BUT
HIS STARTLING BLUE EYES STARE BLANKLY STRAIGHT
AHEAD. Harvey is a cardiopulmonary patient simulator
– a man-sized manikin – in the new multi-million rand
Skills Centre at Medunsa, which showcased the
facilities, manikins, simulators and equipment on 30
July 2010 to the university staff. Harvey is the first of
the new generation ‘Harveys’ to arrive in South Africa.
‘He’s brilliant,’ says Professor Ina Treadwell,
Director of the Skills Centre, of this ‘poster child’ in the
vast new family of simulators and manikins that now
grace the Skills Centre. ‘He can replicate the physical
findings of more than 30 cardiac conditions, including
realistic and typical cardiac and pulmonary sounds,
arterial and jugular pulses, as well as precordial and
respiration movements.’ Sounds can be observed
simultaneously by any number of students equipped
with infrared stethoscopes.
But while Harvey is the ‘blue eyed boy’ of the
centre, he is surrounded by state-of-the-art teaching
facilities. The aim of the Skills Centre, says Treadwell,
is to give students hands-on experience in a vast
number of procedures relevant to the various health
sciences in a safe and anxiety-free environment.
Treadwell joined Medunsa’s Faculty of Health Sciences
in January this year, to set up the centre. Her
experience with running clinical skills laboratories
started in 1997 when she established one at the
University of Pretoria.
The centre is located in a brand new, purposedesigned
building adjacent to the library. It consists of
four skills laboratories, 15 seminar rooms, two sets of
two-way mirror facilities for unobtrusive observation
and recording of mainly interviewing skills, a wellequipped
occupational therapy section and speech
and hearing therapy room, as well as a computer
room with 16 computers for student-centred learning.
The simulators and manikins are fascinating in their
capacity to give highly realistic procedural practice to
medical students, nurses, occupational therapy students
and speech therapists. There is ‘Suzy’, who even came
with her own hairspray, laughs Treadwell. Suzy is a
birthing manikin. Students can hear the ‘foetus’s
P A G E 2 0
Professor Ina Treadwell and Harvey

heartbeat’, palpate her stomach, perform internal
examinations, and generally facilitate the birthing
process.
There is ‘Shorty’, who is just over a metre tall and
whose muscles can be taken apart and put back
together again. There are partial-body manikins for
students to practice anything from relatively simple
procedures such as drawing blood, inserting
intravenous drips, checking for breast and prostate
cancer, giving injections for tennis elbow or extracting
water on the knee, through to more complex and even
dangerous procedures such as inserting central lines
into the heart, inserting chest drains, removing air from
the pleura, turning a breach baby, lumbar punctures,
and any number of procedures on babies and children.
To enable hands-on practice, several of each manikin
were acquired.
Treadwell is resolute. ‘Students must practice as
much as they need to. Observing can be valuable, but
not nearly as useful as doing it yourself – in a stressfree,
safe environment where you can cause no harm.’
She is particularly delighted when young medical
students come out of their first procedural practice
sessions with shining eyes, saying, ‘this is the first time
I have felt like a doctor!’
The centre is also an ideal environment for trauma
training and Treadwell anticipates the centre achieving
accreditation to do Basic Life Support, Advanced
Cardiac Life Support and Paediatric Advanced Life
Support courses for outside groups.
The Skills Centre is a highly sophisticated
environment that is making a dramatic difference to the
students of the Medunsa campus. ‘It will grow,’ says
Treadwell confidently, ‘and set firm new standards for
clinical teaching in simulation for Medunsa. It will
mean that students who leave here can be better
doctors, nurses and therapists because they are
competent and confident in what they do.’
P A G E 2 1

The VLIR-UOS programme
HUMAN WELLNESS IN THE
CONTEXT OF GLOBAL CHANGE
dDEEP IN THE TREES ADORNING THE TURFLOOP
CAMPUS STANDS A SUBSTANTIAL ABODE AND
OUTBUILDINGS THAT HAVE BEEN CONVERTED INTO
OFFICES AND ACCOMMODATION FOR VISITING
RESEARCHERS. A sign on the driveway provides an
inkling of its function: VLIR HOUSE. Inside the offices is
Professor Dirk Wessels, erstwhile Director of Research
for the University of Limpopo, but more recently he’s
taken on the job of local co-ordinator and driver of the
South African end of one of the most significant
international collaborations ever to involve both main
campuses of the university.
‘In a nutshell,’ Wessels told Limpopo Leader, ‘the
VLIR-UOS programme is a partnership between our
university and universities in Belgium, most notably the
University of Antwerp. For the initial five-year period,
there’ll be around R34-million available, with the
likelihood of a lot more to come from co-funding. VLIR-
UOS is without a doubt the most important source of
academic and research funding currently available to
this university.’
But what exactly is VLIR-UOS? The first part of the
acronym stands for Flemish Inter Universities Council,
and the second for University Development
Co-operation. In other words, the University of
Limpopo, as a university from a developing country,
has entered into a form of academic co-operation with
the universities of East and West Flanders, both
provinces of Belgium. As the documentation asserts:
VLIR-UOS forms a bridge between development
co-operation and higher education; between highly
developed Flanders and the developing South;
between policymakers and people on the ground.
It brings together academics and experts from
different locations and disciplines, and also provides a
platform for researchers and development actors in
Belgium to interact with their counterparts in the
southern regions of the world.
P A G E 2 2
Wessels described the way in which the University
of Limpopo became involved. ‘It all started with
Professor Bob Colebunders, a tropical diseases expert
from Antwerp, who had a long-established relationship
with Medunsa. As part of a delegation from the
University of Antwerp, he came on a visit in 2006
when we discussed the possibility of our university
applying for a VLIR-UOS partnership and funding.
We prepared a detailed proposal, but were turned
down. We tried again. This time, together with the
Universidad Nacional Agraria la Molina in Peru, we
were successful, and Professor Colebunders became
the coordinator at the Flemish end of the programme.
We went to Belgium in 2008 to present our ideas at
the different Flemish universities to find interested
research partners.
‘It was an exciting moment,’ Wessels went on.
‘Funding is guaranteed for five years, after which a
review will be undertaken. Unless we prove to be
completely ineffective, another five-year funding cycle
is virtually guaranteed. Through competitive funding
thereafter, the total lifespan of the VLIR-UOS
partnership may be extended for up to 17 years.
It’s a huge opportunity for us. Not only have we
gained access to First World resources, but also to
First World expertise and networks. It will mean the
internationalisation of our own researchers and
research fields. I don’t think we could have wished for
a better situation. And now the partner programme has
begun. Actually, it kicked off on the 1st of April this
year.’
If the University of Limpopo VLIR-UOS proposal is
anything to go by, the university has taken a significant
step towards the realisation of its own mission and
vision, which is to be a leading African university, and
a world-class one at that.
Time now to look in more detail at the actual
proposal that was first presented in Belgium by
Wessels and his team, and that is now being put into

From top to bottom: Professor Dirk Wessels and Professor Bob Colebunders
practice via eight specified projects, both existing and
planned, across the two main campuses, and grouped
into five main clusters which integrate into a coherent
whole that is excellently expressed through the slogan
chosen for the programme as a whole.
Human Wellness in the Context of Global Change –
Finding Solutions for Rural Africa.
‘Global change,’ explains Wessels, ‘ refers to the
interlinked changes that are altering our contemporary
earth at an unprecedented and accelerating rate.
Human wellness in this context, and in terms of the
university’s response, means four special foci in
particular: human wellness, societal wellness,
environmental wellness and economic wellness. These
four areas describe four of the VLIR-UOS project
clusters, the fifth being concerned with an overarching
data management and analysis function.’
The five project clusters with their individual projects
can be summarised as follows:
One: Cross-cutting Cluster, which comprises the
Data Management and Analysis Project, which in
turn draws together ICT services, data mining and
production, data management, GIS remote sensing
services, spatial analysis and modelling, as well as
statistical analysis. All these services will be used to
assist and integrate the projects in the various
clusters under the ‘human wellness’ banner.
Two: Ensuring Competent Communities in
the context of Global Change. There are three
individual projects within this cluster. They are:
- Energising competent communities. This project
will take the lead in demonstrating that
communities do have assets that they can activate
to become better able to shape their own more
sustainable futures, and in providing communities
with the tools they require to better manage the
challenges of global change.
- Multiple literacies. This project seeks to develop
capacity in University of Limpopo researchers in
P A G E 2 3

The VLIR-UOS programme
HUMAN WELLNESS IN GLOBAL CHANGE
language literacy, science literacy and the use of
multi-modal texts. The process of working in these
directions will afford an opportunity for this
project to become a centre of excellence in
multiple literacies teaching in southern Africa.
- Prevention, control and management of chronic
diseases in a rural community. The university has
run the Dikgale Demographic Surveillance Site
since 1995. Now this well-documented field
laboratory on rural health trends, with data
updated annually, finds a natural home among
the projects contained in this cluster dealing with
communities trying to cope with the impacts of
accelerating change.
Three: Water. Since 1974, the university’s
existing work on the Olifants River as a research
model is incorporated into the human-wellness-inglobal-change
theme of the VLIR-UOS programme.
The bio-monitoring of water quality, sediment, biota,
fish health and fish parasites of this river system will
provide invaluable data for rural development planning.
In addition, the strengthening of this research
endeavour will help to address the current shortage
of qualified aquatic scientists in the SADC region.
Four: Food Security. Additional support in this
area will strengthen the internationally recognised
work already being undertaken by Turfloop’s School
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in
indigenous chicken and crop production, and the
equally recognised research and training being
offered in proteomics and molecular genetics by the
Biotechnology Unit.
Five: Public Health. There are two individual
projects within this cluster, which are identified as:
- Public health intervention research. The approach
here is collaborative with multi-disciplinary
research and training between several schools
and institutes operating on the Medunsa campus
of the university. The aim of the project is to
develop relevant and feasible solutions to public
health problems in the southern African context,
and to develop existing public health staff and
public health research capacity.
- Infectious diseases. This project will have two
specific aims: to improve research capacity into
infectious diseases, and to decrease morbidity
and mortality from these diseases. Of particular
P A G E 2 4
interest in this project is the work of Medunsa’s
Diarrhoeal Pathogens Research Unit, first
established in the 1980s, on the development of a
vaccine for the deadly rotovirus, which accounts
for around 40 percent of gastro-related diseases
in the developing world.
The VLIR-UOS programme is a remarkably
comprehensive package that both supports and
integrates what before tended to be individual efforts
across the various faculties and schools of the
University of Limpopo. This is an immediately perceived
outcome of the university’s involvement with the
universities of Flanders. But there are others that are
anticipated, the main ones being:
Improved research output at the University of
Limpopo, increased numbers of postgraduates,
and more publications in peer reviewed journals
Increased exposure of University of Limpopo
academics and postgraduate students to cutting
edge research methods and networks
The internationalisation of University of Limpopo
research
Increased number of NRF-rated scientists at the
University of Limpopo
Increased opportunities for the leveraging of
additional funding for research and teaching and
community involvement, thus ensuring the
sustainability of university programmes in general.
Wessels’ contribution to the VLIR-UOS programme
has been immense. He actually retired in 2008, but
has stayed on to nurture and to guide the original idea
to its fulfilment as actuality.
‘In so many respects,’ he admitted, ‘this programme
has been the fulfilment of my life. It has brought to
a culmination all the skills I’ve acquired over the years.
And it will help to lift the status of this university to a
level where it rightfully belongs: not merely a
previously disadvantaged university languishing in the
bush, but one that is playing a meaningful part on the
international stage.’
In future editions, Limpopo Leader will be dealing in
more detail with the specific projects that go to make
up the remarkable VLIR-UOS programme. See page 26
in this issue for an example.

DVC
Academic & Research
Research
Directorate
Marketing &
Communication
VLIR PSU
Library
Water
Competent
Communities
Cross cutting
ICT
Fit of VLIR
programme
with UL’s
Academic and
Administrative
Divisions
Faculty of
Science & Agriculture
Faculty of
Management &
Law
Faculty of
Humanities
Faculty of
Health Sciences
School of
Agriculture &
Environmental Science
School of
Economics and
Management
School of
Education
School of
Dentistry
School of
Languages and
Communication
Studies
School of
Health Care
Graduate School
of Leadership
Legend:
School of
Computational &
Mathematical Sciences
School of
Law
School of
Medicine
VLIR involvement
School of
Social Sciences
Project Clusters
School of
Molecular & Life
Sciences
School of
Accounting &
Auditing
School of
Pathology
Potential links
School of Physical &
Mineral Sciences
Sciences
School of
Public Health
Participating School(s)
Food Security
& Climate
Change
Public Health
P A G E 2 5

The VLIR-UOS programme
WHEN COMMUNITIES MANAGE
THEIR OWN CHANGE
rTHE RATHER CUMBERSOME
PROJECT TITLES – ‘Energising
competent communities and
improving wellness in the context of
global change’ AND ‘Prevention,
control and integrated management
of chronic diseases in a rural South
African community’ – BELIES THEIR
SIGNIFICANCE AND AMBITION,
LET ALONE THE ENTHUSIASM
WITH WHICH THEY’RE BEING
EMBRACED.
These are projects that the
University of Limpopo’s DevFTI (the
Development, Facilitation and
Training Institute) has embarked
on, as DevTI is one of eight
departments within the university
to be allocated a budget from the
generous funding initiative by the
Flemish Inter-University Council
(VLIR).
‘They’re not our titles,’ Dr Chris
Burman, head of DevFTI, is quick
to point out, ‘but they do give us
excellent scope to conduct
intensive research into a
community. Change is often forced
on communities from the top
down, or from external influences.
This doesn’t easily enable
communities to take responsibility
for their own wellness. In fact,
communities tend to need to be
encouraged to identify what and
where their change should be and
to plan and activate responses. In
our experience people in
communities often don’t believe
that they have the capacities to
act in this way.’
Competent communities, adds
P A G E 2 6
Burman, are those that are aware
of the resources available to them,
can understand the issues they
face and consequently make
reasoned decisions.
‘As far as we can tell, there
are few efforts in Limpopo to
provide communities with the tools
they need to act competently. But
this is where the projects come in.
We believe we will be able to
demonstrate that communities do
have assets that they can use to
better manage their own future
and we will be aiming to do this
in the context of a concept we call
“continuous change”.’
Drilling down to specific
objectives, Burman says that what
they will achieve is to equip
Dikgale – a local community
about 50km from Polokwane –
with the required competencies to
better manage the impacts of the
global change using HIV/AIDs as
an initial focus area. This will help
to build capacity at the university
to apply the approach to other
challenging areas of global
change in southern Africa.
Ambitious? Yes. This is what
DevTI is about: highly structured,
community-based research that
results in real development.
Burman says that the first year of
the VLIR project will largely entail
setting up offices and employing
people – preferably students
aiming for their Masters or PhDs;
identifying what is available in
terms of health resources in the
area; exhaustively documenting
the demographic, socio-economic
and general health profile of the
Dikgale community; and
conducting a knowledge, attitude
and practice (KAP) survey in the
community with specific emphasis
on chronic diseases.
At this stage, Robert Mamabolo,
a post-graduate student in Development
at the Turfloop Graduate
School of Leadership, has been
employed and is immersing
himself ‘enthusiastically and
excellently’, says Burman, in the
projects. Mamabolo has also been
invited to attend a summer course
on qualitative research in healthcare
at the University of Antwerp,
Belgium, at the end of August – all
the more exciting an opportunity
for him because his travels to date
have barely taken him beyond the
Limpopo Province borders.
To Burman, the opportunities
on offer via the VLIR programme
for DevTI and the university are
huge. They fit in with DevFTI’s
ambitions, says Burman, to
become a cross-disciplinary, social
science institute that can work with
more technical communityengagement
departments within
the university and beyond.
So he’s hopeful of real change
– change that is managed by the
very people who are experiencing
it. Change that will see overall
community wellness improve
because people understand that
they’re truly in charge of their own
lives.

Profile: Geoffrey Letsoalo
MEET THE GWAVA BUSTER
aAFTER GEOFFREY LETSOALO had
joined the staff of the University of
Limpopo in January this year,
people heard a lot about GWAVA,
the university's e-mail message
restrictor, or in common parlance,
a junk-mail filter. It was part of the
existing software that drove the
university’s e-mail system, and it
was supposed to keep the system
clear of clutter. But the trouble was
that GWAVA wasn’t very well
programmed, with the result that
mail which was very definitely not
junk was also being restricted.
Letsoalo set to work.
By May, he had presented his
solution. This would entail a
change of the existing software
infrastructure and associated
services from one service provider
to another technology, a move
that would stabilise the e-mail
service across both campuses at
an estimated cost of R1,2-million.
But the benefits of moving to the
new system were manifold:
substantial operating cost savings,
for example, and a simplified ICT
architecture that would ‘minimise
integration complexity and support
interoperability within the user
community by connecting mobile
devices (cell phones) to the e-mail
system.
By now it should be obvious
that Letsoalo is an information and
communication technology (ICT)
specialist. In fact, it was this
specialisation, and several
Geoffrey Letsoalo
P A G E 2 7

Profile: Geoffrey Letsoalo
MEET THE GWAVA BUSTER
decades of high-level experience, that has brought him
back to his alma mater. His position? He’s the
university’s new Executive Director of ICT.
He refers with real affection to the University of
Limpopo as his alma mater, as if the institution really
did mean something to him when he was younger.
Certainly, he graduated with a BSc in computer
science in 1985, and followed this up with an Honours
degree a year or two later. And he worked on campus
as a junior lecturer for a while. But his association with
Turfloop went much deeper than his chosen
specialisation.
‘In June 1986,’ he recalled, ‘the soldiers came onto
the campus during the State of Emergency. It was not
long after, I had written a late examination and was
walking home at night that I was arrested. I received
my first beating at the hands of white soldiers and
police. I felt the injustice. There were strikes on
campus. Mankweng was burning. I was in a state
of turmoil. Then I converted to my father’s religion.
He had always been a Jehovah’s Witness. I found
some peace. I read in Acts chapter 10 that God is not
partial, but that in every nation those who feared him
and were righteous would be accepted by him. Those
words saved me from hating the white man.’
There were also academics at the university who
had helped him through those difficult times. Two of
them were white Afrikaners, but the one he singled out
for special mention was Professor Hlengani Siweya,
now the Executive Dean of Science and Agriculture,
who then in the 1980s taught Letsoalo Mathematics I
and II. ‘He was so supportive and positive, especially
when I couldn’t study because of the incessant strikes.’
After his first stint at Turfloop was over, Letsoalo got
a job in Cape Town, working in ICT for Shell, the big
petroleum company. ‘In Cape Town, I shared a flat
with a white man,’ he remarked with a smile. ‘At Shell,
I began as a trainee network manager. I also worked
for Hulett Packard and IBM. At the same time,
I enrolled for further study at the University of Cape
Town, and also did some lecturing.’
But then his father died. He went home to comfort
his mother, and began working in Johannesburg to be
closer to home. In Johannesburg, he held several
senior ICT managerial positions. But where was home?
P A G E 2 8
In response to the question, Letsoalo stood up behind
his desk on the Turfloop campus and looked out of the
window, craning his neck to see beyond the
neighbouring buildings.
‘Out there,’ he replied. ‘I was born in those
mountains, the Hwiti Mountains, you can see from
almost everywhere on campus. You climb into them as
you drive from here to Heunertsberg. My parents were
both teachers, my four siblings are all graduates, but
in my heart I’m still a rural boykie.’
The question seemed inevitable. What had first
attracted this rural boykie to the complicated world of
computers? The answer took Letsoalo back to a school
trip in the late 1970s when he was about 12 years
old. ‘We went to the Bantu Administration Office in
Seshego. We looked at a big mainframe computer
terminal. I was allowed to use the keyboard. I typed
my name which came out as yellow letters on the
computer terminal. I was able to instantly delete an
error. I was absolutely fascinated. I wrote away asking
for information on career options – and of course my
father pushed me …’
So in a way, Letsoalo (now in his early forties) has
come full circle. ‘I have spent twenty years – the first
half of my career – in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
In those two decades, I lectured for seven years, and
I worked in ICT management for fifteen years. Now
I’m back, ready to make my contribution to the
University of Limpopo.
‘I’m recommending a strategic approach to ICT,’ he
continued. ‘I’m pushing for a combination of following
the latest trends and simultaneously of staying within
the parameters of best practice. These are essential
tenets to follow if we are to navigate successfully
through the fast-changing technical terrain, and to
ensure that our updates match the needs of the
institution. But a primary requirement if this is to
happen is that the ICT architecture must be kept simple,
so whoever comes after me will be able to use it.’
Clearly, busting the GWAVA stranglehold is a
logical step in that direction.

Profile: Regina Maphanga
WHAT KEEPS HER BATTERIES
CHARGED?
hHER ACHIEVEMENT HAS got to do
with electrolytic manganese
dioxide, a substance of crucial
importance to the storage batteries
and alternative sources of energy
that will drive the world’s future.
She has recently been honoured
with a major award for her work
in this field. Her name is Rapela
Regina Maphanga. She works at
the Materials Modelling Centre
(MMC) on the Turfloop campus of
the University of Limpopo. She’s
one of only a handful of black
women in South Africa with a
doctorate in Physics. And she’s
hardly thirty years old.
But what has kept her
motivational batteries charged?
Her remarkable story provides
some answers to this inevitable
question.
Maphanga was born in the
late 1970s in Ngwanallela, a
small village in the GaMatlala
district some 70 km west of the
then Northern Transvaal town of
Pietersburg (now Polokwane,
capital of Limpopo province).
‘Although reasonably close to
town,’ she explains, ‘it was very
rural, a situation emphasised by
the fact that reticulated electricity
only started working there earlier
this year (2010).’
Nevertheless, Ngwanallela
had schools, both primary and
secondary, and they had
dedicated teachers. As early as
grade five, an observant teacher
Dr Regina Maphanga
realised Maphanga’s potential.
He arranged for her immediate
promotion into grade seven. ‘His
name was Mr Kgobe,’ Maphanga
recalls. ‘He became a family
friend. We’re still very close.
But at the time when he promoted
me, of course, I worked all that
much harder so as not to
disappoint him.’
Another result of the promotion
was that she finished school
earlier than most. She was 16 in
matric, only turning 17 during her
first year at university. Although
her high school had no
laboratories and of course no
computers, Maphanga excelled at
mathematics and the sciences. Her
first year BSc subjects included
P A G E 2 9

Profile: Regina Maphanga
WHAT KEEPS HER BATTERIES CHARGED?
physics, chemistry, botany, and
mathematics. She dropped botany
in her second year, and ultimately
majored in physics and maths.
She finished her degree in 1998.
‘I didn’t do quite as well at
university as I had at school,’
Maphanga admits with a smile.
‘But I still did better than my fellow
students.’
In fact, she had done so well
that she was invited to do her
Honours degree in physics through
the Materials Modelling Centre, a
state-of-the-art centre of excellence
at Turfloop, directed by Professor
Phuti Ngoepe, that specialises in
the computer simulation of metals
and alloys, not least of platinum
and manganese, both of which
are extensively mined in Limpopo.
Astonishingly, though, Maphanga
never used a computer, either at
high school or during her
undergraduate degree. Now she
was thrown in at the deep end –
and once again she came up
swimming stronger than most.
She obtained distinctions in all
the courses she tackled for her
Honours. So she registered for a
Masters. So proficient was she in
the manganese dioxide
computational modelling she had
undertaken that her MSc degree
was upgraded to PhD level. She
graduated with a doctorate in
physics in 2006, at age 26. In the
same year she was awarded a jury
special mention award for Women
in Science, sponsored by Unesco,
L'Oreal and the Department of
Science and Technology.
En route to this achievement,
and since, she has travelled
repeatedly to the United Kingdom
P A G E 3 0
to study, and also to use the highpowered
computers available
there. She has spent time at
universities and institutions in
Swindon, Bath, Kent and
Warrenton. Indeed, Dr Maphanga
was the first student from MMC to
use high performance computers
(HPCs) at the Cambridge cluster
where she linked more than 100
processors in parallel to establish
the optimum operation of various
battery materials.
But to travel alone to a strange
country wasn’t easy for the girl
from Ngwanallela. ‘Before my first
trip to England,’ Maphanga
recalls quite ruefully, ‘some of my
fellow students teased me, saying
a rural person like me would get
lost in Europe and I’d never find
my way back home. I became
really frustrated. I cried. Our
secretary allowed me to phone
Professor Ngoepe who was away
at the time. He was so nice. He
calmed me down. But it still wasn’t
easy. I had never even been to
Johannesburg on my own before.
Then I had to find my way through
London’s Heathrow and catch a
train all the way to Bath. I was
alone. Everything was so big.’
On the 4th of May this year,
the rewards began to come her
way. She found herself in the
banqueting hall at Emperor’s
Palace in Johannesburg. She was
accompanied by her Executive
Dean, Professor Hlengani Siweya
of the Faculty of Science and
Agriculture, and Professor
Rachmond Howard, UL’s Director
of Research. Dr Maphanga was
feted: she was awarded the NRFsponsored
TW Kambule Award for
‘a distinguished young black
female researcher over the past
two to five years’. The award
carried an amount of R100 000
that will be ploughed straight
back into the research effort of the
Materials Modelling Centre.
‘My parents couldn’t come,’
Maphanga recalls, ‘but they are
so happy that I am doing them
proud.’
Asked what she wanted to do
with the rest of her life,
Maphanga laughed in her gentle
way. ‘I don’t really know. Things
just seem to happen. I’d like to
have some post-doctoral
experience overseas, but there’s
insufficient funding at the moment.
People say: why don’t you go out
and make big money in the
private sector. But I’d like to stay.
Life isn’t all about money. It’s
about passion. It’s about helping
to improve South Africa’s scientific
standing. And it’s about teaching.
I never thought I’d enjoy teaching,
I was always so shy and quiet at
school. But I do enjoy it. Actually,
I enjoy everything about my life
right now.’
So … what has kept her
motivational batteries charged?
Success, yes certainly; and
courage and passion and her own
brilliance. But there’s more.
There’s an ageing rural
schoolteacher who has become a
friend, and there’s her parents
pride. These human inspirations
are as potent in their own way
as the most sophisticated forms of
electrolytic manganese dioxide.

Profile: Dr Mhlangu
FIRMING UP THE FUTURE OF
MPUMALANGA’S HEALTH SERVICES
aAN ELDERLY MINI COOPER CONVERTIBLE ZIPS INTO
A PARKING BAY AND IS IGNORED BECAUSE IT’S
UNLIKELY THAT Limpopo Leader’s AWAITED INTER-
VIEWEE, MEDUNSA ALUMNI AND MPUMALANGA’S
RECENTLY APPOINTED HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH, DR ‘JJ’ (JOHNSON JERRY) MAHLANGU, WILL
BE IN IT. But he is. He engages cheerfully with staff
members as he strides into the richly subtropical, outdoor
Nelspruit restaurant where the interview is to take place.
From then on, most things about Mahlangu are a
little unexpected. It doesn’t take long to discover
interesting, and often charming, facts about him - that
he’s a poet; that he did ballroom dancing while a
student at Medunsa; or that, as the 1988 president of
Medunsa’s SRC, theirs was the first student group to sit
in Senate. But today he’s a man on a mission - to make
a difference in an area and a sector that desperately
needs it.
Mahlangu joined the Mpumalanga DoH on the 1st
of September last year, having left the Wits Health
Consortium, a self-sufficient subsidiary of Wits
University’s Health Sciences Faculty. Mahlangu was
planning to return to academic life and to achieve his
PhD, but the call came for him to consider applying for
the Mpumalanga post. And having landed the job, he’s
now throwing every ounce of his vast energy resources
into doing it properly.
In fact, as Mahlangu reflects on the path his life
took since his early childhood in a township near
Witbank (now Emalahleni); it’s evident that he has
been well-equipped to manage the demands of this
embattled department.
He grew up in a tightknit family that had the
wisdom to ensure that his educational needs were met.
He was granted a bursary by a chemical engineering
company for his final two years at the Central
P A G E 3 1

Profile: Dr Mhlangu
FIRMING UP THE FUTURE OF MPUMALANGA’S HEALTH
SERVICES
Secondary State School near Pretoria in the early
1980s. His decision then to attend Wits University to
study chemical engineering was thwarted by the
injurious laws of the apartheid government that refused
to grant him ministerial consent to study there. His
grandfather immediately took him to Medunsa, where
he started his auspicious medical career. Mahlangu
remembers the intensity of student politics in the mid-
80s, echoing the horrendous political situation within
the country. He threw himself wholeheartedly into
politics and found himself torn between his passions
for activism and medicine. And in his third year,
Mahlangu determined to focus on his studies, while still
making time to be an effective SRC president in 1988.
The community health bug bit him at Medunsa, and
even though he worked – as an anaesthetist and then
in private practice – Mahlangu knew he had to ‘go the
public health route’. He returned to Medunsa for his
Master of Public Health where he had ‘found his niche’.
He then spent a year doing research in epidemiology
on a scholarship at New York’s Cornell University, and
spent some years with TB-Free and Wits Consortium.
By the time he was appointed to his present post,
Mahlangu had accumulated knowledge in an array of
subjects, an understanding of research, as well as
gifted capabilities for management and administration
that have equipped him for the challenges.
What Mahlangu inherited at Mpumalanga DoH was
not a thriving operation. He describes the initial steps
that he took. ‘To start, we had to assess the needs in
terms of priorities, and then tackle them. Our first big
issue was the department’s finances. We had financial
constraints and accruals of R420-million and the
situation had to be rectified urgently before we could
look at other problem areas.
‘Because the department didn’t have a strong
financial team, we centralised powers away from the
districts and made sure the right controls were in
place. We started cutting activities. We spent time with
the department’s senior management – and what
wasn’t core to our mandate was cut.
‘I’m pleased to say that we’ve already significantly
reduced our accruals and we’ll start the next financial
year in a better situation. We’ll continue to tighten our
belts and maintain strong controls on cost management
– focusing spending on core services.’
The second challenge Mahlangu faced was
P A G E 3 2
instability throughout the department as a result of
frequent senior staff changes. This resulted in
deficiencient management systems, and even in basic
statistical information. As an example, Mahlangu cites
TB cure rates, which were impossible to determine
accurately. Improved data management systems were
put in place. With accurate figures, more efficient
control measures could be put in place. Today progress
can be seen in Mpumalanga’s TB cure rate, which has
improved from about 60 percent and is moving
towards the target of 85 percent.
Mahlangu’s next steps have been bold and
effective. These include ensuring completion of ongoing
and sometimes lackadaisical refurbishment of various
hospitals; upgrading infrastructure, such as clinics that
haven’t been maintained; improving the quality of
health care through improving staff skills; working
more closely with partners such as NGOs to improve
staffing levels; restructuring the supply chain systems
for pharmaceutical products into the Department and
then distribution out to the medical facilities; and
making sure that emergency services can cope with
major demands.
While Mahlangu continues tirelessly to streamline
the activities and operations of the department to the
point where he regularly finds himself ‘doing the work
of a clerk to make sure it gets done’, he and his team
are planning great things for the province’s overall
health services. He’s positively excited as he relates the
plans being put in place for a brand new tertiary
hospital, to be followed by a university. At this stage,
plans are with the National Department of Health for
approval. ‘This will improve our services on so many
levels. Apart from the additional services we will be
able to offer; we’ll be in an excellent position to attract
skilled and motivated health care professionals into our
region.’
In the meantime, infrastructural development will
continue. Mahlangu has seen to it that funds have
been allocated for an Emergency Medical Services
centre in the Thembisile Hani Local Municipality and
for five new community health centres in surrounding
local municipalities.
While Mahlangu still ponders the likelihood of ever
getting the opportunity to do his PhD, he knows where
his focus is today. And he knows that Mpumalanga’s
Department of Health is moving forward. Ke Nako.

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