MEDUNSA UPGRADE - University of Limpopo

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.‘