Download the Annual report 2011 - Unisa

Special issue of Commonwealth Youth and Development
Journal results from Unisa and the Vrije Universiteit,
University Amsterdam Soccer 2010
Project: In 2010 Unisa, in collaboration with the Vrije
Universiteit Amsterdam hosted a series of seminars and
soccer clinics in South Africa in support of the FIFA 2010
Soccer World Cup under the theme, Soccer: Nation
Building and Higher Education. The events were aligned
to the Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu Programme
of the VU University Amsterdam on Youth, Sports and
Reconciliation and aimed at strengthening academic and
cultural partnerships and activities between the two universities.
The seminar papers arising from this initiative were
peer-reviewed and published in two special issues of the
Commonwealth Youth and Development Journal. The first
issue was launched on 27 October 2011 and the second
in April 2012. This is the first significant academic and
research contribution arising from an inter-institutional
relationship at Unisa.
Capacity building project for Uganda: Unisa, through
its School of Criminal Justice in the College of Law, and
the Hogeschool Leiden at the University of Applied Sciences,
Leiden, in the Netherlands, was awarded a bid to
collaborate on a capacity building project for the Ugandan
Police Service in 2011. The project will commence
in 2012 and is funded by the Dutch Government
through its funding agency, Nuffic. This project speaks
directly to Unisa’s vision statement and will enhance
Unisa’s footprint in African reconstruction and development
projects. Unisa and the Hogeschool Leiden have
also agreed, in a memorandum of understanding, to explore
other possible areas of collaboration including bidding
for capacity building projects in other parts of
Africa.
Collaboration between Unisa and the North Carolina
Central University on the COIL jazz programme:
In 2011 Unisa and North Carolina Central
University (NCCU), won the bid to design and develop
a jazz programme suitable for a multicultural online
learning environment. The project is sponsored by the
Center for Collaborative Online International Learning
(COIL) based at the State University of New York
(SUNY) Global Center in New York, USA and supported
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by the COIL Institute for Globally Networked Learning
in the Humanities. The objective of the COIL jazz programme
is to form multicultural teams that will co-design,
develop and construct multicultural learning
environments on their respective campuses using advanced
technologies.
Building relationships with Indian universities: During
2011 Unisa established strategic relationships with
Indian universities, including the University of Hyderabad,
University of Mumbai and University of Madras,
as well as institutes such as the Institute of Fundamental
Research, the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education
and the Tata Institute of Technology.
The engagement with the Tata Institute of Technology
focused on mathematics, science and technology education.
Unisa and the University of Mumbai established
a student exchange programme based on the life and
work of Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa, India and the
world.
African Council for Distance Education: The African
Council for Distance Education (ACDE) remains a strategic
initiative for Unisa and we have continued to support,
participate and contribute to strengthening the ACDE in
its mission to promote research and innovation, policy
and quality in open and distance education in Africa. In
2011, Professor Makhanya was elected as ACDE Treasurer
and formed part of the delegation to Addis Ababa
engaging in discussions with the African Union, which
recognised the ACDE as its official agent on open distance
learning.
Collaboration between Unisa and further education
and training colleges in the Western Cape: Government
has identified further education and training (FET)
colleges as critical to its strategy to reduce poverty, create
employment and accelerate long-term growth
through technical, vocational and commercial training.
Unisa is already playing a major role through memoranda
of agreement with three Western-Cape-based
FET colleges which will allow the colleges to provide certain
higher education qualifications under the certifying
authority of the university. The three colleges are the
College of Cape Town, Northlink College and Boland
College.