Languages: 
Newly appointed Executive Dean of the WSU Faculty of Education, Professor Bongani Bantwini, has hit the ground running with new projects aimed at advancing the faculty’s operational as well as teaching and learning landscape.
In a recent Faculty Leadership workshop held in East London, Bantwini met with the faculty’s leadership to foster unity amongst faculty leadership and hold rigorous discussions on the future trajectory of the faculty.
Central to this workshop was the formulation of a new faculty plan, which for the next six months will serve as a guiding instrument for the activities of the faculty, aimed at aligning its programmes with broader educational and market demands.
“I wanted us to come together to explore new ideas about how to grow the faculty. We have an obligation to take the faculty from where it is to the next level. So, this workshop is giving us that time to engage in productive discussions about where we want to see the faculty,” said Bantwini.
According to the Professor who is based at the Komani campus, the next six months will see the faculty fully immerse itself in various initiatives that will elevate its standing and broaden its programme offerings.
A new set of programmes is in the process of being developed and will be offered in the university from 2026, subject to full accreditation.
“We have assembled a team that is going to develop an honours degree in science education, honours in Maths education, honours in technology education, honours in business studies. They will also develop a masters in inclusive education, because we have honours, which we’d had for quite some time. I'm saying now we need to get masters,” said Bantwini.
Moving forward, the faculty is also looking at ensuring that all undergraduate programmes are offered with corresponding honours, master's, and doctoral options.
As the university continues to receive applications for 2025, the faculty of education was positive that its academic and support staff would be well prepared to tackle the coming academic year.
Following WSU’s Rationalisation and Consolidation (R&C) project, the Komani Campus became the Faculty of Education’s administrative head office, with some programmes housed in the Mthatha Campus.
Bantwini, emphasised that there had been ongoing efforts within the faculty to streamline operational processes and optimise administrative efficiencies across its departments, in line with the objectives of R&C.“We sat down and said we're developing uniform tools. For example, when allocating School Based Work Integrated Learning assessors to the field, there's one criterion that is followed. One campus or department is not going to say, we used to do this, because we are now one faculty. So, we're actually making sure that we have all the necessary governance tools and the policies in place,” said an enthusiastic Bantwini.
To fast-track the aforementioned and other pressing initiatives, a task team model has been implemented to address various priorities within the faculty.
These short-term task teams focus on key areas such as the PQM audit, e-governance tools, governance structures, community engagement, postgraduate studies, research and innovation, establishment of educational advisory boards, early childhood and care education, student well-being, and staff welfare.
“All those task teams are focusing on what we have identified as the priorities. We meet on a weekly basis, and every wee the chairpersons, report on what they have done for the week, the progress they have made, and what their plans are moving forward. So far these have been going really good,” Bantwini affirmed.
Yanga Ziwele
