WSU's Faculty of Engineering, Science, and Technology (FSET), together with the Community Engagement and Internationalisation Directorate (CEID), has sought to strengthen graduate employability through partnering with two of the world’s top universities in the University Capacity Development Project (UCDP).
UCDP is an earmarked grant by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) which provides a development resource that contributes to addressing transformation imperatives in the university system to enable High levels of success for undergraduate and postgraduate students, amongst other goals.
Through UCDP, WSU’s FSET and CEID hosted a knowledge exchange project geared towards enhancing staff capacity in Engineering Education and Practice, with assistance from renowned South African institution Stellenbosch University, as well as UK-based Coventry University.
Project Manager for Academic Development in FSET, Dr. Ferdie Gerber said: “The project came about through an initiative which I did in 2017 when we wrote a proposal after an invitation from DHET about capacity building for universities. We submitted a proposal which comprised of several activities which we wanted to cover.”
“We are trying thereby to enrich the curriculum and at the same time capacitate the staff to understand certain aspects. And these are all driven by an objective to increase employability, and indeed the competency of our graduates to be valued by industry, and the work that we do is viewed as appropriate and current,” he further stated.
The project addressed major issues in engineering education through five activities, namely: Staff and curriculum development for improving communication skills; Staff capacity development towards teaching for the world of work; Application of project and problem-based learning; development of postgraduate supervision capacity; and Research on curriculum as a tool for curriculum analysis.
These activities took a holistic view of learning and teaching within the engineering space, taking into account both the local and national context.
“We are trying to benchmark ourselves with the international context, as well as the South African leading university. We’re drawing from those two universities, contextualising them in our circumstances, and trying to take the best from those experiences in capacitating ourselves.
We’re building this community of practise thereby enhancing what we do, and utilise that to demonstrate to the engineering council and others that we are continuously updating and renewing our work,” said Gerber.
Gerber also asserted that they intended to look at the impact of Covid-19 on learning and teaching and incorporate those elements into the new normal.
Over and above improving learning and teaching in engineering, the two divisions (FSET & CEID) see this particular project as an exemplar for the rest of the university to follow suit.
“The project has really shown the value of having good partners in projects of this nature. Having Stellenbosch University (SA) and Coventry University (UK) as partners has played an important role in the project rollout and in enhancing the activities of the two Engineering Faculties around the project's focus areas,” said Mzolisi Payi, Director CEID.
By Yanga Ziwele
