The Department of Networking and IT Support works together with the Directorate for Learning and Teaching to enhance the students learning and teaching experience. The Directorate of Learning and Teaching seeks to be an impactful, responsive, and technology-infused academic development directorate that strives to offer transformative technology-infused academic development services that are responsive to the learning and teaching needs of students and academic staff at Walter Sisulu University.

STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES:
• Increase student access by means of foundational provisioning.
• Improve student success and graduation rates at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels.
• Provide academic staff development programmes and services to ensure student academic success.
• Ensure student and staff competence in using appropriate learning and teaching technology.

 
FUNCTIONS OF FIRST YEAR SUPPORT:
• Co-ordinate and champion the design, development and implementation of all profiling and placement tests, including alternative admission for students at risk in relation to academic success.
• Co-ordinate, in partnership with university faculties, an institutional strategy for all DHET-funded extended programmes.
• Design and implement a student tracking and monitoring system for early detection of students at risk of academic failure and offer appropriate intervention.
• Co-ordinate and develop skills-based retention programmes such as: Academic literacy and academic writing.
• Academic lifestyle management.

FUNCTIONS OF ACADEMIC ADVISING:
• Design and co-ordinate the orientation and induction programmes of all new students, including provision of academic advising for student academic excellence.
• Track and monitor all students who are at risk of failure and exclusion as identified from the first test intervention and subsequent tasks.
• Provide training for, and management of, student mentorship programmes and tutorial programmes, including Peer Assisted Learning (PAL) programmes, as well as skills-based retention programmes.
• Provide training on graduate attributes for all levels, including graduate development programme skills which include employability and in line with the demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) as demonstrated in: CV writing, presentation skills, interview skills, problem-solving skills, etc.
• Promote the enrolment in Mathematics, Science, Engineering and Technology (MSET), and accounting students from our region and feeder schools.
• Co-ordinate developmental partnerships in other strategic areas between WSU and the Schools from our region.

FUNCTIONS OF STUDENT TRACKING AND MONITORING UNIT:
• Develop a university-wide approach to employ data analytics to achieve better student success and throughputs.
• Providing holistic student tracking and monitoring guidelines necessary for epistemological access, retention, and student success.
• Provide information on student activities and performance, based on data drawn from internal sources, to determine bespoke interventions targeted at addressing the identified needs.

FUNCTIONS OF THE WRITING CENTRE:
• Provide academic writing support to students at all levels in the institution.
• Undertake language development programmes for needy students.
• Assist students with oral presentation skills.
• Support academics to make their modules writing intensive.
• Run workshops in essay writing, referencing, academic integrity, critical reading, reviewing, and proofreading and others.
• Undertake research related to academic writing in the institution.