2.1 fundani centre for Higher Education: cPuT: ass Prof monwabisi ralarala

CPUTCPUT

2.1 fundani cEnTrE for HiGHEr EducaTion: cPuT

Prof monwabisi ralarala

director: fundani

The fundani centre for Higher Education development at cPuT adopts a practical approach to transformation, scanning the national and international environment to identify initiatives that it may research and pursue. it ontinuously assesses the gains that have been made in this field and how they may be more effectively leveraged. deploying university capacity-development funding from the dHET, the centre engages to facilitate the following: • Student learning; • Support for the development of academic and management staff; • Decolonise the curriculum and pedagogic approaches; • Promote and support multilingualism across the institution and in its activities; and • Conduct and publish research into new forms of learning and knowledge transfer. in relation to measurable outputs, the centre has overseen some of the following: • The induction of 13 new, young academics as part of the nGaP programme. it is now looking to appoint these as it moves into the fifth phase of the initiative. • A number of current academics have been put forward for participation in the united States-

South africa Higher Education network – a programme to expand the country’s doctoral pipeline with the support of american universities. • Past deficits in transforming administrative capacity are also being addressed as part of a national higher education leadership and management initiative – for example, by leveraging a Phd programme in business administration offered at nelson mandela university (nmu).

However, it is also important to acknowledge that the issue of transformation extends beyond that of the numbers of black students and black staff occupying senior academic and management positions at higher education institutions, however critical these measures may be. The issue is also about employability more generally – creating jobs for people as they exit higher education – which relates to how the economy itself is structured and the dominant forces and groups that continue to shape the balance of power within the national socioeconomic system.

in this context, a key area of focus for the fundani centre is multilingualism – in particular how academic, administrative, symbolic and ceremonial languages may be made more democratically accessible.

Some achievements include: • The review of the university’s language policies; • Language interfaces with specific academic disciplines – particularly in the sciences – and has harvested and translated a range of key, relevant terms, making the concepts behind the words available in other linguistic forms. in the process, it is fostering broader understanding across the student and academic bodies, and greater opportunity for scientific advancement. • Review how spaces and buildings are named across the campus; • Integrate African languages into information technology (iT) touchscreens widely used at the university; • Promote efforts to decolonise curricula; and • Recognize the crucial role that language plays on the interface of transformation, education and development. for example, in support of a new approach to teaching law, the centre has promoted and published works challenging established, untransformed approaches to jurisprudence, and opening new fields of linguistic enquiry in the field of paralegal studies.