UNIVERSITY DEVELOPMENT Empowerment through education

Education is key to enriching and improving people’s lives, as well as unlocking the true potential of the South African economy, which is why a new university is in the works within the Ekurhuleni municipal area. This institution’s offering will focus on STEM fields that complement the City’s vision of the future.

South Africa faces various challenges on the education front, which includes the need to produce a greater number of appropriately qualified and skilled graduates in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields.

As a city whose development is focused around the vision of becoming a highly advanced aerotropolis city, Ekurhuleni provides a prime location for a new university aimed at producing technically minded graduates. And as council presiding over the country’s

EMPOWERMENT

THROUGH EDUCATION

only metropolitan region without a public university, the City of Ekurhuleni sees its establishment as a developmental imperative.

It is no secret that South Africa’s apartheid education system failed the nation and its youth through an exclusionary approach that limited opportunities and regularly produced poorly educated graduates among disenfranchised groups. This is an area in need of serious redress, particularly in the STEM fields, where South Africa generally lacks a large pool of highly educated and qualified professionals.

FORWARD STEPS The City of Ekurhuleni has conducted a prefeasibility study, business case and site analyses to established the best course of action, while the Department of Higher Education and Training is leading the process in terms of the Higher Education

Act (No. 101 of 1997). The department will establish a steering committee to drive this and, alongside the Office of the Presidency, will facilitate the parliamentary processes and proclamation. A clear divide exists between education and qualification, with research indicating that most graduates only possess the latter. As with many global solutions applied locally, adjustments should be made given the South African context, which was indicated by Executive Mayor Mzwandile Masina in his 2020 State of the City Address, “This failure suggests that we seek an alternative method of educating our youth using global standards underlined by African values.”

A system aimed at educating and not only turning out graduates would focus on holistic development, acknowledging and supplementing the imbalances of the past. The City acknowledges that truly effecting a complete turnaround must, however, start at the early childhood development stages, which is why this has also been a focus for the administration.

The envisioned educational approach of the university would divide students’ time between theoretical classroom learning and practical professional training in the workplace. The City believes that this revised methodology will result in confident and work-ready graduates who are easily assimilated into the professional space. Graduates who can hit the ground running around exactly what is needed to ensure a globally competitive workforce that exceeds expectations.