19. Postgraduate Support on Campus

19.1 Postgraduate Affairs Office

The Postgraduate Affairs Office is an initiative of the University Research Office to promote a public face for postgraduate studies at Wits. Its brief is to improve the overall quality of the postgraduate experience across all five faculties and for focused strategic thinking about the implementation of the 2022 vision to establish a researchintensive University with 45% postgraduate students.

The Postgraduate Affairs Office’s role includes:

• development of appropriate initiatives which will enhance the University’s strategic goals of increasing recruitment and success of postgraduate students;

• formulating policy on graduate studies;

• implementing the Postgraduate Cross-Faculty Symposium;

• designing and implementing generic courses and research support workshops for graduate students;

• designing and implementing writing retreats for graduate students;

• promotion of a public face for postgraduate studies at Wits.

All information concerning postgraduate opportunities will be advertised and sent via ULWAZI using your official student email address. If you wish to use another email address please log into your Wits student address and forward your mails accordingly. We want you to get all the information that will enhance your postgraduate experience.

Director: Professor Robert Muponde

Senior Administrator: Ms Lucille Mooragan

Email lucille.mooragan@wits.ac.za

Phone 011 717 1156

Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/students/academic-matters/ postgraduate-affairs-office/ (consult the website for more information on the research method workshops, as well as the School-specific writing retreats and cross-Faculty postgraduate symposium).

19.2 Humanities Graduate Centre

Postgraduate Training in Research Methods and Seminars

The HGC provides an annual cycle of methods workshops run by expert scholars, timed so that they coincide with appropriate stages in a student’s development of a research proposal, data collection, data analysis, write-up, presentation of results and scholarly publication. These workshops expose postgraduate students and academic staff to the diverse range of methodological strategies and techniques that can be deployed, either singly or in combination, in research. They also provide in-depth training in such strategies and techniques, showing students how the choice of methodological strategy is inextricably linked to the use of concepts within a broader theoretical framework. And they introduce both students and academic staff to new methods as the direction, focus and theoretical orientation of research in the Humanities and Social Sciences changes over time.

The Methods Workshops not only cover specific methodological strategies (e.g. “Designing In-Depth Interviews”, “Narrative Analysis”, “Ethnography and Ethnographic Methods”, “Action Research Principles and Practices”) but also cover topics related to the structuring of the research proposal and the write-up of research findings (such as “How to Write a Research Proposal” and “How to Write a Literature Review”).

A number of workshops are offered through the Grad Centre annually, with total attendance numbering well over a thousand students. Because of their growing size, success and increasing interest from postgraduates in other Faculties, the humanities and social science methods workshops have now been folded into the university-wide post-graduate support programme administered by the University’s Division of Postgraduate Affairs.

Postgraduate Student-Initiated Research and Learning Collectives

In the years ahead, scholarship in the Humanities and Social Sciences will be shaped by today’s vibrant cohort of PhD students and recent doctoral graduates. If they are truly to take ownership of a transformed South African academy, they will need to have the freedom and confidence to pursue agendas in theory and research that they have crafted themselves or in conversation with one another.

The HGC provides both the space and the financial resources that postgraduates require in order to initiate their own independent explorations in theory, creative work and policy-oriented research. Such initiatives—often in collaboration with doctoral programmes in each discipline as well as with the Faculty Research Chairs, Centres and Institutes—have taken the form of self-organised courses, thematic student-staff reading groups, workshops with international visiting scholars, and postgraduate symposia and conferences.

Recent examples include the Horizontal Group on the Subject, Subjectivity and Subjectification; the Social Theory Group; the Critical Knowledge Production Collective; and the Reading Group on African Critical Thought. Interdisciplinary reading groups involving PhD students and staff include one on Collective Trauma, Violence and Memory and another on Desire and Difference: Affects, Objects, Bodies.

Postgraduate students often use these groups to present their own work to one another.

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/humanities/faculty-services/ humanities-graduate-centre/academic-support-programmes/)

The WWC is for any student or staff member who wants to work on a particular piece of writing. Bring along essays, plans, drafts, practice exam questions and answers and even creative, non-academic writing. Some of our most successful consultations are with students who are already good writers who realise the value of an attentive reader and who go on to produce excellent essays.

WWC consultants will not edit or write for you, but they will listen and help you to put together your ideas and thoughts. Consultants can also focus the session on the language of the paper to point out patterns of mistakes or the need to rethink tone or tighten focus and streamline structure. So, come along and use this valuable service and improve your writing skills.

(Source: https://www.wits.ac.za/students/wits-writing-centre/ - please consult the website or better yet visit the writing centre and find out how one of their groups might be a good fit for your writing plans.

19.3 The Wits Writing Centre

The Wits Writing Centre is for anyone at Wits who wants to work on their writing: for those who already write well and for those who would like to write even better. In all cases you, the writer, make the decisions and direct the writing.

20. Wits Fees

Tuition fees are payable for each course for which a student is registered. Charges ancillary to tuition fees, such as charges for course notes or for excursion costs are not included in the amounts listed. Club memberships fees are also not listed. These additional amounts will be reflected on the student’s fee account.

First Fee Payment

New and returning South African residents, SA permanent residence permit holders and refugee permit holders, are required to make a first payment of R9340 on their fees account prior to registration at the University.

Is the payment refundable?

The first fee payment is not refundable if you subsequently cancel your registration

Is everyone required to make the first payment?

The following students do not have to pay the first fee payment:

1. NSFAS STUDENTS

Please ensure you have received confirmation from NSFAS that you have been awarded NSFAS funding, or check at www.nsfas.org.za to confirm.

2. WITS SCHOLARSHIPS RECIPIENTS

If you have been awarded a scholarship, you do not have to pay the first fee payment. The University Entrance Scholarships are awarded on the basis of NSC matric results to current matric applicants.

3. EXTERNAL BURSARY HOLDERS

If you are being funded by a donor or external bursary please ensure that you have contacted the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office to make sure that your donor has made arrangements to pay your fees.

Students also have the option to postpone the first fee payment by logging into the Self-Service portal and clicking on the “First Fee Payment” tab. After completion of the necessary information the first fee payment will be waived and the student may proceed with on-line registration. Please note, 100% of the total tuition fee must be paid on or before the last working day in March.

Accessing your Fee Account and Full Payment of Fees

Once you have registered, a fees account is generated on self-service at https://self-service.wits.ac.za

The University may alter the payment schedules in keeping with normal accounting practices. Applicants should know, however, that at present fees are due as follows:

• 100% of the total tuition fee must be paid on or before the last working day in March.

• Provision is made for the monthly payment of fees - interest is charged on the balance owing.

• International students who are offered a place must pay 75% of their fees in full before registration, and the remaining 25% by no later than the 31st of March 2023.

Student Fees – Bank Payment Details:

Please use: Standard Bank account number: 002891697; Branch code: Braamfontein 004805; Account name: Wits Student Fees.

PLEASE USE YOUR STUDENT NUMBER AS YOUR PAYMENT REFERENCE. Email

International Students

Fee Structure for International Students

All international students (those who are not South African citizens or who do not have permanent residence status in South Africa) are required by the Department of Home Affairs to provide proof of available funds for the tuition fee for the academic year prior to receiving his/her study visa.

How to Pay your Fees

Payments to the University can be made in the form of a bank draft issued in South African currency of “ZAR” and made payable to the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, or by electronic transfer.

Financial Assistance

Financial aid (bursaries/loans) from the University is not available for international undergraduate students. A graduate student registered for full-time study may be eligible for a postgraduate merit award (which is given on the basis of academic excellence).

Average Living costs

The average exchange rate is around $1 = R12.00 – R15.00.

US Federal Aid

Wits University is eligible to participate in the William D. Ford Direct Loan Program. This program allows a US Citizen, permanent resident or eligible non-citizen student to apply for a Subsidized Loan, Unsubsidized Loan, Graduate Plus Loan or a Parent Plus Loan. Direct loan funds can only be used by the registered student solely for studyrelated costs.

Residence Fees https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/fees-and-funding/fees-office/

For more information on fees please consult the following: https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/fees-and-funding/fees-office/

Contact us on Tel: 27 (11) 717 1888 or Fax: 27 (11) 717 4918 or Email: FeesOffice.Finance@wits.ac.za

21. Scholarships and Funding

The Financial Aid & Scholarships Office (FASO) administers funds on behalf of the University, donors and sponsors. The office also seeks to provide information on student funding.

https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/

Scholarships and Bursaries:

• In January of each, the University does a call for Hardship funding.

• Around June-July of each year, the National Research Foundation opens up its postgraduate scholarships applications https://www.wits.ac.za/study-at-wits/financial-aid-and-scholarshipsadministration/

Other Postgraduate Funding Opportunities: https://www.wits.ac.za/media/wits-university/study/fees-and-funding/ documents/WitsFundingOpportunities.pdf

For more information on international student fees or telephone

+27 (11) 717-1054 or e-mail studysa.international@wits.ac.za