WSU inks deal with local TVETs
An agreement between Walter Sisulu University (WSU) and five Eastern Cape Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges will see the institutions combine efforts in a bid to stimulate scientific cooperation, strengthen research and teaching and broaden experiences amongst students and staff.
WSU, together with five TVET colleges, namely King Sabata Dalindyebo, Ikhala, Lovedale, Buffalo City and Ingwe TVET Colleges signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the Potsdam Site recently in a bid to stimulate skills development and transfer amongst the signatories in areas such as education and training development services, administration services, collaborative research, planning articulation strategy and other educational activities.
“Critical to this agreement will be the issue of articulation – how we link our respective programmes and expertise for the full benefit of all our students. This agreement must also seek to service our students through the sharing of equipment and infrastructure for optimal use amongst the partners,” said WSU Vice-Chancellor and Principle Prof Rob Midgley.
He said central to the partnership would be to avoid working in isolation from its realities and effect positive change by performing optimally for the benefit of the communities within which these institutions operate.
WSU’s Prof Rob Midgley (middle front) takes time to have a group photo taken with the representatives from the TVET colleges
The chief objectives of the agreement will be to develop cooperative and collaborative activities in furtherance of the common interest of the parties; develop educational, research and development activities; participate in cooperative education and development endeavours to meet human needs; strengthen the capacities and capabilities of each member of the partnership through the cooperative use of materials and facilities; promote the exchange of students and staff between education and training, as well as to facilitate the exchange of scholarly information and materials between parties.
Ikhala TVET College Deputy Principle for Planning, Research and Institutional Development Tuletu Njengele hailed the pact as a critical vehicle in laying a platform for TVET colleges to start dabbling in the research sphere.
“One of the critical aspects we’d like the discipline of research to assist us in producing evidence-based data and information as to the effectiveness of our curriculum, the employability of our graduates, and where our students eventually end up so we can begin to come up with interventions to potential gaps in the viability of our programmes,” said Njengele.
King Hintsa TVET College Principle Noluthando Balfour said she’d broaden her outlook on possible programmes within the agreement to help confront some of her institution’s challenges.
She cited issues such as staff development, sharing of equipment and infrastructure and improvement of teaching and learning as some of the more immediate hurdles facing the college.
