Pretoria - With over a million alumni spread across the globe, the milestone of reaching 150 years of Unisa’s existence belongs not only to students and South Africans, but to Africa and the world at large.
In this spirit, the university pledged to forge ahead with its core mandate of teaching, learning, research, engaged scholarship, student academic support and resourcing the future once more in the year ahead.
Unisa officially opened the 2023 academic year on Friday, with Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Puleng LenkaBula saying while there would be a number of activities to celebrate and mark the milestone anniversary, these celebrations were also meant to be a critical platform for the exchange of ideas about where the university came from, where it was, where it ought to be, and more importantly, its place in society.
Still keeping with the theme “Reclaiming Africa’s Intellectual Futures”, LenkaBula said it remained relevant, given that South Africa and the world were facing a poly-crisis of energy, the rising cost of living, low economic growth, a nexus of unguided immigration and urbanisation, food insecurity, weakening state and poor infrastructures.
She said in spite of these challenges it was not all doom and gloom as numerous opportunities still existed to improve the human condition with universities being at the centre of it all.
For Unisa, LenkaBula said this meant building on the successes of the previous year.
While acknowledging that the institution had faced a number of challenges, she also noted that they had managed to end the year on a high note, which was a sign that it remained on track with rolling out its strategy and improving its operations.
For one, Unisa had improved its international rankings, increased the number of NRF-rated scholars, seen a number of scholarship programmes recognised for their impact locally and globally, and improved its success rates in some fields.
In addition, LenkaBula said the university, which ought to be celebrated as a “pioneer of the distance education model”, had also managed to complete the roll-out of its online application and registration system with the roll-out of its new Digital Teaching Learning System being near completion.
Most importantly, however, she said the institution had also managed to improve its financial reserves and remained financially healthy, with a boost of receiving a clean audit opinion for last year.
Looking ahead, the head urged the university leadership and epistemic communities to focus on the academic project and ensure the university completed the take-off of its 10 catalytic niche areas, stabilising the deanery and the academy by filling all vacancies, capacitating the College of Graduate Studies, as well as increasing the enrolment of Master’s and doctorate students as their number one priority.
This would, she said, improve the overall front line experiences of students and academics and ensure the success of the new ICT strategy adopted by the council last year.
“The 150 years celebrations are important for the core business of the university and its reputation, and thus we need to celebrate this milestone gracefully in a manner that enables the academic project and institutional sustainability.
“Let us look forward to another year of Reclaiming Africa’s Intellectual Futures in a year of historic significance to Unisa, Africa and the world.”
Pretoria News