Page 9 - Transformation Report 2021

TRANSFORMATION

GOAL 1

ACHIEVE ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE THROUGH CURRICULUM
TRANSFORMATION TO ENSURE THAT IT IS SOCIALLY RELEVANT AND
RESPONSIVE TO THE DEVELOPMENT NEEDS OF THE COUNTRY.

1. ‘Curriculum Framework’ for The entire Humanities curriculum was under review,
Curriculum Renewal Efforts with workshops being conducted to engage. Three
workshops were offered, including but not limited to a
consideration of disciplinary knowledge domains, values
Curriculum renewal efforts are continuing across all
and conventions, contextual factors, like globalisation,
faculties. The Faculty of Law regularly discuss their
managerialism and student body, social justice, and power
programme qualification mix to determine whether the
relations. The nature of a decolonised curriculum was
programmes offered remain relevant, contextual to the
given special attention, as was the understanding of the
African continent, responsive and in service of society.
nature of a responsive curriculum and how to translate
To this end, for the first time in the second semester of
this understanding into innovative, inclusive and relevant
2021, the Faculty introduced and presented a new final
classroom practice. The Teaching Development unit has
year elective module in the LLB qualification, namely
been engaging with, for example, the departments of
Refugee Law. This module aims to expose students
Linguistics and Applied Linguistics and Language and
in the LLB curriculum to the laws regulating the asylum
Literature.
system and the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in
both international and South African law and the practical
An HP portal was launched (https://lt.mandela.ac.za/
application thereof. The module responds to the reality of
Humanising-Pedagogy) in 2018 and continues to provide
international migration and the ever-increasing number of
articles, videos and other useful resources to stimulate
asylum-seeker applications in South Africa, which require
thinking in the HP domain. The portal also provides for
ongoing and committed legal intervention to resolve both
discussion forums to engage on specific HP-related topics.
the procedural and substantive infringement of rights.
HP has been included as one of the six institutional research
The module includes practical instruction in that it enables
themes. These resources are accessible to all academics.
the students to observe and engage in consultations with
refugee and asylum seeker clients either mask-to-mask or 2. Enabling Curriculum Development-
virtually at the Refugee Rights Centre, with the trained Digital Transformation
employees at the Refugee Rights Centre monitoring
students and facilitating the engagement between
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has had a profound
students and refugee and asylum seeker clients. The
impact on the area of learning and teaching. Therefore,
development of the Refugee elective was in response
the need to limit the number of on-campus activities for
to the risk identified by the Faculty during the national
students and employees while providing access to a limited
review of the LLB, in light of the need to Africanise and
number of students to return to campuses continued into
decolonise the curriculum and to ensure the relevance of
2021. Continued pandemic-related disruptions led to new
the content of the modules and the need to enhance the
ways of delivering education through hybrid models of
mix of elective modules.
learning and teaching. Given the need to keep students
and employees safe during the pandemic, 65 percent of
The Faculty of Health Sciences, in collaboration with
our programmes were delivered fully online, while the
the Learning and Teaching Collaborative for Success (LT
remainder followed a hybrid mode with content teaching
Collab), acquired an interactive web-based curriculum
online and experiential learning “mask-to-mask” on
mapping platform, Learning, Opportunities, Objectives
campus or in the workplace.
and Outcome in 2020, which was used in 2021 to evaluate
the viability of programmes and to initiate curriculum
We celebrate our employees’ achievements in embracing
redesign. This work will be expanded to other faculties in
innovative blended and online learning tools while also
2022.
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