The Wits Business School (WBS) continues to provide its students with unique opportunities to integrate their academic learning with real work experience. The school will offer its full-time students internship at prestigious organisations during their study programme.
The WBS MBA is internationally recognised as a degree of the highest calibre and its internship programme for full-time MBA students furthers this authority.
The internship programme is an elective for full-time MBA students and can run for up to three months. It has grown in strength from year to year and is supported by a vast network of leading organisations within the private sector, including top consulting companies, banks, financial services and pharmaceutical companies.
‘Their support emerges from their appreciation of the value that the postgraduate students are able to add within a relatively short period of time,” said Charisse Drobis, WBS graduate recruitment officer. ‘The students bring new thinking to the organisations and energise the environment with their enthusiasm and objective, yet creative, problem solving abilities. They are expected to add value and this value has been assessed as both real and tangible by the participating organisations.”
For the fifth consecutive year in 2006, the school ranked at number one in the Financial Mail’s annual MBA survey. The Sunday Times Top Brands survey also noted it as the best business school brand in South Africa in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Last year’s Financial Times Executive Education international rankings positioned the school among the top 65 business schools in the world.
Unisa’s new student hub
To accommodate demand from Pretoria-based students at Unisa, three buildings in the university’s Sunnytown complex have been set aside for a new student hub. When renovations are complete, this will have study space for at least 3 000 students, about 25 tutorial venues, well-equipped computer laboratories, an undergraduate library, student counselling services and an academic literacy and student information centre.
One building will seat 500 students and have a computer laboratory with 50 PCs, a small undergraduate library, satellite-powered facilities for tutorial delivery and limited student counselling services. Other learner support facilities to be made available include academic literacy services and a student information centre.
Renovations to the second building in the student hub began in June last year and are due to be completed by the end of August. This building will be the main venue for tutorial classes, with 15 tutorial sites that will also serve as study space when not being used for tutorials.
Work on the third and largest building in the hub will start shortly. It will be the home of Unisa’s Gauteng Learner Support team, now based in the Pretoria city centre, as well as the Tshwane Student Representative Council. This building will also have a student self-help registration facility.
Located on train, bus and taxi routes, the complex will alleviate the demand for space on the main campus. Instead of being cramped into the limited study space at the main library, students visiting Sunnytown will have plenty of space to study, network, attend tutorial classes and use library, computer and other learner support facilities.
Unisa is an open distance learning institution and many students travel to the campus daily to study in peace and quiet, do their assignments and network with other students.
The student hub is only part of Unisa’s plans to turn Sunnytown into a vibrant centre of academic excellence and cultural diversity. Also in the pipeline are the African International Graduate Centre and Residence, the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Museum and the renovation of the Heritage Housing complex.
To smooth the way for disabled students, Gauteng Learner Support has been working closely with the Advocacy and Resource Centre for Unisa Students with Disabilities, with the following results:
- Ramps are in place at building entrances so that students in wheelchairs can gain access from the ground floor.
- Parking spaces as close as possible to the student hub have been reserved for students with disabilities. At a later stage, covered parking will also be made available.
- In the undergraduate library, the floor layout and furniture is being designed to cater for students in wheelchairs or on crutches. The same approach is being followed for the computer laboratory.
- Computers will be equipped with devices or software to accommodate the needs of students with disabilities.
- The help desk of Gauteng Learner Support includes a visually impaired staff member, who has special equipment to assist him in serving students.