What does it mean to be a University of Technology in South Africa? How is it supposed to function compared to the Vaal University of Technology’s (VUT) history as a technikon, with only career-focused education as a yardstick? What type of graduates does it want to deliver that are prepared for the future?
These are the fundamental questions Professor Alwyn Louw, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Academic and Research at VUT, has dissected and answered. Changing to a University of Technology has created a whole new environment that has redefined VUT as a fully-fledged educational institution that is forward-thinking in its programmes and qualifications, underpinned with specific industry niches.
The real challenge of VUT was to redefine its ethos, teaching and learning mandate, within the traditional view of what South African universities should be, and to position its academic offerings and consider the type of academic outcomes where required, based on its programmes. “The next burning issue was to determine how VUT was going to relate to society and context. The traditional role of higher education was, to a large extent, academic freedom and academic autonomy, but the debate around engagement and what the type of engaged institution is, has not really developed locally to that level,” he adds.
Louw says VUT aims to be a partner in society, one that is directly engaged with industry and local community and focused on technology, and one that aims to provide meaningful research over and above basic research. “It is important that the application of our knowledge finds its way to real technological solutions that impact society. This leads to innovation, thinking about the opportunities that are out there, and continuous interpretation and re-interpretation of this research. “Based on that, we aim to establish a relationship with society as a partner and to develop a community. This has broadened our mandate beyond the role of a traditional university,” says Louw.
He says VUT has become an active role player in the process of socio economic development by finding practical solutions in terms of new knowledge and new applications based on this knowledge. It aims to provide students with a sufficient level of foundational knowledge, theoretical and academic understanding, which they can use in the process of conducting research, in the process of developing new solutions and implementing solutions that benefit society.
For this reason, Louw says, VUT has an entire unit focusing on technology transfer and innovation, that harvests new ideas, works with faculties where the university stimulates innovation, allows faculties to do basic research, investigates applied knowledge existing, and based on that, identifies possible intellectual property development opportunities. VUT also registers patents of new technologies within industries and other societal sectors that may have a need, as well as patents based on critical, evaluative, innovative ideas that may not have been covered by existing business or industry and that may be useful in future.
VUT’s academic programmes span right across the engineering and technology fields — the big drive in current commercial industry. Additionally, applied sciences, such as bio-sciences, as well as chemistry, mathematics and bio-medical technology fields all form part of its comprehensive portfolio. “Because our focus on technology is a multidimensional one, we have a significant management sciences faculty and a human sciences faculty, where we deal with design and the creative arts.
“We need to remember that technology is also the new management solution, so to be able to understand the different manifestations of technology — even that has social and managerial dimensions — we have to work on a multidisciplinary level in our research as well as our academic focus.” This, he says, is important because only by moving beyond the traditional disciplinary definition of education, can VUT enable students, once they leave the organisation, to have an integrated understanding of the product that they must deliver, but the product within its context.
Additionally, VUT has established an enterprise development unit, which serves as a platform that enables it to interact with industry, Government and broader society to ensure that it optimises the visibility and the accessibility and the impact of what VUT creates. VUT is also in the process of establishing a science park, which will be linked to a business park. This will greatly assist post-graduate students to explore and incubate new ideas from outside industry, and to establish entrepreneurship courses while stimulating enterprises around feasible business concepts.
“Based on this understanding, we believe that the University of Technology in South Africa is in the real sense a new entity. Our higher education facilities have evolved into a fully engaged institution, where we interact directly. Secondly, our products — both in terms of our students and our scientific products — are aimed at complimenting the needs of society, to be able to be applicable,” adds Louw. The university’s future remains bright, but not without the support it gets from its students, academia and the buy-in of its community at large.
“Resource requirements and infrastructure changes are being reformed radically compared to a technikon. VUT has to develop the capacity of its staff, to ensure that it has the profile of educators that can actively stimulate post-graduate work, and that its academics become research-orientated and create the infrastructure and work environment for them to be able to do this. This all requires active talent-searching,” he says.
Louw adds that VUT is actively involved in changing the profile of its staff, its infrastructure and the ratio of staff versus students because the type of learning the university provides is more engaged and more complex. VUT is in the process of revisiting its existing academic qualifications and curriculum mix to ensure they are in line with local and international projections for skills that will be prominent in the future. “It is important for us to manage the student numbers as they grow exponentially each year. At the same time the profiles of students have also changed radically.
The current schooling system is not delivering the type of university-ready students that we need because this is a new type of academic experience for them. We actively strive to assist them in all facets of their learning careers, to complete their studies, be successful and add value to industry and society,” explains Louw.
Over and above that, he says, it is a matter of engaging industry, determining what to teach, how to teach, and for that reason VUT has a strong network of advisory committees to discuss the needs and philosophy of what the institution is trying to achieve, in line with industry requirements. “Today, I can truly say that VUT has a curriculum rich in theory and application, providing real entrepreneurial and socially-relevant education based on national and global needs,” he concludes.
This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as an advertorial supplement