The Central University of Technology and the University West in Sweden, held a digital workshop to expand and strengthen their long-standing relationship and further discuss other collaboration opportunities. The partners agreed to cooperate with one another towards the internationalisation of higher education, extend the effective and mutually beneficial cooperation as well as develop academic and cultural exchange in research and other areas.

In February 2020, the two universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with the aim of establishing a co-operation in the field of doctoral education in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). Progress has been made in which two staff members at University West have enrolled for a PhD in WIL (the first of its kind globally), joint research on WIL and co-presented on WIL at SANORD and SASUF conferences.

Mr Leolyn Jackson, the Director of CUT’s Center for Global Engagement (CGE), said that the workshop’s purpose is to further discuss what and how they can extend CUT and University West collaborations. “We would like to hear about the exciting work currently being done between University West and the University of Western Cape, what is possible for CUT, and how best the three universities can develop and invite other players.”

Further collaboration opportunities that were discussed include WIL mobility of staff and students, virtual learning or webinars, joint supervision, curriculum development, development of WIL as a field of study in SA, co-host conferences, socially directed technology and innovation, socio-resilient infrastructure and creating a WIL hub.

“There are summer and winter schools as well as short learning programmes that our students can do either virtually or face to face; and going forward, we would like to have joint projects in research, joint supervision, or joint degrees, but most importantly, we want to look at how we can create a societal impact hub. We must start formalising it so that all three of us (CUT, UWC and University West) can have a common understanding of where we would like to take this when we adopt the whole notion of internationalisation. We should also improve on what we currently do in collaboration with our partners,” Mr Jackson added.

Professor Per Assmo, also an extraordinary Professor at the University of Western Cape, said that the collaboration between the University of Western Cape and CUT is at different levels. He mentioned that they have a collaboration called the third part PhD student programme, where two PhD students from CUT are now participating in their doctoral programme through Sweden. “We can have research collaboration, which has been done previously through seed funding South African Sweden University Forum (SASUF). We also have a master’s programme in WIL that is open for international students and is offered online. The good thing here is that through bilateral agreements, if South African students are from either CUT or UWC, they are automatically exempted from tuition fees, so it becomes free. Then we have an intention placement at undergraduate and graduate programmes which is another possibility. I also see a possible future collaboration in Work-integrated mobility for staff and students,” he said.

Caption

From left: University West Professor Per Assmo, (also an extraordinary Professor at the University of Western Cape), Mr Leolyn Jackson: Director: CGE and Dr Henri Jacobs, Director: WIL & Industry Liaison.