R934m to be spent on university capacity development

HIGHER Education and Training Minister Naledi Pandor says the department will spend R934 million on the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP) to improve student development and decolonise the curriculum.

The Minister on Thursday briefed the media ahead of tabling the department’s Budget Vote speech in Parliament.

“The R934 million University Capacity Development Programme for all universities focuses on three key development areas: student development towards enhancing student access; staff development, particularly in regards to teaching, research and leadership, and management and curriculum development,” she said.

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Dr Diane Parker, the Deputy Director-General for University Education at the department, said as part of the programme, each university will have its own programme.

“The first one is around student success and that entails quite a large focus on aspects such as data analytics to understand how students are doing in the various programmes and then to create interventions where students who aren’t doing well can be picked up. It also focuses on areas such as first year programmes that are focused on young people coming into university systems, who may have come from various types of backgrounds who aren’t used to working at that kind of level,” she said.

Parker said under the staff development programme, much focus is on staff, teaching and research development.

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“That is quite an extensive programme that covers a number of areas – from identifying young people who have potential at being academics through to supporting academics in the system,” she said.

Parker said there is a drive to unearth a new generation of academics with much focus being placed on black women in academia.

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