Opinion by Dr Muki Moeng
Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Learning and Teaching, Nelson Mandela University
As universities, it is important that in addition to preparing graduates for their careers and the world of work, that we prepare them for life, with the skills they need to make their way as citizens of the world.
An essential skill is excellent communication. Graduates need to converse, write and read well, and they need to know how to read the room, network, develop relationships and negotiate. Communication skills also include showing understanding, fairness and compassion, whether as a teacher to their learners or a nurse to their patients or a lawyer to their clients.
We also understand that some of our students find the disciplinary language difficult to comprehend and we therefore present academic literacy modules that enable our students to grasp the disciplinary knowledge. By the time they complete their degree they are prepared to communicate with confidence within and beyond their fields of study.
In the past we assumed that these and other life skills were learned along the way, but I strongly believe we need to explicitly teach them, not only as part of the curriculum but also in active community engagement. For example, in our curriculum for our Medical School, our first years do community visits because our goal is to develop doctors who engage with the different communities they serve. Another example is the student teacher who needs to understand where their learners come from and what their challenges might be.
Irrespective of the degree and career we want to see our graduates displaying a disposition that speaks to who we are as a university in the service of society. We teach modules on subjects such as social consciousness and ethics so that we can pose the question ‘how should a Mandela University graduate behave?’. It speaks to both who we are as a university and to Nelson Mandela the person.
As part of making a positive impact we have numerous programmes for high school learners, such as ‘STEM in ACTION’, to assist students with the maths, science, literacy and computer skills they need to access university. We also have a range of services, such as psychology and law clinics that are open to the public, where our students engages with and serve our communities.
We want our students and graduates to live the values of social justice, and appreciation of diversity. We want them to be conscious, ethical agents of change and of gender equality who make a meaningful contribution to the world.
Along the whole educational path we need to prepare students to be critical, creative thinkers and adaptive problem-solvers. I am of the firm belief that for students to acquire these attributes, we need to create opportunities for experiential or workplace-based learning and expose them to real life situations in the careers they are pursuing, be it industrial engineering students pursuing internships in industry, or law and psychology students serving in law and psychology clinics as two of the many examples.
Experiential and workplace-based learning is now deliberately designed as part of the curriculum, it is not as an ‘add-on’. This way students also develop relationships with industry, professional bodies and communities before they graduate.
In addition, we invite industry and professional bodies to come and address our students and assess our curriculum. We welcome their input as to whether our students are being appropriately prepared for the type of work they will be pursuing, and we implement changes if there are aspects they feel are not serving the purpose.
Through these interactions, graduates enter the workplace with a far better idea of what is expected of them, including in-depth knowledge of their discipline and its inter-and transdisciplinary applications. During the course of their studies they also need to learn how to be adaptive, which is essential for the world of work, for jobs of the future and for creating their own work.
Student entrepreneurship skills are part of university education now and vital for job creation and addressing the unemployment crisis. At Mandela University we have the Madibaz Youth Entrepreneurship Lab that develops entrepreneurship within the University through co-curricular and voluntary programmes, one of which is the Student Employability and Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) programme. The university has also developed a policy allowing students to operate businesses on campus.
In 2023 we further established the Centre for Entrepreneurship Rapid Incubator with funding from the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA), which provides an 18-month incubation programme for student and entrepreneurs, as well as unemployed youth, and youth-owned businesses.
In conclusion, and overarching everything discussed here is our humanising and caring educational philosophy to which all our academics commit. The only way to produce graduates with the attributes mentioned is to lead by example and communicate and engage with students in a caring, compassionate way that recognises each student as unique; to read the class well and understand the diverse backgrounds from which students come. It’s not easy to be inclusive but it’s essential if we want to produce graduates from all walks of life who are well prepared for life, and who enter the world of work with attributes that will serve them and society.