Unisa online - The concept of graduateness: moving from one step to another

From left: Nhlamulo Siwela (National Student Representative Council President), Prof Barney Pityana (Unisa's Principal & Vice-Chancellor), Langutani Masehela (Young Academic), Prof Odora Hoppers, Prof Pam Ryan (Executive Director to the Pro-Vice-Chancellor), Dr Siphamandla Zondi (Executive Director: Institute for Global Dialogue), Dr Marié Ferreira (Executive Director: Corporate Communication and Marketing) & Mr Convy Baloyi (Dean of Students)

It is vital for institutions of higher education to define the concept of graduateness in order to ensure their graduates are meeting the rapidly changing needs of the South African and global job market. At a seminar entitled “Becoming a graduate in the 21st century”, Unisa staff, students and guest speakers gathered at the Senate Hall to explore the concept of graduateness and its impact on the university, South Africa, Africa and the world. Prof Mandla Makhanya, Unisa’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor, said in today’s job sector, employers look for people who are highly skilled, work collaboratively in the workplace, who are well educated in their areas of proficiency, and who can learn and adopt other professional skills. He added that soft skills, such as strong management and communication skills, are also very much in demand. He indicated that while graduateness is a term that is still under construction all over the world, Unisa must prepare graduates for careers that are still to come. This, he said, can be done by preparing students with foundational knowledge and encouraging independence.

Guest speaker, Prof Thoko Majozi, from the University of Pretoria, said the only way to ensure 21st century graduates is to have 21st century-calibre academics.

He said university-based knowledge often becomes useless, unless accompanied by learning skills of the highest order. “The world is changing faster than we can respond, so we need to ask ourselves if our graduates are still relevant. The answer is no. Are the undergraduate schemes enough? The concept of distinct career paths is behind us, because today, engineers work in banks.”

He said today’s world can no longer absorb the high numbers of graduates universities produce, so a different type of graduate is therefore required. He acknowledged the fact that unprecedented student-staff ratios affect graduateness. “We are now teaching students, not lecturing them; if we were really lecturers then no-one would pass. We need new lecturing methods and a new breed of students. We need self-reliant students who don’t come to university to learn knowledge; they come to university to learn skills of acquiring knowledge.”

He said a solution has to be thought off and suggested that to prepare a 21st century graduate, lecturers need to lead by example. “We have to have 21st century lecturers and professors for us to have 21st century graduates. There also needs to be partnerships among role players and there has to be a strong interaction between government and industry and schools and universities.”

Prof Catherine Odora Hoppers, holder of the DST/NRF South African Research Chair in Development Education at Unisa, said: “As academics, we need to reboot and rewire ourselves in order to be competent nurturers to see the students we want… as Gandhi said, be the change you want to see.”

A statement on graduateness was included in the Draft Curriculum Policy which served before the Senate Tuition and Learner Support Committee (STLSC) on 10 May. It will now be referred for approval by the Senate in June 2010.

Unisa’s definition of “graduateness”

Unisa graduates

• are independent, resilient and caring citizens who are able to fulfil and serve in multiple roles in their immediate and future local, national and global communities
• are able to critically analyse and evaluate the credibility and usefulness of information and data from multiple sources in a globalised world with its ever increasing information and data flows and competing worldviews
• are critically aware of their own learning, developmental needs and future potential 
• have a critical understanding of their location on the African continent with its histories, challenges and potential in relation to globally diverse contexts 
• know how to apply their discipline-specific knowledges competently, ethically and creatively to solve real-life problems