The Annual General Meeting of the Unisa Convocation took place on Saturday, 4 December 2021.

Sabelo Mhlungu, President of the Unisa Convocation

Sabelo Mhlungu, President of the Unisa Convocation, led the meeting, and Professor Steward Mothata, Unisa Registrar, and Mondli Nhlangulela, member of the Executive Committee of the Convocation, formed part of the panel.

The Convocation Office received a total of four motions, with only two forming part of the agenda due to their relevance and nature. One of the key 2021 highlights raised in the report submitted by the Principal and Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Unisa, Professor Puleng LenkaBula, was the strengthening of the academic project.

She indicated that some of the highlights stem from the Teaching and Learning Portfolio which is working to fast-track the implementation of continuous assessment and online examinations in the virtual learning environment. The Research Portfolio also had positive milestones including collaborations, the hosting of international projects, rankings and growth in published articles. Major strides were made in strengthening student support initiatives to ensure positive learning experiences.   

The VC’s report, however, noted that challenges remain at Unisa. These include the servicing of students, which is currently not an automated process. The report also emphasised the need for the use of business intelligence analytics to be able to track students, and to minimise dropout and stop-out rates. This will increase overall student success rates at Unisa.

It was indicated that the university was currently working on a workload model for academics to enable quality supervision, and quicker turnaround times on feedback and examination marking without interfering with research activities.

Professor Steward Mothata, Unisa Registrar

The filling of vacancies is under review as the Human Resources Department is prioritising the resourcing of the academic model and other areas for the fair distribution of resources.

The university was improving in global rankings for teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income. A notable achievement is Unisa moving to position 949 for the 2022 ranking. In the US News Best Global Universities, Unisa moved to position 851out of 1 750 ranked universities. “In the Round University Ranking Unisa was in position 638, thus achieving Word League status,” said the VC.

Mhlungu reported on the activities of the Convocation for 2021. Some of the issues he outlined were the importance of alumni chapters which also bear the footprint of Convocation and the approval of the guidelines of Alumni Regional Chapters which are a standard approach on how chapters should operate.

In addition, the Unisa App has been created and will be implemented at the beginning of 2022 to enable better interaction with alumni. He further mentioned that one Convocation Lecture was held this year which had Professor Joseph Diescho as the guest speaker, and said that he hoped that there would be more lectures in future.

“The Convocation Bursary at the beginning of 2021 made available R10 million to assist students who have remained in the Unisa system, owed fees and were not able to graduate,” he said. “They will now be part of the Unisa Convocation family.”

He however lamented the role of the higher education sector in producing unemployed graduates. “The vulnerability of youth in South Africa and the crisis the country is facing indicate that we are ranked number one in the world in terms of unemployment,” he said.

Mhlungu cited unemployment rates as provided by Statistics South Africa. Emanating from youth, unemployment stands at 53% and among graduates it stands at 31,0%. These are in the third quarter of 2021. Also 33% of youth aged 15-24 are not in education, training or employment.

He encouraged academics to have engagements about these issues, especially in matching graduates to the economy’s needs and having coordination between the business sector and institutions of higher learning, as he believes solutions are within academia.  

Other areas of concern include the negative media surrounding Unisa about its service and the leaked ministerial task team report circulating in the media. He said that there has not been an official report issued by the Office of the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology.

The full Convocation Report will be distributed to members. The next meeting of Convocation will be held in November 2022.

* By Busisiwe Mahlangu, Communications Coordinator, Department of Institutional Advancement