SOUTH AFRICA: Free State wins global award

16 January 2011

The University of the Free State has won the World Universities' Forum award for best practice in higher education during 2010, reports Sipho Masondo for The Times.

The award recognises the most significant higher education practices of the year among universities around the world. Criteria considered include innovative curricula, and quality of research projects and student services.

Three years ago Free State was embroiled in a controversy over racism among white male students. It has come a long way. University spokesperson Lacea Loader said the university's implementation of a number of transformative innovations had been recognised. These included the campus-wide racial integration of students, reinvigoration of the academic culture, nurturing of promising young scholars, sending 71 first-year students to US universities to help them develop as non-racial campus leaders, and the identification of 20 of the most dysfunctional high schools in the Free State province and the building of relationships with those schools.
Full report on the Times Live site

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