The Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS, Prof. Francis Petersen, touched base on safety and security at the UFS after the incident that took place over the weekend in Bloemfontein, which resulted in the death of a student from the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State.

He said the safety and security on all three campuses are extremely good, but what they found is that over the last couple of months there have been ad hoc cases of gender-based violence off campus.

“We deal with these cases within the university's policies. We coordinate and look after the unit of institutional change. We also have a sexual assault response team and that response team looks at gender-based violence and sexual harassment in a more realistic way,” Petersen said.

He added that the challenge is off–campus and that they work together with community policing forums, the South African Police Service, and Mangaung Police Services. Over the last couple of months, the UFS has intensified security on all campuses.

He also touched on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) being the catalyst of student unrest on most campuses of the 26 universities across the country. He added that they have worked out a system to be able to handle the unrest.

He added that the university has been working on a new strategy to renew itself, called Vision 130. “The 130 comes from the fact that the University will be celebrating a birthday in 2034 - the institution will be turning 130 years. The vision is a vision that articulates boldness, urgency and action. It focuses on visibility and impact and we believe we have created an enabling environment to be able to jump to the next level,” he said.

Furthermore, he added that they are focusing their values on development and social justice, and their outputs and outcomes are about graduates that are globally competitive and knowledge that is globally competitive. “This vision is the vision that we will continue with until 2034."

OFM News