Student-perceived criteria for assessing university relevance in community development

Abstract

In sub-Saharan Africa, universities are increasingly being called upon to contribute more towards combating poverty and promoting development in rural areas. Yet, it is still argued that universities are ivory towers, and as a result, their contribution to finding sustainable solutions to issues hampering the realisation of improved quality of life of people in rural areas remains unsatisfactory. This perception emanates from the universities’ apparent failure to articulate and demonstrate how they can achieve the desired goal stated above. Moreover, there are no universally embraced criteria for assessing the relevance of a rural area based university to the community it serves. This study was therefore carried out to determine the perceptions of University of Venda undergraduate students on what they believed were appropriate criteria for assessing the relevance of a rural area based university in community development in South Africa. Reflection circles, anchored on participatory research techniques, were used to engage the students. The results of the engagement were organised into sub-themes. The most prominent perceptions were: ‘A university has active long-term community-based development initiatives’; ‘A university is continuously addressing the real needs of the communities in question’; ‘University initiatives are creating jobs for its graduates and community members’; and ‘Continuous community requests for university assistance in solving the challenges militating against development’. The wide range of perceptions of students observed in this study is a useful input into initiatives seeking to develop an objective tool for assessing the relevance of a rural area based university in community development.

El aprendizaje-servicio, un detonante de la reflexión ética del profesionista

“…Adicional al aprendizaje per se, que emana del aprendizaje-servicio, existe el valor generado hacia la comunidad dada la vinculación con el entorno (Francis et al, 2016;Oliver et al, 2018). Durante el proceso de interacción, propio de la metodología aprendizaje-servicio, se abordan retos que se relacionan con los temas ambientales, económicos, políticos, científicos y culturales para la solución de problemas sociales.…”

Bridging the gap: a case study of a partnership approach to skills development through student engagement in Bristol’s Green Capital year

“…Francis, Kilonzo, Nyamukondiwa, and Institute for Rural Development, University of Venda, Thohoyandou, South Africa (2016) have also done work on the criteria by which the impact of universities on community development should be assessed (albeit in a developing world context). Reference to active long-term university-run programmes or projects in communities and whether university programmes address the needs of the community are deemed to be important (Francis et al, 2016). To assess and evaluate the impact of the Green Capital: Student Capital project, the partnership worked with the NUS to train a team of students from both universities to lead an evaluation process.…”

Learning Management Systems as a platform for information sharing during the COVID-19

“…In South Africa, universities are classified as urban and rural universities (Patel, Kadyamatimba & Madzvamuse 2018). Rural universities are those universities that are previously disadvantaged and strategically situated in rural communities with the aim of providing high-quality education for rural growth in their communities (Francis, Kilonzo & Nyamukondiwa 2016). However, the emergence of the global COVID-19 forced a paradigm shift and reconfiguration of teaching and learning through online learning management systems (LMS) (Raza et al 2021).…”