Nzimande Praises University For “Significant” Infrastructure Projects
In the upcoming year, the department of higher education will boost its investment in infrastructure projects. This is so that they can give students in the post-secondary education sector access to high-quality teaching, learning, and innovation spaces.
According to Blade Nzimande, minister of higher education, science, and innovation, the department will give infrastructure development at historically underserved universities top priority.
They anticipate that by doing this, maintenance backlogs will be cleared up and the quality delivery system at these institutions would be improved.
Nzimande was present at the University of the Western Cape’s (UWC), Education Faculty Building, and Unibell Student Residence on Monday for their ceremonial openings.
They said the infrastructure improvements being undertaken by UWC are of a sizeable scope and will be extremely valuable to the institution. These initiatives will enhance both the students’ living and learning environments and the institution’s academic focus.
Nzimande applauded UWC for putting a strong emphasis on precinct development. They clarify that the university’s adaptive reuse of existing infrastructure will give aging structures a new lease of life.
What to do with historic buildings is one of our major difficulties, so I applaud what UWC is doing in that regard. One or two of them date back to the 1960s.
The readaptation of ancient university buildings, according to Nzimande, helps bury the apartheid government’s desire to deny the majority of South Africans access to high-quality education.
“In the belief that the white minority regime would survive by denying the majority of people an education, [universities] were established to provide a poor education. We’re still doing it, we’re still hiding that.”
The development pace of the science faculty at UWC impressed the minister. Included in this are the buildings for the life and chemical sciences, the South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry, and the Computer and Mathematical Sciences (CAMS) building.
The Unibell student residence is a component of Student Housing Infrastructure Programme (SHIP), Phase 1 of which the UWC has been given 2,720 beds.
Over the next ten years, SHIP aims to provide 100,000 beds at the 50 Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges and 200,000 beds at the 26 public universities in South Africa.
Many universities and TVET colleges, according to the minister, have not been able to invest sufficiently in the upkeep and extension of their portfolios of student housing. Financial limitations played a major role in this.
According to Nzimande, the SHIP project would support these institutions, ensuring quality teaching and learning as well as a favorable environment for both student living and learning.
