On 8th October 2025, the Head of Department of Mathematics, Professor Darren Lortan received the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Champion Award at the inaugural NQF Awards 2025, which was held during the NQF 30-Year Celebration Conference. The award honours his dedication and contribution to building an inclusive and sustainable NQF and leadership in promoting articulation, transparency, and lifelong learning pathways. His contributions to knowledge-sharing, stakeholder engagement, and policy development were deemed to embody the values and objectives of the National Qualifications Framework.
Prof Lortan has championed articulation arrangements one TVET College and one HEI at a time. What started as informal conversations on articulation between DUT and its TVET College partners across KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), grew into the role of Principal Investigator in the SAQA-DUT Articulation Research Partnership (2015-2020), and the National Coordinator of the UCDP funded Unfurling Post-School Education and Training (UPSET) Project (2021-2025). The latter has enabled the development of new articulation partnerships and the sustaining of existing articulation initiatives anchored in nine universities in South Africa. Through the extended phase of the UPSET Project (2025-2028) the UCDP has tasked the team with the addition of another nine articulation partnerships across the South Africa by March 2028.
Upon winning such as award, Prof Lortan said: “I was as surprised as I was elated and I don’t think the magnitude of the Award has hit me yet,” he chuckled.
Pictured: Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Mimmy Gondwe and Head of Department of Mathematics at DUT, Professor Darren Lortan, at the inaugural NQF Awards 2025.
As one of the champion leaders in policy development at DUT, he shared more on the role he plays in promoting knowledge development and how does it encompasses the values and objectives of the National Qualifications Framework.
“I was the Principal Investigator in the SAQA-DUT Articulation Research Project, titled “Developing an understanding of the enablers of student transitioning between Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Higher Education, and workplaces.” The team included a Research Associate, two Doctoral, and three Masters students supervised to completion. By the end of the research project, a number of recommendations were made on how articulation could be developed, promoted and sustained across the country. Our recommendations caught the attention of the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP), who invited us to submit a proposal for funding through the Collaborative Sub-framework Programme.,” he shared. Prof Lortan emphasised that this is how the Unfurling Post School Education and Training (UPSET) National Articulation Project was born.
“Based upon the data derived from the findings of the SAQA-DUT Articulation Research Partnership in general, and the National Articulation Baseline Study (2018) in particular, provincial hubs were set up to sustain articulation initiatives which were already in place, to develop new articulation arrangements, with new and/or existing partners,” added Prof Lortan.
He indicated that over the first phase of the UPSET Articulation Project (2021-2025) nine universities were supported to develop Articulation Implementation Plans (AIPs) with at least twenty TVET colleges Technical Vocational Education and Training Colleges (TVETs) across seven provinces.
Throughout the first phase, Prof Lortan highlighted that SAQA as the custodians of the NQF were invited to play a coordinating role in the UPSET Project.
“Apart from the creation of Articulation Hubs, during the first phase, a National Articulation Community of Practice comprised of each of the Hubs was established; annual Articulation Implementations Plan were developed and refined and numerous annual workshops with national stakeholders, including SAQA and the three Quality Councils, the South African College Principals Association (SACPO), Universities South Africa (USAf), and SETAs were hosted,” he explained.
Prof Lortan relayed that in the second phase of the UPSET Project, two new activities will be undertaken. The first is the inclusion of psychosocial support alongside the academic development support for participating students. The second activity is the documentation of the two phases of the UPSET Project as an outcome of a participatory action research project, which will include the deliverable of a collection of published scholarly articles in a Special Edition of a relevant Journal and/or book chapters in an edited academic book outlining the accomplishments of the UPSET Project.
“The Higher Certificate in Applied Sciences, housed in the Mathematics Department, was born out of the recommendations of the UPSET Project and is, in a sense, an educational artefact of UPSET. It is hoped that by the conclusion of the UPSET Project, a joint offering of the Higher Certificate in Applied Sciences, together with a TVET College partner, will be available to prospective students,” he concluded.
Pictured: Ms Nadia Starr, CEO of SAQA; Prof Darren Lortan, DUT; Dr Mimmy Gondwe, Deputy Minister, Department of Higher Education and Training; and award winner, Dr Rekha Rambharose, UWC.
Source: Google Images
Waheeda Peters
