The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) launched its Siyaphumelela 2.0 Moving the Middle Project (MtM) for students last Tuesday, 14 September 2021 via Microsoft Teams.

The Siyaphumelela 2.0 Moving the Middle Project focuses on understanding the multiple challenges that are impacting on student success which creates a large middle cohort that remain in transition in academic programmes and identifying and implementing strategies for enhancing success.

The Programme Director of the event was Mzwandile Khumalo, the Coordinator: Student Support and Development Unit at CELT. He is also very much involved with the curation of the Moving the Middle Project.

Giving his message of support to the Moving the Middle Project launch was Njabulo Ntshaba, DUT Student Representative Council (SRC) Secretary General.

“It has always been our call to say there’s nothing for us without us. It is exciting news to have this programme running in our institution and I would like to further add that it is assisting to to have the institution that is meeting us halfway in terms of understanding our issues. I want to also encourage the institution to continue with this initiative so that to make sure to identify all those mistakes that hinder students from student success. We are very much honoured as the 2020/21 SRC to be part of this historical event,” he said.

Giving her words of encouragement on the Siyaphumelela 2.0 Moving the Middle Project launch for students was Acting Dean of Students: Dr Naseem Haniff.

Dr Haniff conveyed that this project is aimed at addressing those challenges that stifle students achieving access and in their academic pathways, and it is a project aimed at a variety of strategies to assist students to overcome such hurdles.

A key part of the launch entailed various DUT students sharing their student experiences and valuable insights of access to interventions, especially pre-COVID-19 and during COVID-19.

DUT student Mariam Khotze, a first-year Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Applications Development, indicated that this year to date had been quite a learning experience. She said that coming from high school and having physical classes, she then had to adapt to online classes because of COVID-19.

“It was a lot to handle and it was confusing to work with new technology having not used it before. However, it was a process we were able to adapt to because of the orientation that we had and we were able to because we were taught how to use Moodle and MS Teams. So far there have not been many issues with regards to online learning as the classes have been smooth and streamlined,” she said.

She further elaborated that the lecturers are extremely dedicated and have always been there to provide students with help.

Professor Livingstone Makondo, Acting Director: Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT), shared his excitement of the MtM launch project, saying that the presentations from the students really attest the great work that is happening at DUT lecture venues in their diverse forms.

Giving insight into the overview of the Siyaphumelela 2.0 Project was Deputy Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning, Prof Nokuthula Sibiya. Prof Sibiya explained more on the student success challenges, the different levels preparedness of students to become adaptive graduates and creating a lived values data culture.

Project leader, CELT’s Nalini Chitanand provided a brief overview of the MtM project and also touched on the philosophy that guides the work. Her presentation was titled: Moving the Middle Project: Students as Partners Cultivating partnerships, making connections.

“The project adopts a programmatic approach that involves enhancing success for all students, including students in the middle and is a shift from any deficit framings. The focus is on the whole student, many important things emerged from our student panel. Being accountable, taking responsibility, not just about learning to pass their module but about the kinds of learning. Not just about getting a qualification but also about creating new things,” she said.

She explained that universities are about developing new knowledge’s and new ways of knowing and doing and becoming. Chitanand added that the MtM project draws on the African philosophical approach of Ubuntu, embodying humanness, community and co-existence and which is embedded with our work reflecting co-creation, co-belonging, partnerships and care.

“This relational ethos is linked to our philosophy of cultivating partnerships and making connections. We encourage our students to be actively involved in this vision for co-creation of knowledge. The MtM student success initiatives work in unison, continuously in motion, making great strides to break silos, working collaboratively and interactively, with all that are part of the DUT ecosystem, all mutually constituting each other,” she said.

Chitanand emphasised how the Moving the Middle initiatives are embedded within DUT’s ENVISION2030.

“Student success is a dynamic, continuous, evolving, iterative process of Knowing-Doing-Transforming. This requires that we are constantly questioning, re-imagining, adaptable and thinking anew as global citizens towards improving lives and livelihoods and sustainability of our societies, and these are underpinned by our Lived Values of ENVISION2030,” she explained.

Giving the Keynote address was Dr Annsilla Nyar, PhD, the Director of the South African National Resource Centre for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (SANRC).

Dr Nyar delivered her presentation: I am what I am because of what we all are ‘: Understanding Ubuntu as a way to revitalise current notions of student success.

She spoke on Ubuntu which acts as a frame of reference for the work of student support and student success. She explained that Ubuntu is about peoples’ common humanity and looked at two great leaders like the late Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

“Ubuntu is more African than South African. It rightfully belongs to the world,” she said.

Dr Nyar looked at Ubuntu in a university setting, saying that Ubuntu as a framework for work with students and Ubuntu can grow the seeds of a culture of humanity in higher education.

“Small things, like seeds, make a huge difference, for example, helping our students adjust and manage their expectations of university; helping our students cope with academic challenges; and relationship-building with students,” she stressed.

Explaining more on Student Success in the Context of the Durban University of Technology: Through the ENVISION2030 Len, was CELT’s Mr Ashton Maherry, Institutional Planning. He spoke more on the evidence-based institutional cultural change.

The event concluded with a vote of thanks which was given by Dr Rosheena Jeawon who gave acknowledgment to the Launch planning team: Mzwandile Khumalo, Dr Timothy Obaje, Shubnam Rambharos and the poet Lwazi Moyo for his rendition of the two very moving and emotional poems about what motivated him to study and his experiences as a student.

Pictured: Deputy Vice Chancellor: Teaching and Learning Prof Nokuthula Sibiya.

Pictured: One of the speakers: Nalini Chitanand.

Pictured: Keynote speaker, Dr Annsilla Nyar.