Language Awareness Week (LAW) is all about celebrating multilingualism at the North-West University (NWU) this year. LAW 2021 is anchored by the Faculty of Education in collaboration with the Language Directorate and will be presented online from 13 to 17 September.

In South Africa, despite gains achieved for women, engineering roles in numerous organisations are still predominantly occupied by men. To encourage more young girls to study towards science, technology, engineering and mathematic (STEM) qualifications, the Faculty of Engineering at the North-West University (NWU) kicked off its Femmengineering initiative in 2015.

The THE World University Rankings have again, like in last year’s ranking, placed the North-West University (NWU) among the top six universities in South Africa. Globally, the NWU is ranked between 501 and 600 out of more than 1 600 universities across 99 countries and regions that were evaluated for the 2022 rankings.

The South African Institute of Physics (SAIP) conference has, for many years, played a central role in bringing together the South African physics community, providing a venue for the dissemination of new findings, the fostering of research collaborations and the inspiration of students. 

The North-West University (NWU) Career Centre hosted its annual Entrepreneurship and Work Readiness seminars in virtual format from 23 to 27 August 2021. 

Using informal and interactive presentations, these annual seminars aim to equip NWU students with practical and useful information for a smooth transition from student life to work life. To ensure the Career Centre consistently deliver this offering even during the prolonged pandemic, these seminars were hosted virtually to keep NWU students up to date and relevant.

As South Africans brace for a likely fourth wave of Covid-19 around November, the North-West University (NWU) is keeping the channels of communication open in a sea of confusion.

The institution hosted an online webinar on 31 August 2021 during which various issues were discussed with senior employees, partners and members of the business community. These issues included the NWU’s continued operations, the impact of Covid-19 on students, staff and communities, safety and transformation matters as well as a myriad of business-related concerns.

Crises that start out as disruptive emergencies can soon become the new normal. This is evident from most challenges in higher education in South Africa.

Teaching and learning, in particular, have had to develop contingency plans to offset the effects of major events such as load-shedding, #FeesMustFall and, currently, the Covid-19 pandemic.

Helping staff and students to adapt is essential to weather these unforeseen storms. It requires people to seek collective wisdom, share insights and develop a workable consensus together with stakeholders.

In a little over two weeks, the Centre for Health and Human Performance (CHHP) at the North-West University (NWU), together with Autism South Africa (A; SA), will host their sixth National Autism Symposium. The South African Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions will again join as a supporting partner.

Preparations are well under way for one of the most important upcoming events in the academic life of the North-West University (NWU): the external institutional audit that will be conducted in August 2022.

The NWU’s institutional audit is part of a series of audits planned for higher education institutions under the ambit of the Council on Higher Education (CHE), which recently announced an action plan and broad framework for the institutional audits.

There are numerous examples where women’s rights are still being disregarded in a traditional setting and an important aspect that has been neglected thus far is the role of women in Traditional Governance.