The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) wishes to congratulate two of our students who performed exceptionally well in the annual FameLab competition.

Prof Emmanuel Mfanafuthi Mgqwashu, the director of the Centre for Higher Education Professional Development at the North-West University (NWU), recently delivered his inaugural lecture on the Potchefstroom Campus.

The topic of his lecture was “A timely question: How can we not talk about becoming a professor in the context of decolonising higher education?”

During this lecture, Prof Mgqwashu drew from his 26 years of experience in the academia and shared critical reflections on his journey to becoming a professor.

North-West University academic Dr Ankit Katrodia’s paper – titled “Generation Y’s perception towards and actual usage of African language radio Stations in South Africa” – recently earned him the Best Paper Award at the 3rd International Conference on Leveraging Industry 5.0: Sustainability, Innovation and Disruption that took place in Mumbai, India.

In the paper, co-authored by Dr Katrodia and his master’s student, Nkosinathi Ntuli, Dr Katrodia said that radio broadcasting is the most consumed form of broadcast media in the world.

You should start planning your future career as early as in Grade 9. This was what North-West University (NWU) statistics lecturer Dr Piet Ntema, told Grade 9 learners during a recent career guidance workshop.

Dr Ntema hosted the workshop in partnership with the office of Prof Rodney Medupe, deputy dean for community engagement and stakeholder relations at the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, and Phomolong Community Library.

A student from the North-West University (NWU) is one of 28 writers from 19 countries whose short story has been shortlisted by an international judging panel for the 2023 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.

Matshediso Radebe, a third-year communication student at the NWU’s Potchefstroom Campus, is also one of only three writers from South Africa ― and one of only six writers from Africa ― who has been shortlisted for the prestigious prize.

North-West University (NWU) students in the Faculty of Education pursuing African languages studies recently undertook an excursion tour to the Achterberg Camp and Conference Centre in Krugersdorp.

The aim of the tour was to empower the group of second and fourth-year students with academic skills, focusing on teamwork and ethical matters.

It is difficult for researchers to find funding for research in African languages and more work needs to be done to promote African languages as languages of research, teaching and learning.

This was mentioned at the inaugural Batho Abantu African Languages Association (BAALA) conference that was hosted by the North-West University’s (NWU’s) School of Languages, the NWU Language Directorate and SEFALA.

The conference brought together local and international researchers in African languages and took place at the Riverside Sun Hotel in Vanderbijlpark.

The North-West University (NWU) continues to deliver chartered accounting students of the highest calibre, as is evident from the recently released results of the Initial Test of Competence (ITC) of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Namibia (ICAN), which was written in January.

Prof Louis du Preez, professor of zoology at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU), was honoured by having a newly discovered Malagasy frog species named after him.

The honour was bestowed by a group of German scientists from the University of Braunschweig, Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, and the Zoological Museum in München, in recognition of Prof du Preez’s substantial contributions to understanding the flatworm parasites of Malagasy anurans.

The North-West University’s (NWU’s) Prof Jan de Kock is ready to help make a difference in helping to solve South Africa’s current energy crisis.

He was inaugurated as president of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) on 23 March 2023.

During the event Prof de Kock delivered his inaugural address titled “Load-shedding – can South Africa be saved?”.

He said that it is a great honour to serve the electrical engineering fraternity as president of the SAIEE.