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6. Strengths and opportunities curriculum development, and assessment. This is
largely based on the liberatory education philosophy
The University’s Vision 2030 strategic aspirations and work of Paulo Freire, that liberates human
have been crafted against the backdrop of the agency and a sense of coming not only to know, but
global, continental, and national development goals to own the knowledge and be empowered by it.
articulated in the United Nations 2030 Sustainable
Development Goals, the African Union Agenda 2063, Repositioning engagement and
and the South African 2030 National Development transformation
Plan (NDP) respectively. The formulation of Vision The five-year anniversary in July 2022 of renaming
2030 has revealed distinctive intellectual niches and the institution to Nelson Mandela University
strategic opportunities that need to be leveraged marked the start of a year-long programme of
by Mandela University as it seeks to chart its institution-wide activities that give intellectual and
future strategic directions and game-changing programmatic expression to the Mandela name
differentiators. and identity. The University is widely recognised
for its engaged scholarship, which seeks to co-
Humanising, student-centric approaches create pioneering, African-purposed solutions to
While there is no blueprint for the future of higher complex global challenges. This is part of a broader
education, socially conscious students expect their strategy to reconfigure the University in alignment
universities to provide them with inclusive learning with a reimagined and non-paternalistic paradigm of
environments and experiences that enable them to engagement that can more meaningfully contribute
fully succeed in their academic and extracurricular to alleviating human precarity.
pursuits. This includes committing to providing
quality online or in-person wellness, inclusion and As part of the organisational design process,
student life initiatives that equip graduates to drive a new executive management portfolio
progressive societal change. was established, rooted in the interplay to
provide intellectual and strategic leadership
As a student-centric, comprehensive university, of engagement and transformation in support of
the focus on promoting holistic student access for the vision, strategic objectives, and core academic
success remains paramount especially given that missions of the University. In so doing, Mandela
Mandela University draws more than two thirds of University has responded to a key dilemma facing
its incoming students from the Eastern Cape. The the higher education sector, nationally and globally,
University has been systematically increasing access namely, engaging authentically and purposefully
to higher education for first generation students with the current socio-economic, environmental,
from quintile one to three schools, more than half cultural, and political challenges of our time and
(59%) of which depend on NSFAS funding. Through place through social embeddedness.
significant investments in wraparound student
support, the University has improved its success The Engagement and Transformation Report (2020-
rate from 76% in 2010 to 85% in 2021. This is quite 2021) narrates the exciting journey of building
a remarkable achievement within the context of this “new” portfolio over the past three years. It
repeated disruptions caused by the coronavirus represents a key expression of Vision 2030 and the
pandemic in 2020/21. growth within the portfolio has been first-rate. Central
to renewal is the work of the Transformation and the
Mandela University conceptualises student success Engagement Offices. The Chair for Critical Studies in
broadly to include curricular and co-curricular Higher Education Transformation (CriSHET) and the
student life and development interventions aimed Transdisciplinary Institute for Mandela Studies (TIMS)
at cultivating socially conscious graduates who are constitute key intellectual differentiators for the
responsible citizens capable of transferring their University. TIMS is intended to drive the University’s
knowledge and skills across multiple contexts for pursuit of becoming the pre-eminent academic
the benefit of society. In facilitating holistic student expression of Mandela and hosts workshops and
access for success, the University has adopted events to foster a vibrant intellectual culture and
a humanising pedagogical approach as the advance social justice. Signing a Memorandum of
philosophical underpinning for learning, teaching, Understanding (MoU) with the Nelson Mandela

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