Creating an enabling environment that supports Community Engagement for Student Volunteers: Lessons from the DUT's Uni4All Programme

Abstract: The Durban University of Technology [DUT] strives to produce graduates that are creative, innovative, and adaptive to the changes in the world. Three years ago, DUT approved a strategy named ENVISION2030, which provides for the building of an enabling environment that supports dynamic curricula that inspire innovation and entrepreneurship with the goal to contribute to improving the lives and livelihoods of the broader society. As part of this strategy, DUT wants to be an engaged university with productive glocal citizens that establish mutually beneficial partnerships. A way to achieve this goal is through community engagement.

Community Engagement has been defined as “collaborations between institutions of higher education and their larger communities whether local, regional, international or global, for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnerships and reciprocity” [Carnegie Foundation: 2006]. It is important to note that community engagement is based on the principle of reciprocity and partnership through the exchange of knowledge and resources to achieve the desired goal.

The presentation is sharing how DUT has created an enabling environment to support community engagement for student volunteers to support communities with the skills they are learning as university students. The presentation will use the lessons from DUT’s Uni4All Programme which was developed to support learners from schools in rural and remote areas to get access to tertiary education.

Narrative: Before South Africa developed the White Paper on Public Service Training and Education which was published in 1997, there was no policy that gave a directive for Community Engagement in the South African Higher Education Sector [Bender, 2006]. The White Paper calls for the Transformation of Higher Education and South African education institutions are required to conceptualize and implement Community Engagement as a core function of the academy. Further to this, the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) has requested the development of a discussion document on the role of community service in higher education (Bender, 2006). The Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) in South Africa identified knowledge-based community service as one of the three areas alongside teaching and learning and research, which are needed for accreditation and quality assurance in higher education (Bender, 2006). The SA Council on Higher Education and Higher Education Quality Committee in 2004 confirmed Community Engagement as an integral part of teaching and research and the Department of Education thereby incorporated Community Engagement into the National quality assurance system.

In response to this inclusion of service-learning in the curriculum, universities have developed strategies that ensure that community engagement is celebrated alongside teaching and learning and research. This presentation gives an overview of what the Durban University of Technology [DUT] has developed to create an enabling environment for community engagement and also how through community engagement students have enhanced their learning experience, using the lessons from the Uni4All Programme.

Uni4All Programme is a campaign that aims to assist learners with online applications to access tertiary education and bursaries. Since Covid-19 learners are now required to submit applications to tertiary institutions via online platforms. This poses a challenge for learners in rural and remote areas because they do not have access to computers and the Internet. The campaign works with DUT students who live in these rural and remote areas, and they volunteer to visit schools and assist learners with applications and guide them on the programmes to choose when applying for admission.