Durban University of Technology (DUT) recently approved the ENVISION2030 Living Values Framework. The five values are identified as transparency, honesty, integrity, respect and accountability. The principles espoused are fairness, professionalism, commitment, compassion and excellence. DUT’s Communications team, Sibahle Ngcobo and Waheeda Peters spoke to Information Technology lecturer, Dr Prinavin Govender.
Q: Kindly tell me about your role at DUT?
A: “I am an academic in the Department of Information Systems, situated in the Faculty of Accounting and Informatics (FAI). Most recently I have acquired the status of programme coordinator for our brand new degree Bachelor Information and Communication Technology Internet of Things (BICT IoT); a qualification that ensures that DUT produces graduates that are truly adaptive global digital citizens in IoT. I am the FAI e-Learning coordinator which entails: our Moodle LMS, our invigilator proctoring software and most recently I would like to roll out Nova Messenger software to FAI and hopefully across the institution. However, my best role at DUT is that of a teacher to my postgraduate students where I dabble in concepts like ERP, SAP S/4Hana and Audit command language.”
Q: How long have you been a member of the DUT family?
A:“I joined the DUT family in May of 1999, I was appointed IT technician in the Department of IT within FAI. After many years of study, I eventually progressed to acquiring my PhD and now teach and supervise my postgraduate students. I would approximate it to 23 years of joyous teaching, learning and assessing hundreds of students.”
Q: Amongst the mentioned ENVISION2030 Living Values and Principles, which one do you mostly associate with and why?
A: “I mostly associate with Compassion and Respect because it parallels with my tagline C.A.R.E (Compassion Altruism Respect Empathy). As an academic we must show compassion to our students, there are many students who have faced and continue to face an uphill challenge, firstly by gaining entrance and access to higher education and secondly to continue to succeed against insurmountable challenges (study workload/family commitments/ peer pressure etc.). Even once they graduate the pressure still exists to obtain employment and contribute to the welfare of siblings, the community and society in general. We can demonstrate simple compassion towards a student who may come in late to your lecture or may need an extra day to submit an assignment or maybe even a makeup test because it has taken him/her a little extra time to acquire the necessary pedagogical skills to answer your assignment or assessment. As an academic we must show RESPECT to our profession, our curriculum and to our students. We must ensure that we teach relevant and up-to-date curriculum to our students and impart respectfully knowledge and skills to ensure that our graduating students are responsible and up-standing members of society. If we take care of compassion and respect then in my humble opinion, we as academics would be transparent in our curriculum/pedagogy of teaching/learning and assessment. We will ensure that honesty, integrity, accountability, fairness, and abide by the professional conduct of our calling to teaching/learning and assessment and ultimately we should attain EXCELLENCE.”
Q: What are your views on the new DUT tagline: Creative. Distinctive. Impactful?
A: “I love it. Our tagline encompasses all our academic ambits and all of our graduates are either creative, distinctive and/or impactful in the qualifications. Our aim is that they make a Impactful contribution to their families, the community they live in and for our wonderful country South Africa; and I do believe that some of our graduates are creative, distinctive and impactful on the international arena as well.”
Q: How are you planning to keep abreast with the ENVISION2030 Living Values Framework?
A: “Of course I am planning to keep abreast of ENVISION2030 Living Values Framework, and if I may, kudos to our visionary Vice-chancellor, executive management and all staff and students who had the vision to see strategically ahead and embark on a framework that not only speaks to DUT but on a more personal level to the very core of one’s belief and value system irrespective of race, religion or creed. I plan on taking just one value and adopting it for a specific period of time. Attempting to adopt a tangible strategy to ensure that I as a DUT academic staff member actually practice a living value: for instance, transparency: very often sometime academics would want to ‘hide’ and sometimes deceive students during assessments. Let’s test what we teach and teach what we test. I must ensure that I am accountable to my curriculum, my moderator (peers and faculty), and to my students.”
Q: What is the one thing that most people do not know about you?
A: “I enjoy listening to years if not centuries gone by of classical instrumental music. It brings about a serenity and sometimes tumultuous feelings of joy and calmness to me. The harmonious chords of Ravi Shankar, Mozart, and Beethoven are but a few.”
Q: In your opinion, how will the ENVISION2030 Living Values Framework benefit DUT?
A: “If each and every member of the DUT community strives to adopt just one value in their personal and professional life; DUT will become the preferred choice of higher education for graduating grade 12 pupils from KwaZulu-Natal and the rest of South Africa; not only that our reputation will permeate beyond the shores of South Africa and we will attract international students. Our student population will increase in both quantity and quality. This will translate into sought after graduates and the spiral will continue and continue ultimately in a DUT Ivy League higher education institution of choice.”
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: “I love to surf –not at the beach – I love surfing the internet – I find that there is just so much knowledge on the internet so many online courses that I could attend and/or so many articles that I could read.”
Q: How do you plan to make a positive impact at DUT?
A: “Simple: adopt and implement the ENVISION2030 Living Values Framework.”
Q: What is your daily motivation?
A: “My family (that includes my pets), my positive actions to attain spirituality and ultimate moksha (release from the cycle of rebirth impelled by the law of karma).”
Q: What are your future goals at DUT?
A: “I would love to see our brand new qualification BICT IoT flourish into a qualification that is sought after from both regional, national and international students.”
Q: If you were granted one wish, what would it be?
A: “I would love to switch on the news, surf the channels and/or internet and hear only good news stories of success, happiness, love and a joy to be alive.”
