Page 70 - DUT Annual Report 2020

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DURBAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY ANNUAL REPORT 2020
Training in 2019, contains a series of commitments that will, amongst others, significantly improve staff to student ratios and increase the proportion of staff with Master’s and Doctoral degrees. We enhanced academic leadership in departments by appointing Heads of Departments, following more stringent criteria that we approved early in the year.
Teaching and learning are the central pillars from which the University draws its intellectual imagination, together with Research and Innovation in focused and targeted areas. Through engagements the outputs from these two sets of the University’s core business attributes should, in turn, result in outcomes and impacts in the broader society.
Curriculum renewal and revision (incorporating the introduction of General Education modules), concomitant academic staff development and the alignment and accreditation of programmes in accordance with the current HEQSF form the core of the transformative academic project. This project is also finding ways to enhance the influence of the industry advisory boards that serve all programmes offered at DUT.
In addition, Senate has worked tirelessly since 2016 to institute a DUT framework for decolonised curricula, leading to our programmes being reviewed to incorporate elements of decolonisation. To this end, an institutional position document has been produced with a set of criteria to assess all our curricula and has been approved by Senate. (For further information relating to the transformative curriculum approaches refer to the Senate Report to Council.)
The Research and Innovation focus has been on research and innovation projects and engagements that speak to the SDGs as a means of contributing to society in a real and impactful manner, as well as considerations on how to recognise the impact of research and innovation outputs.
Policies and Processes have been under the spotlight in 2020, as part of the enabling components to ensure that the fundamental order of things is in place at the University. The Language Policy development is being undertaken in conjunction with the Maurice Webb Race Relations Unit at the University of KZN; there are various components to the development of this policy, including a comprehensive literature review, a survey of students and focus group interviews with students and staff. Thereafter a ‘reference group’ meeting including specialists and language practitioners will be held, followed by semi-structured interviews with staff
and students. The draft is expected for consultation in January 2022.
HR policies must advance issues of transformation, legal compliance, and good practice. To rectify historical inadequacies, in 2019 the University embarked on a review of policies to address transformation and comply with the law. This is a laborious process that requires benchmarking with good practice and consultations with the wider DUT community for broad acceptance. During 2020 two workshops of the EMC focused on a suite of HR policies.
Council approved major changes to the Supply Chain Management Policy in 2017, and since then important transformative initiatives have occurred in relation to DUT’s procurement system. Most notably, the three procurement committees, namely the Bid Specifications Committee, Bid Evaluation Committee and Bid Adjudication Committee are now management-run committees.These assist in achieving the transformation initiatives of the University in respect of appointing service providers as well as ensuring that procurement processes are transparent, fair, equitable, competitive, derive value for money and are accountable. Council exercises oversight in approving the procurement plan for each year, receiving quarterly reports on the procurement processes, information about how much spend is attributable to SMMEs, exempt micro enterprises and qualifying small enterprises, and proposals and plans for large-scale infrastructure.
There have been amendments to the bid processes including, but not limited to, incorporation of the prequalifying criteria to ensure alignment with BBBEE stipulations, improvements in processes of submission of tender documentation, making these processes more transparent, ensuring that criteria for functionality/ quality of bids are more measurable and less subjective, and ensuring that tenders for student accommodation are run transparently and in accordance with the Supply Chain Management policy. Standard operating procedures will be developed to clarify, inter alia, the BBBEE considerations in relation to supporting SMMEs, the procurement of student accommodation, and community participation.
Over and above the policies, the Senate Rules sub- committee has undertaken a review of general and departmental rules to ensure that there is consistency of rules across departments, and a fair and balanced approach that protects both the academic integrity of the institution, as well as students’ welfare and progress.