UL law, social work courses get thumbs up
The University of Limpopo's (UL) Bachelor of Law programme, after refreshing of its contents, will continue to be delivered with a renewed focus.
POLOKWANE – It was announced recently that the Council of Higher Education (CHE), also accredited its undergraduate Social Work degree, which will be re-introduced with effect from January 2019. Earlier this year, rumours that UL does not admit new law students for the 2018 academic year, were refuted as being incorrect. T
This followed media reports last year that the law faculty was one of the law faculties of universities which might be closed down after a report was released by CHE in April last year on the standards and accreditation of law faculties nationally.
Read more: UL will admit law students in 2018
The UL law school comprises four departments:
• Jurisprudence, legal pluralism, criminal law and procedure.
• Mercantile and labour law.
• Private law.
• Public and environmental law.
At the undergraduate level, the school offers a four-year LLB programme as well as an LLB extended curriculum which takes five years to complete.
The Director of the council’s National Standards and Review unit, Olivia Mokgatle, last year said the council found various issues related to staffing, the curriculum, teaching and learning assessment at various affected universities which were not up to standard. These universities were requested in April last year to put measures in place to address the reasons, concerns, conditions and recommendations set out in the institutional review reports. An improvement plan with clear targets, resource allocations and milestones had to be submitted within six months of receipt of the review report.
Institutions were also required to report to the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) from time to time on progress made in respect of improvement to the programme to be evaluated.
In line with progress reports submitted by the institutions, the HEQC was to continue to revise and update its re-accreditation decision to reflect improvements made.
Should issues not be addressed, students would not be allowed to study law at the universities.
Mokgatle said some of the issues could be corrected over short and long timeframes and said it was basically a warning to the universities to get their house in order.
Concerns raised included:
• Inadequate teaching and learning resources.
• Few development opportunities for administrative staff.
• Lack of senior staff within the programme.
• Programme lacks formal structure.
• On-time graduation rate is low.
Prof Mahlo Mokgalong, UL Vice-Chancellor and Principal, said the regaining of the accreditation status was a welcome addition to the extensive suite of accredited programmes at the university and was exciting news.
“It is also a demonstration of our commitment to ensure our programmes remain responsive to society’s needs and address the changing labour market exigencies.”
UL Spokesperson, Mosela Selepe, added the university looks forward to receiving a new cohort of undergraduate students for enrollment in the social work programme in January and continue training aspirant legal professionals through a progressive, transformative and cutting edge curriculum.
