Inspire students to excel, says Vice-Chancellor

Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Njabulo S Ndebele, has called on the academic fraternity to demonstrate more flexibility, patience, creativity and understanding as they assist their students through the demanding learning landscape.

Ndebele was addressing about 20 academics on the New Academic Practitioners Programme (NAPP) at a special cocktail event hosted on 19 March.

NAPP, now in its fourth year, is a year-long orientation programme for newly appointed academics, with particular emphasis on teaching and research development.

Ndebele added that the role of teaching had become more challenging with the increasing diversity of students, and said the most successful teachers were those who inspired their students to excel.

But there's another side to academia '“ research. UCT, Ndebele emphasised, boasts the highest number of rated researchers in the country.

"This augurs well for the future of scholarship at UCT, considering that many of these academics are young, up-and-coming scholars."