Central University of Technology

This section provides significant achievements in implementing the 2021 Annual Performance Plan towards the realisation of the university's Vision 2030 and the 2021 to 2025 Strategic Plan's seven strategic goals. The progress in this report focuses on students access with success, the academic project, staff development, research and innovation, including governance issues under each strategic goal aligned to the key performance indicators. In summary, the overall institutionalperformance as at 31 December 2021 in implementing the 2021 Annual Performance's (APP) 38 targets is 55% (21 out of 38 targets) achieved 100% and above. It should be noted that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, including student protests, led to adjustments in the 2021 Academic Calendar, resulting in delays in implementing some of the 2021 APP planned targets. For instance, thecommencement of the 2021 academic year on 06 April 2021 negatively impacted on the institutional performance for the 2021 academic year. However, the university Management remained committed in managing operations during thesedifficult times in order to contribute to the overall institutional success.

The activities of CUT for the year 2020 were guided by the university’s Vision 2020, as well as its Strategic Plan 2016–2020. To support this vision and the implementation of the Strategic Plan, the university compiled three strategic sets, which are outlined in the section below. These strategic sets define the interconnected dimensions of the university’s strategic development path towards the realisation of its vision and mission. Furthermore, to facilitate the achievement of the vision and the implementation of the Strategic Plan, five strategic goals were developed, namely:• institutional advancement;• teaching and learning;• research and innovation;• university life; and• ensuring financial sustainability.

The CUT managed to have a fairly smooth 2018 academic year, despite a few minor challenges, mainly due to problems related to NSFAS allowances and the 2018/19 SRC elections. These were resolved in an open and transparent manner. We have also ensured a stable staff workforce through constructive engagements and agreements on wage increases and other staff-related matters. The challengesrelated to the 2018/19 SRC elections were resolved in an open and transparent manner. The University is certainly on a rise, and more and more time and effort are spent at strategic level, including on building strategic partnerships and enhancing the financial sustainability of the university. The theme for 2018, Reimagining CUT: Embracing Servant Leadership, allowed the CUT community to embrace servant leadership, which enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organisations, and ultimately creates a more just and caring world. Furthermore, in 2018, we were steadfast in our focus to “reimagining the CUT as a transformational, transformative and entrepreneurial university and ‘model’ UoT in Africa, impacting on the socio-economic development of the Central region of South Africa and beyond”. This project is founded on our transformation drive and new institutionalism (change).Following feedback from the community, it was evident that they have noticed the renewed attempt to reimagining the CUT. We have all the elements to achieve this vision.

The university sector is operating in trying times, as universities struggle to remain financially viable. Of relevance in this regard, is the #Fees-Must-Fall campaign, which led the State President to appoint the Heher Commission to investigate the matter. The Heher Commission of Inquiry Report into the Possibility of Free Tertiary Education in South Africa was compiled by the Commission. The Report does not recommend the introduction of fee-free tertiary education, and made recommendations on a number of matters relating to the financing of higher education institutions. As indicated earlier, the State President’s response was an announcement of the implementation of a fee-free higher education system, to be implemented as of 2018, to be phased in over a five-year period. In the report it is highlighted that the uncertainty around universities’ tuition fees has been de-stabilising. Whilst awaiting the release of the Presidential Commission’s report by the State President of South Africa, the university sector in South Africawas under pressure. 

CUT had another successful year in 2016 as far as the academic project, human project, and partnerships and engagements were concerned. Institutional governance and proper management practices were very high on our agenda, in order to ensure that the academic project continues without fail and in an environment conducive to success. Towards this end, the University has assessedits structures and Council procedures and, where appropriate, aligned these to the relevant recommendations of the King III Report. Our goal was to work towards thedevelopment of an enhanced institutional culture and climate, where leadership at all levels of the University was developed, strengthened and highlighted as a strategic priority. During 2016, the University remained steadfast on its quest to monitor its performance on the implementation of the IOP, and the objectives that were set for 2016, were mostly achieved. The targets for enrolment and graduation rates were met, and the Transformation Plan was successfully rolled out across all operations of the University. 

From the strategic management perspective, according to our Strategic Plan, 2015 represented a midpoint in the timeline of implementation of our Vision 2020. This compelled us to revise our Strategic Plan: 2016 – 2020, so as to respond to the newchallenges our University and our region face, and, consequently, to infuse a number of new innovations that are required to meet these challenges. During the first phase of the implementation of Vision 2020 (2010 – 2013), the university focused on improving effectiveness and efficiency in its operations, thus ensuring fitness for purpose and building a strong and solid foundation. In doing so, we initiated a number of projects, aimed at re-imagining, unmaking, makingand remaking our University, so that it could become a first-rate university of the 21st century. As we commenced with the second phase (2014 – 2017) of our advancement as a university, our focus shifted to matters related to building a transformed, deliberative and value-driven university that not only focuses on inputs and processes, but also on more of the ultimate outcomes of our work, which should reverberate in the broader society. CUT is well poised to seize current and futureopportunities, and to increase our impact regionally, in broader South Africa and in the world.

The year 2014 marked the beginning of the second phase (2014-17) of the three phases of the implementation of our Vision 2020. This phase is about adding a solid and focused academic core to the foundations we have built so far. In order to move forward purposefully, we need to reflect on our achievements, especially those that relte to our academic project. Allow me to briefly mention some of the highlights in 2014. The first of these achievements was the broad-based curriculum transformation process, we introduced in 2010 and concluded in 2012, which we call STEPS (Strategic Transformation of Educational Programmes and Structures). As part of this programme, we reviewed our curricula to make them more demand-driven and user-oriented. The year 2014 witnessed the first fruits of our intensive labour in thefour new programmes that were introduced. With the STEPS project and many other curriculum development initiatives, the relevance, excellence and quality of our academic programme have improved appreciably.  CUT continues to invest in research development as one of its strategic priorities. In 2014, two research centres and research units were established.

This annual report provides an overview of the work conducted by the Central University of Technology, Free State (CUT) and all its divisions as part of theircontributions toward the realisation of Vision 2020, and also serves to provide further details of what was achieved thus far. The report also reflects on the achievements of the university, with special reference to the following strategic sets: Building a strong foundation, the academic projects of the university, and establishing partnerships for its advancement. Through the launch of our Vision 2020 last year, I am certain that our commitment to strategicpartnerships with government, business and industry, as well as with universities both in South Africa and abroad, laid a solid foundation upon which the socio-economic development of the Central region to be realized. To our government, business and industry partners, your commitment to our partnership is greatly appreciated. We look forward to 2014, which will bring with it new challenges and new hope.  For the purpose of this report, it is important to note that the period under review coincided with the roll-out of Vision 2020. It was a period of exciting growth and change for CUT, during which students and staff were encouraged to explore innovative ways of making the university a CUTabove the rest. We encouraged them to have faith in our constitutional democracy and, most importantly, to stay focused on teaching and learning to make CUT aninstitution that stands for honesty, integrity and determination.

Since the Strategic Transformation of Educational Programmes and Structures (STEPS) process was launched in February 2010, CUT has made considerable strides. In 2012, nine new, innovative, demand-driven and user-oriented academic programmes were approved by the Department ofHigher Education and Training. They will be introduced in 2014 and 2015. These programmes range from a theme-based BEd that focuses on the ultimate outcomes in practice; to a Design and Studio Art programme that systematically consolidates a number of previously disparate programmes in this field; to a Community Development Work programme that is a direct response to the burgeoning community services and skills to facilitate delivery thereof; to Science, Engineering and Technology(SET)-oriented programmes like health management, renewable energy technologies, hydrology and water management, and agricultural extension and management. As a spin-off from the STEPS process, CUT now has a new lean, flat and efficient academic structure, consisting of only deans and heads of departments, as opposed to the previous cumbersome structure that had four layers. On the issue of international partnerships, in 2012 CUT laid the foundation for Internationalisation at the University, in preparation for hosting the 17th Annual International Education Association of South Africa (IEASA) 2013 Conference, and the launching of theInternationalisation Strategy. 

This annual report serves to give an indicative account to our partners, including government, business and industry, of how the university has responded to its institutional mandate as bestowed upon management during the period under review. In reflecting on whether CUT, as an institute of higher learning, is moving in the right direction towards becoming an engaged university that focuses on social and technological innovation for the socio-economic development of the central region of South Africa, the report serves to answer the following critical question: To what extent has CUT achieved its institutional objective to transform into a newgeneration university? Although the intention of this report is not to review the year 2011, but rather to provide a strategic overview of our performance, it is important to stress that the assessment of the university’s performance and objectives takes an approach that combines key performance areas with our achievements. 

We have certainly made progress in enhancing our academic project, with 2010 seeing the appointment of six research professors as a means of investing in our research and innovation initiatives. Our students also did us proud in 2010 by managing to raise their overall success (or pass) rate from 72.4% in 2009 to 73.6% in 2010. Not only does the ratio of black to white students currently stand at 85:15, but we are pleased to report a narrowing in the gap between black and white students in terms of pass rate. Given the academic resources now available to us, a new integrated process of broader academic transformation is possible. Our Work-integrated Learning initiative has proven to be a worthy endeavour, and we will continue to negotiate work placements for our students and monitor their progress as a means of improving the employment rate of our graduates. I trust that this review has afforded a glimpse not only into the events of 2010, but also the progress that we as an institution are making towards fulfilling our Vision 2020 – by improving our infrastructure, enhancing our research and innovation capital, and promoting socio-economic development in the region. Our many accomplishments demonstrate CUT’s commitment to its vision and the crucial role it plays in the higher education arena, not only locally and regionally, but also on the national and international stage. I am certainly proud to be a part of that, and I know that we will continue in the same spirit and with the same sense ofcommitment in the years ahead. Together with our partners, we will continue to move from strength to ..

In short, our strategy consists of three strategic sets, namely building a strong foundation (internal values, relations and organisational design), enhancing the academic project, and establishing strategic partnerships and enterprises insupport of the first two strategic sets. Within these three sets are 14 institutional objectives and strategies that may vary from year to year. By design, my message therefore focuses on some highlights of the embedding process and resulting achievements, a number of which are addressed further in the report. Building a strong foundation has meant, amongst other things, that organisational redesign (otherwise known as restructuring) has been used to help us steer the institution to make it fit for the chosen purpose and strategies. Thesalary budget, for example, which took up far too much (72%) of the total tuition fee and subsidy amount in 2007, comprised only 63% of this amount in 2009 – a marked improvement. The savings that made this possible were achieved through a careful analysis of our functional efficiency as opposed to a task-oriented organisational design that tended to be unjustifiably labour intensive for aninstitution with limited resources due to size and capacity.

In the area of strategic partnerships, one of the major projects we pursued in 2008 involved securing the requisite support from the Department of Science andTechnology (DST), the Free State Provincial Government and various partners in business/industry for the establishment of a Regional Innovation will help to drivethe province’s innovation strategy and will become an interface between the academe and technology transfer on the one hand, and industrial and socio-economic development on the other. We are on course to get this centre off the ground in 2009. As was the case in 2007, the most challenging of all the tasks was that of cascading institutional restructuring down to middle management level, after the example setby the executive management restructuring process. The sheer volume of the positions and functions involved and the potential loss of productivity and skills due to attendant uncertainties made this task substantial and complex. Disagreements and legal challenges did not allow us to start this process during the fourth quarterof the year, as had been planned. All of the above notwithstanding, we plan to realise a saving of about 14% of the support services salary bill when the newpositions come into effect in 2009. Again, this will give us more room to reinvest these savings in the academe and other strategic priorities.