In a virtual ceremony held on Friday, 25 June 2021, our Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Andrew Crouch, signed an Education Transformation Agreement with Microsoft.
Sol Plaatje University is the first higher education institution in Southern Africa to partner with Microsoft on their Education Transformation Framework, which will provide a modern and simple transformation vessel to house all the University’s digital transformation efforts.
We seek to become a digitally enabled and digitally empowered university by 2024, by using digital technologies to enhance our teaching and learning, research, community engagement and institutional management. This means that we must make strategic choices about our systems, people, and partnerships so that there is alignment with our goals.
The impact of COVID-19 meant that we had to accelerate our move into the digital sphere to provide online teaching and learning within a short space of time. We are fortunate that the University community embraced this change because it means that the groundwork has been laid to fast-track us into becoming digitally empowered. During the signing ceremony Professor Crouch said: “We cannot do this alone. We need partners who will support this strategic objective and who will walk alongside us on this journey. We need to leverage partnerships that will help us to keep up with the rate of technological change that will often outpace our own skillsets at the University.
We need to attract and engage prospective students; monitor our students from enrolment through to graduation and remain in touch with our alumni. We must enable flexible learning on scalable, secure and easily accessible platforms and foster learning communities that actively engage students in the learning process for better student outcomes. It is imperative that we keep our students and staff safe while also ensuring our operational efficiency so we must look at integrating the necessary systems for data driven decision-making. We must empower our academics with the computing skills and technology that will support them to produce their research.
It is therefore prescient that we have been invited to become part of the Microsoft Education Transformation Framework since the framework is premised under the four key pillars of student success, teaching and learning, secure and connected campuses, and research; our digital projects and initiatives will find a natural home under each of these pillars.
We are ready to do remarkable things with Microsoft by bringing technological advancements and enhancements within reach of our students, staff and alumni.”
