Community Engagement and Sustainable Development @ the Vaal University of Technology (VUT)
Community Engagement has been adopted by the Vaal University of Technology as a Faculty Flagship Project under the custodianship of the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Higher Degrees. This is subsequent to a policy promulgation through the White Paper for Higher Education and Training 1997 (3)
VUT has embarked on this initiative through embedding the scholarship of engagement through which relations amongst scholars, academics and communities are fostered through reciprocal and mutual learning for the benefit of social humanity. This is an add on to a philanthropic and outreach model towards mutually crafting developmental solutions as academics, scholars and communities from a perspective of equality in terms of bearers and custodians of knowledge. Most noteworthy, whilst there are benefits for communities which will ideally be sustainable, there will be positive spin offs for the university especially in terms of research outputs and workplace readiness for VUT scholars. In a nutshell, this is benevolent approach weaved into scholarship embeddedness.
A multidisciplinary collaborative initiative between academic staff from VUT’s Human Resources Management (HRM) department lead by Prof. C Marais and Dr. K du Bruyn (Gold Fields Library) joined forces in 2022, culminating in a well-resourced adult literacy facility available to all residents. This project supports lifelong learning while it is also aligned with the United Nations’ global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).