Prof Emmanuel Mgqwashu
Director, Centre for Higher Education Professional Development (CHEPD)
Curriculum Vitae
emmanuel.mgqwashu@nwu.ac.za
ABOUT THE CENTRE
A hearty welcome to the Centre for Higher Education Professional Development (CHEPD). This Centre is established in response to various national policies that have called for higher education institutions to address the quality of university teaching. For example, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and the Council for Higher Education’s (CHE) framework, Enhancing Academics as University Teachers, has at its core the improvement of the quality of university teaching. The primary aim of this framework is to promote the professional development and recognition of academics as university teachers through inter alia, more consistent and equitable access to professional development opportunities. There are indications, furthermore, that future development in higher education may require of discipline experts to be formally capacitated with relevant pedagogies, with a probable outcome of a qualification for university teachers as a prerequisite for appointment and/or promotion. It is in this context that the CHEPD is set up to offer academics across all post-school formal education institutions an opportunity to receive formal and structured professional qualifications for teaching at tertiary level. The qualifications draw from latest, cutting-edge scholarship in the higher education studies field. In collaboration with the North-West University’s (NWU) Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL), the CHEPD provides leadership, expertise, support and resources for the offering of formal and structured academic programmes and professional development opportunities to capacitate academic staff as tertiary education teachers. This aligns also to the NWU Teaching-Learning Strategy in which the professional development of academic staff is a key focus. The CHEPD thus aims to:
- oversee and manage the development and offering of formal and structured academic professional development qualifications and programmes to professionalise post-school educators as tertiary education teachers;
- promote knowledge production and knowledge sharing;
- establish and build on current networks of higher education expertise at faculty, institutional, national and international levels;
- utilise expertise in higher education across faculties and the CTL to fulfil its mandate to enhance post-school educators as tertiary education teachers;
- to develop a range of credit bearing short learning programmes (SLPs) that may articulate to a PGDip in Higher Education (HE); and,
- to develop related higher education programmes that form part of the programme planning of the Centre.
Once again, a hearty welcome to all future participants. We are ready to offer you high level, quality academic input, a professional and respectful treatment, with dignity and ethic of care.