Dear UP alumnus,

I trust you are staying strong during these extraordinary times. I know we are all experiencing anxiety because of the extended impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. I hope we all try as best as we can to draw resilience from family, friends and peers while at the same time providing support wherever we can.

Since the government's announcement that South Africa would move to alert level 3 of the national COVID-19 lockdown in June, some of our students and staff have started to return to the University’s different campuses, but teaching and learning and coursework programmes remain online for this semester.

Under alert level 3, we are also making provisions for some students who cannot access online learning to be given permission to return to campus. This is because in some rural areas there is no mobile network coverage, making it impossible for these students to learn online. To further help our students, we worked with mobile network operators to have our UP Connect online-learning platform made free of data costs. To date, we have also delivered over 3 000 laptops to students in need, ensuring that no student is left behind.

The pandemic has forced us all to be critical thinkers and find solutions to the challenges we face. It is not only a disease crisis, it is a crisis of society, the economy, sustainability and well-being, as well as governance on the continent and globally. It is a big wake-up call to think and do things differently, and the future is wide open for South Africa, with our universities playing an essential role in co-creating the continent we want post COVID-19.  

We need to leverage this period and respond with creative, innovative research and strategies to address the complex issues that the pandemic has exposed. Our medical students are supporting healthcare workers in hospitals and taking care of patients. They are also playing a key role in assisting researchers in their search for a vaccine. Other students are developing and studying mathematical models to determine COVID-19 infection peaks and outbreak trends. We have students creating and manufacturing protective gear, and developing and leveraging innovative technology to assist with the tracking, tracing and treating of infected patients. All this while others continue with their volunteer work, supporting disadvantaged communities where the pandemic has severely impacted people’s lives.

We are also researching how people and society react in a pandemic, because if we don’t understand people’s behaviour, we cannot optimally manage disease outbreaks. We achieved this in certain sectors during this pandemic. For example, our Faculty of Health Sciences quickly incorporated COVID-19 into its primary healthcare programme. This is how we will need to respond in the future – with readiness and rapid responses focused on multisectoral interventions and multi- and transdisciplinary research.

A recent survey conducted among UP staff and students shows that the vast majority of lecturers and students at the institution managed to move relatively seamlessly into remote (online) teaching and learning mode. UP’s existing hybrid flipped-learning model continues to work successfully, even when the face-to-face teaching component cannot take place and all learning has to happen remotely.

I am proud to announce that the University of Pretoria is the first university in Africa to host and deliver events on LinkedIn Live. The LeadUP Online Alumni Events are a series of virtual topical debates and masterclasses initiated by the Alumni Relations Office and hosted on UP’s LinkedIn page. Through these online events we aim to demonstrate our skills and knowledge, while also creating a space for dialogue and engagement on various critical issues affecting us all, such as the economy and food security.

Lastly, I would like to encourage you to continue supporting our students by making a donation to the UP Solidarity Fund. To donate in your personal capacity, click here and use “Solidarity Fund” as your reference. We appreciate all the support we have received during these challenging times.

For regular updates and information, please visit our website www.up.ac.za or follow us on UP’s official social media platforms for updates and more information.

Stay safe.

Warm regards,

Prof Tawana Kupe

Vice-Chancellor and Principal