Prof Rika Joubert, executive manager of the inter-university Centre for Education Law and Policy, obtained a contract with the North West Department of Education, through CE@UP, to train all the high school principals in the province in School Law. These training sessions are taking place in 20 different towns in the province, with each session lasting two days. Dr Jean van Rooyen and Prof Johan Beckmann are assisting her with the facilitation of the training sessions, which are running from 14 January to 28 February 2013.

The Department of Education Management and Policy Studies was also honoured to host Dr Ina Ter-Avest and Prof Cok Bak, both from the University of Utrecht, as well as Prof Siebren Miedema of the Vrije University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands during the final months of 2012. During the visit a possible collaborative project on life orientation of adolescents was planned in collaboration with Dr Marilyn Naidoo of Unisa.

Meanwhile, Prof Jan Nieuwenhuis, Prof Chika Sehoole and Prof Venitha Pillay have seen their articles being published recently, while numerous conferences were attended by staff members at the end of 2012. A number of staff members of the Department were also involved in workshops and training seminars at the end of 2012 and the start of 2013. Dr Sharon Mampane trained facilitators and trainers for the project Capacity Enhancement of the Ugandan Management Institute (UMI) during December 2012, while Prof Venitha Pillay visited the University of Dar es Salaam from 10 to 11 January 2013 to conduct a two-day workshop on qualitative research with master’s and doctoral students.