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Overview

The Student Academic Life Cycle Administration (SALA) Department is centrally managed, but with a strong locally deployed presence:  Its strategic framework is to strive towards consistency, alignment and good service delivery, which is to be accomplished by providing effective academic administrative support to clients through the optimisation of processes and systems and the consistent and accountable application of policies and rules relevant to this environment (within the framework of the NWU’s strategic agenda and value statement).

SALA has been established as a result of the need to have an overarching department that acts as a driver to achieve the following goals:

  1. To provide for a cost-effective, single and aligned methodology implemented across all sites and modes of delivery to attract, recruit and admit students in accordance with the relevant admission, selection (where applicable) and placement criteria into undergraduate and postgraduate programmes contained on the NWU’s PQM.
  2. To provide for a single and aligned methodology implemented across all sites and modes of delivery to ensure an effective and efficient registration function with an ongoing view to automate as much as possible of this function.
  3. To provide for a single and aligned methodology implemented across all sites and modes of delivery to ensure an effective and efficient support in regard of programme and module choices.
  4. To sustain a student system that will allow optimal management of student records, and by means of which all relevant operational data can be utilised for business-intelligence purposes.
  5. To provide for an integrated, effective and efficient timetabling process catering for both class and examination timetables for all modes of delivery.
  6. To ensure effective and secure services for periods of assessment in the undergraduate, honours and postgraduate spheres for all modes of delivery.
  7. To ensure a secure and trustworthy certification process, among other things the finalisation of the graduate list, the arrangements and protocols in regard of graduation ceremonies, and the administering thereof towards an aligned look and feel across campuses and state-of-the-art services to verify the authenticity of qualifications.

SALA has aligned the student academic lifecycle administration processes of the NWU across all modes of delivery; as well as the internal processes with the demands of the external environment: It also includes:

  1. Compliance with existing, new and amended external regulatory directives with regard to the centralisation of both the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and Central Application Services (CAS) processes.
  2. The alignment of all student academic lifecycle administration processes across NWU campuses, with regard to both the contact and distance modes of delivery, and with regard to both undergraduate and postgraduate students:
  • Application
  • Admission
  • Registration
  • Class timetables
  • Examination timetables
  • Student records
  • Assessment administration
  • Certification
  • Student transcript services
  • Distribution of study material
  1. The provision of an effective and efficient student system and user systems management process.
  2. The effective management of contracts for learning-support centres within the provision of distance modes of delivery.