Potchefstroom Campus welcomes first-year students

POTCHEFSTROOM – Approximately 38 per cent of the first-year students who arrived on the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU) on Saturday 19 January boast an average of 75 per cent or higher.

This is an indication that the quality of students from the NWU Potchefstroom Campus improves every year, which contributes to the fact that the NWU now has one of the highest undergraduate pass rates of all the universities in the country. This is also in line with the government’s insistence on an improved throughput rate in the tertiary education sector.

In her welcoming address, the Campus Rector Prof Annette Combrink, told approximately 3 200 newcomers and their parents that the Potchefstroom Campus has once again exceeded its target for the year with the higher number of accepted students, who will mainly follow studies in strategically important subject fields such as pharmacy, mathematics, health sciences and engineering.

“The maintenance and development of the quality of teaching are taken seriously with regular international audits of research groups and assessments by the professional councils,” says Prof Combrink.

According to her, it is the NWU’s primary task to transform students into thinking, problem-solving and focused human beings to ultimately prepare them properly for their eventual professions.

Dr Theuns Eloff, the Vice-Chancellor of the NWU, said that he was proud to say after three years the NWU merger was indeed very successful. The strategy of a balance between the diversity of the campuses within the unity of the University, and the balance between effectiveness and experience and the preservation of stability, ensures that the NWU’s core business, teaching and research, can go forward.

According to Dr Eloff the NWU is at present the sixth largest university in the country, with approximately 52 000 students enrolled at all three campuses, of which 24 000 students are distance learning students. He says that the NWU intends to register about 5 000 students at the three campuses this year.

On Saturday, the Potchefstroom Campus of the NWU welcomed approximately 3 200 first-years and their parents. Among the newcomers are the twins of renowned filmmaker and comedian, Leon Schuster. From left are Dr Theuns Eloff (Vice-Chancellor of the NWU), Prof Annette Combrink (Campus Rector), Shelley, her mother Lalie, Leon, Ernest and Mr Willem Pienaar (Director: Academic Administration). Shelley plans to study Communication Studies, and Ernest is going to take on BCom Entrepreneurship.

The winner of the ATKV’s public-speaking competition (seniors, Afrikaans second language) and deputy head boy of Hoërskool Waterkloof, Piet Matipa, has enrolled for BA Communication Studies at the NWU. Here he is in conversation with the Campus Rector, Prof Annette Combrink, and the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Theuns Eloff, shortly after the welcoming ceremony.