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The Faculty of Education Sciences sent an invitation in 2015 to both its staff and students to reinterpret a traditional symbol of education for a new, decidedly more multicultural, multilingual, inclusive and environmentally conscious South Africa,” says Prof Robert Balfour, dean of the faculty, who initiated the project.

 

He says the project was created to involve community members, adults as well as children and students as well as academics with a view to deliberately enabling interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary engagement in an educationally rich and creative opportunity.

 

Towering symbol of values

 

The result is the impressive elephant statue, a reimagining of the original small elephant statue of the former Potchefstroom Education College.

 

Robert says the education dimension involved the learning by students in interdisciplinary work. It was done by the arts and technology students who were responsible for the conceptualisation, design, engineering and creation of the structure, and through collaboration and cooperation between academics, children and adults from the community. “It was done with a strong service-learning dimension in relation to teacher education,” he explains.