Faculty of Education
Prof JD Jansen, Dean
Telephone number: 012 420 3513
Fax number: 012 420 4215
E-mail address: jonathan.jansen@up.ac.za
Preface by the Dean
In 2005 the Faculty of Education firmly established itself as the leading facility for educational research and scholarship in South Africa. First, published research outputs in scholarly journals increased yet again by a margin of 25% in one year (49 units) and by 76% (28 units) against the 2001 baseline. Second, a record number of scholarly books appeared, produced by both international and national publishing houses.
Third, a record income in external research funding from international sources was secured in partnership with institutions such as the Yale University on the psychological and educational dimensions of HIV/AIDS, funded by the National Institutes of Health in the United States of America (USA); the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy; and comparative studies of school integration, funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) and major international foundations.
Fourth, the number of competitive grants won by postgraduate students increased sharply, including prestigious awards from the organizations including Fulbright, the Harvard/South Africa Fellowship and the Skye Foundation—in the latter case, two doctoral students from the same department in successive years.
Fifth, leading academics in the Faculty won major research awards once again from national research and professional bodies including the National Science and Technology Forum, in which this Faculty is probably the only unit of any South African university which can claim to have won senior research awards in three successive years and in three different categories.
The establishment of such a highly productive research culture was achieved by recruiting some of the most talented young scholars in education from around the world, by investing major funds in the development of new academics, by focusing research support on four high priority areas, and by setting high and uncompromising standards for performance for every scholar in the Faculty of Education.
Singular highlights in this respect include the hosting of major international research conferences on the Groenkloof Campus, including the Africa-wide Distance Education Convention and the International Council on Education for Teaching, and the Annual Post-Graduate Research Indaba run entirely by our advanced students.
The platform has been laid for an even more ambitious research plan in the next few years including major collaborations with leading universities in China and Japan, serious new investments in grantmanship capacity within the Faculty, and fresh opportunities for hiring at least three senior scholars with formidable international reputations in the education field.
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