The University of Mpumalanga (UMP) was established in August 2013 as one of two new post-independence (1994) universities in South Africa. UMP is a comprehensive university offering undergraduate to postgraduate programmes. In 2015, UMP began implementing its first 7-year strategic plan (2015 – 2022) as a guide to its strategic focus areas.
The strategic plan focussed on eight core areas namely: Governance and Strategic Leadership and Management, Teaching and Learning, Research and Knowledge Generation, Planning and Institutional Support, Quality Student Experience, Engagement and Partnerships, Finance and Human Resources.
The University has also increased the number of researchers.
Key findings
The University undertook an evaluation study to assess the impact of its 2015-2022 strategic plan. Amongst some the key findings are as follows:
- Based on the annual performance indicators, the Governance, Strategic Leadership and Management goals and objectives were achieved year on year, with scores of 100% in five out of the six years that were assessed. In the other year, 91% of defined activities were achieved under this strategic focus.
- The university saw rapid growth on all academic indicators. The number of academic programmes (qualifications) on offer increased from three in 2014, nine in 2016, to 48 in 2022. The number of students enrolled from 169 in 2014, 1 262 in 2016 to 7 100 in 2022, and the number of students graduating from 203 in 2015 to 1 113 graduates in 2021.
- The number of academic staff also increased from 13, three (23%) of whom had PhD qualifications in 2014 to 160 of whom 73 (48%) were PhD holders in 2021. The university compares favourably with other universities in terms of the percentage of staff with PhDs, it is 2 percentage points from achieving the 50% target as defined in the Medium Strategic Framework (2015 – 2019) by Government.
- The university is competitive in terms of number of publications per academic staff member, averaging 0.62 against an average target of 0.55 units over the seven years.
- The university was able to complete its academic year in 2020 and 2021 despite the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and the associated lockdowns. The ICT infrastructure of the university enabled the institution to have few interruptions during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak.
- The university is doing extremely well in the ENACTUS competitions, a national community innovation programme, winning close to 20 trophies between 2017 and 2021, among other achievements.
- The university had clean audits over the six-year period, 2016 to 2021.
To access the full version of the report, go to: www.ump.ac.za
@ Story by UMP Communications Division.