Future outlook for the NWU

In setting out to navigate the challenges that lie ahead for the higher education sector generally and the NWU in particular, it will be critical for us to focus unrelentingly on clearly defined priorities and to use our resources wisely to realise these.

Our priorities are:

Impact – Realising academic and social impact through innovative and forward-looking approaches and programmes.

Growth – Growing the scope, quality, reach and relevance of our products and offerings, and increasing the number of postgraduate students.

Diversity – Embracing the diversity of NWU stakeholders through inclusive practices.

Partnerships – Delivery through value-adding partnerships.

Internationalisation – Growing the NWU’s international profile through collaborations with international counterparts at various levels.

Operational excellence – Continuously enabling strategy execution through excellent operations.

Excellent, student-centric learning and teaching that is relevant to our market and knowledge generation is central to our core business. We intend to increase international engagement on open, distance, online and flexible learning, support the digital transformation of teaching and learning and strengthen multilingualism.

Our research and innovation will focus strategically on global impact, nurturing the next generation of researchers and improving our international stature and the visibility of scholars and research outputs.

We will continue to integrate and align community engagement with teaching-learning and research.

In the medium term, we will proceed with the establishment of a medical school and further explore the growth of sustainable mining.

In summary

In 2023, a year of reaching for greatness beyond boundaries, we continued positioning the NWU as an institution of superior academic excellence with a commitment to social justice. This, along with an increased focus on impact and relevance, will remain our anchor as we implement the new strategy, Taking the NWU forward – 2024 and beyond.

We harnessed new technologies to improve our processes and value proposition and look forward to implementing the Student Information System in the coming year.

Conducting novel research and sharing knowledge to benefit society has enabled us to continue attracting high-quality researchers and postgraduate students, while offering even greater value to the communities we serve.

During 2023, we strengthened our intellectual and collaborative networks, nationally and internationally, and sent a new generation of NWU graduates out into the world to make a difference.

We are optimistic about the future, while acknowledging that higher education funding and water, energy and waste management are critical areas of concern.