Changes to Course Delivery at UFCE
Those of you who have followed our happenings over the last several years will know that FCE and the University of FCE have been facing a number of changes. In this letter, I would like to share about this season of change that as well as some exciting changes that UFCE has on the horizon.
Disruption and relocation of our Koti ni Eden campus
In late 2016, we were shocked to discover that the preliminary work on a 450-million-US-dollar dam was beginning just a short distance downstream from UFCE’s campus in Masaiti, Zambia. As time went on, the dam’s engineers informed us that our entire campus and 95% of the farmland linked to our course in sustainable agriculture was affected by the dam’s waterline.
Since then the Zambian government has compensated us for our loss, but we immediately understood that the training at our university was going to be interrupted. We took the difficult decision to suspend enrolment in our accredited courses, though I want to emphasise that our Discipleship Mission Training (DMT) courses have continued without interruption at FCE’s other training centres in Zambia and elsewhere in southern Africa.
Early on in this process, our lecturers and the wider staff of FCE began to ask: “What next for our university?” We know from experience that God often speaks through the uncomfortable circumstances we encounter, both corporately and in our personal lives. This time has been no different. As we corporately quieted our hearts and trusted God to speak, we confidently heard a single message coming through. It is time for us to “move forward” into something new, something totally unexpected.
Throughout 2018 and 2019, we have gradually received more clarity and confidence on what this “something new” looks like.
Into the New
First off, some courses are continuing as normal. We are still enrolling students for our Sustainable Agriculture courses and our Bachelor of Education (Conversion) course.
However, our other education programmes will get a major overhaul. We will soon expand our Diploma in Primary Education course of study to two 4-year Bachelor of Education in Primary Education programmes: one specialising in Foundation phase, grades 0 to 3, and the other in Intermediate phase, grades 4 to 7. These two programmes will be offered via an online, school-based mode of training. Through this mode of training, we hope to bring the teacher students’ energy and talents into the context of actual schools. Meanwhile, the students’ host schools will ensure that students are able to access UFCE’s training material via an online learning platform that we are currently developing. In this way, the learning of yesterday can turn into real life practice in African classrooms today.
UFCE also plans to support these schools’ teachers to grow as effective disciples of Jesus Christ through a specially designed presentation of our DMT course. Then these teachers can become part of the character development and mentoring process for which our training has always been known.
From 2020, we at UFCE will invest all our efforts and resources into designing and developing the modes of training. During this time we will also apply for the registering of the new campuses and the accreditation of the new teacher training programmes. We project that our courses will again accept enrolments in either January of 2021 or 2022. To ensure you receive future announcements, subscribe to FCE’s newletter and prayer calendar at fce.org.za via the Subscribe button near the bottom of the page.
Thank you for your interest in UFCE’s training. We appreciate your prayer for us as we design and develop our new modes of training.
God bless,
Dr Piet du Toit
Principal