01/10/2025
Today at UCT we open a three-day gathering on Students as Partners 🎓✨
As part of the Designing for Social Justice Partnerships Programme, an inter-institutional UCDG Collab project by Cape Peninsula University of Technology, University of the Western Cape and UCT, today kicked-off with a one-day Partner Colloquium, and will be followed by the Global Students as Partners Roundtable on 2 & 3 October.
The programme builds on over a decade of collaboration sparked by the 2015–2016 student protests, centring student voice, co-creation, and socially just learning design in higher education.
Opening the colloquium, UCT’s DVC for Teaching & Learning, Prof Brandon Collier-Reed reminded us:
“We are here because of a shared commitment that began a decade ago, when our sector was called to reimagine higher education. That call gave rise to a movement, a movement that placed student voice and co-creation at the heart of teaching and learning.”
He emphasised that the programme is more than a project, that it affirms that students are not just recipients of knowledge, but co-creators, co-researchers, and partners in shaping the future of higher education.
Over the next three days, student–staff partner teams and global colleagues will reflect, share, and imagine new models for inclusive, equitable, and contextually relevant higher education.