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VISION

To be the Premier University of African Scholarship.

A truly South African university that is academically excellent, innovative in research, critically engaged with society and demographically representative, redressing the disadvantages, inequities and imbalances of the past.

UKZN aims to establish a value-driven organisational culture that empowers the Institution and its people to achieve institutional goals. The guiding values are Respect, Excellence, Accountability, Client Orientation, Honesty, and Trust represented as R.E.A.C.H.T The behaviour and actions of everyone at UKZN will, accordingly, demonstrate:

  • Respect: UKZN undertakes to promote mutual respect, courtesy, and inclusiveness.
  • Excellence: UKZN undertakes to display quality, leadership and energy in all that it does.
  • Accountability: UKZN promises to be responsible and accountable in the behaviour displayed towards all its stakeholders.
  • Client Orientation: UKZN undertakes to satisfy the needs of all its clients, stakeholders and partners, on a consistent basis.
  • Honesty: UKZN promises to deliver with integrity steadfastly and with adherence to good governance.
  • TrustT: The T symbol after reachtrefers to the principle of trust that underpins all of the other institutional values. The implicit trust enjoyed by every member of UKZN and their well-defined actions that embrace the R.E.A.C.H.T values, are the important ingredients of the moral fibre of the Institution.

The goals of the University are:

  1. African-led Globalisation:
    To promote African-led globalisation through African scholarship by positioning the University, through its teaching, learning, scholarship, research, and innovation, to enter the global knowledge system on it.
  2. Responsible Community Engagement:
    To contribute through knowledge to the prosperity and sustainability of our province, and to nation-building, by connecting with and committing ourselves to the communities we serve in a manner that adds value and earns their respect, admiration and trust.
  3. Pre-eminence in Research:
    To build a research ethos that acknowledges the responsibility of academic staff to nurture its postgraduate students, and to be a pre-eminent producer of new knowledge that is both local and global in context, and defines UKZN as the premier university of African scholarship.
  4. Excellence in Teaching and LearningTo promote excellence in teaching and learning through creative and innovative curriculum design and development, pedagogical strategies, and assessment
    practices in accordance with the highest quality management principles.
  5. Institution of Choice for Learners:
    To establish the University as an institution of choice that values students in all their diversity and has a student-centred ethos, providing students with curricula, teachers, infrastructure and support services designed around their needs and producing well-educated, competent, sought-after graduates.
  6. Institution of Choice for Staff:
    To establish the University as an institution of choice that attracts and retains academic and support staff of the highest calibre by creating an intellectual environment that fosters and stimulates academic life, and a climate of organisational citizenship in which all staff recognise and understand their role in ensuring the success of the University.
  7. Efficient and Effective Management:
    To establish and maintain efficient, effective management systems and processes that provide a caring and responsive service to meet internal and external needs in a pragmatic and flexible manner.