EDUVOS: An Education to Unlock Your Future

Eduvos has a long history in South Africa as a credible private Higher Education institute in South Africa. After many years in different shapes and forms the choice to settle on today’s moniker for the institution came as the result of a change of ownership, and a renewed focus on high-quality, blended learning across Africa.

A South African education is notoriously a prized commodity and highly-valued due to the strict quality assurance to which institutions such as Eduvos subscribe; its belonging to the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) and Accreditation by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) that ensures the international acceptance and recognition of Eduvos degrees. These are offered across the four future-facing faculties of Applied Science, Commerce and Law, Humanities, and Information Technology.

RECORD INTAKE        

“An education is one of the most important investments to raise socio-economic status and long-term earning potential of an individual,” Siegie Brownlee, CEO of Eduvos, opines. “It is also the gateway to having the skills to successfully create change, organise, and to operate across various industries.” Continuing to increase access to higher education is incredibly important for South Africa and its young population, comprising 22.2 million under the age of 19 currently with young Africans expected to make up 42% of the world’s youth by 2030.

“Private Higher Education Institutions have the growth capacity to help meet the demands of this expanding and changing population who will one day be the leaders of Africa,” Brownlee pronounces. Historically, Eduvos’ focus has been on the school-leavers market in tertiary education – but since Brownlee’s arrival in 2019 it has also taken an active interest in part-time adult-learning and corporate spaces.

“We are very mindful of the shortage of education providers in South Africa from a university perspective and we are very well-placed to help, but equally we are abundantly cognisant of the ever-changing nature of the external landscape, and as such people are continually looking to reinvent and upskill themselves, and as such we have branched out into these other areas.”

“This year, we are looking to enrol around 12,000 students in Eduvos, the majority of which are in the fresher market, however there are also close to 1,000 students who have enrolled for part-time studies, so this is a fast-growing market.” In its Block 1 intake for 2023 Eduvos was in fact left celebrating a record intake, enrolling a first-year cohort of almost 10,000 students, breaking last year’s previous best and sustaining growth of over 50% year-on-year since 2021.

“Our growth is a testament to our commitment to providing quality, affordable higher education to all students,” Brownlee assesses, “regardless of their background or circumstances. It is further indicative of our staff’s passion and commitment to our purpose of shaping potential, student by student, towards Africa’s prosperity. It gives us such joy to grow the talented, resilient, and wonderful youth we have in Africa.”  

Young South Africans continue to bear the burden of unemployment, according to the Democracy Development Program: only 30% of South African university graduates on average find employment after graduation, while in contrast, Eduvos prioritises employability, with its own dedicated Employability Centre having helped 62% of the class of 2021 finding employment or furthering their studies.

“At Eduvos we prioritise the employability of our students,” Brownlee beams. “We understand that Eduvos is only the first step in our students’ professional paths, and our academic staff comprises a combination of academics and industry professionals who know what it takes to succeed in the working world. We are dedicated to developing knowledgeable and skilled graduates.”

CAMPUS

Eduvos’ 12 campuses are longstanding and historic; the bigger of them naturally sit within metropolitan areas and major cities such as Cape Town and Gauteng, while smaller towns like Potchefstroom and Mbombela each also has its own. “Interestingly, what we tend to find is that almost all of our students come from a radius of about 150km surrounding the campus itself,” Brownlee reports. “Of course now with the new blended learning approach, which gained massive traction with Covid, we are able to accommodate people from much further afield as well, but our physical attendees are overwhelmingly local.

“Our country has become a destination for international students looking to expand their educational opportunities, and we continually welcome many students from across the continent annually.”

Eduvos started 2023 by being able to proudly announce, not only the growth of the Potchefstroom campus, but the official opening of a brand-new location for its Nelson Mandela Bay campus. Those arriving at 96 Second Avenue, Newton Park were greeted by the unmistakable ‘Edu-vibe’ and an excited team of Eduvos staff eager to showcase the new space. Brownlee was joined by NMB Campus General Manager Dr Tony Matchaba-Hove and Kevin Lazarus, Tyger Valley Campus General Manager, to conduct the ribbon-cutting ceremony this unique opportunity to upgrade and ensure the growth of higher education in the Eastern Cape. 

“Being in Nelson Mandela Bay, we find it apt to quote Nelson Mandela himself as he always spoke of education and the power education has to change the world,” effused an emotional Dr Matchaba-Hove. “That is why we are here, to shaping potential ,student by student , in our special and unique way.”

Another step in Eduvos’ enhancement of its offering is a pioneering move into the virtual reality and experiential learning side to enhance education. The introduction of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality technology will prepare Eduvos students for the ever-changing world and equip them with skills to navigate these new technologies and use them in the workforce. “We have signed a partnership with EON reality, a global organisation represented in over 100 countries around the world, and we are going to begin to utilise and embed its software in addition to learning from a virtual and experiential perspective into our already fully digital curriculum. It has been exhaustively proven that when somebody is immersed into the learning itself, this creates a very different and, ultimately, superior learning experience.”

Next up in Eduvos’ expansion plans is what Brownlee terms ‘cloud campuses’, smaller sites which provide a venue with facilities to be utilised, but not a fully-fledged campus itself. “With this venture we are trying to accommodate students who want the flexibility of a blended learning mode, but who may battle with data and a PC infrastructure, and as such the cloud campuses are able to cater for and help those students even more,” she explains, “This is a global phenomenon that we are seeing all over.”

The logical progression, according to Brownlee, is a move into Africa, not only through the distance learning or online mode, already continually broadening its reach, but also physically. “At the end of the day, we truly believe in making Africa a better place,” she says. “One of our founding directors always says: ‘Africa is just too rich to be poor’. The continent has so much of the world’s arable land, so many minerals, and 640 million people that need to be educated. For us, it is not just about providing an education; it is about changing lives, and we do it with a deep, innate passion to change the world through education and, more than anything, to change the African continent.