Institutional Support

The Creating the Leading-Edge Programme (CLE) has been developed by and for the universities in the Western Cape and is presented under the auspices of the Cape Higher Education Consortium (CHEC). The programme is designed to meet the management capacity development needs of academic and administrative middle managers and to create effective networks of key managers in the Western Cape. The programme is specifically designed for academic heads of departments, heads of research entities, and support/professional staff managers. Typically, the selected candidate will have at least a post graduate qualification and more than five years work experience as a new or existing manager in their positions. However, universities are free to select any participant that they believe will benefit from the course.

The CLE is endorsed by Universities South Arica for its relevance and responsiveness to developing and supporting the leadership and management knowledge and skills required, for greater efficiency and effectiveness in the systems, processes, people and technology requirements of our universities.

The purpose of the CLE is: “To build and develop human capacity to create a thriving and supportive HE workspace.”

The core courses constitute a comprehensive middle management development programme based on the essential competencies that all leaders and managers need. It is highly recommended that participants register for the full CLE Programme to achieve maximum benefit.

CHEC is proud to offer a new programme designed for deans and senior or executive directors. The Programme is designed to meet the strategic needs of senior and executive management in HEIs in the Western Cape. The Programme is designed for deans, deputy deans and senior or executive directors appointed to executive positions in HEIs.

The value of the CEE lies in the development of strategic leadership who values transformation, communication and performance engagement. To this, the Programme follows a framework for human-centric leadership in turbulent times. CEE Programme is for you if you are in a leading and executive position where strategic decisions must be made, and you are required to be the change agent taking on different leadership roles and responsibilities that require of you a deep sense of self understanding before being able to manage and lead people that report to you.

The purpose of the CEE is: “To engage in strategic leadership through people management in HE.

CHEC has decided to launch a webinar series for the four universities in the Western Cape on critical issues and discourses in SA HEIs. We recognize that the academic landscape has become increasingly complex and that answers need to be found for problems that previously did not exist. In this way, the CHEC webinar series will provide our regional universities with an opportunity to share ideas and contribute to regional higher education innovation by discussing our strategies and lessons learnt through our business continuity, risk, and other applications.

Whilst the 2021 webinars focused mostly on HE in a time of COVID, the 2020 series will deal with critical issues in relation to the complexity of HE in all its aspects. How do we even formulate questions about how we operate within the emerging challenges? How do we respond to the human impact on our staff and students? But we should also ask another set of questions about the purpose of higher education, its role in societal development, and our established higher education models. Has the pandemic accelerated the pace of potentially beneficial change, and what are the broad advancements that we should be aware of and, should take forward?

We therefore invite you to attend our CHEC Critical Conversation series of 2022. You are welcome to provide us with topical issues or suggest speakers for these events.