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Welcome to the Centre for Higher Education Development

CHED contribute to UCT’s core business through professional services, such as educational technology, research, data analytics, teaching and learning, career advice, graduate recruitment.

Teaching and Learning Report

2022 saw the full return to contact teaching across the faculties for the first time since the deep disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.

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CHED functions as a faculty, with five departments in addition to the Dean's Office: Academic Development Programme, Careers Service, Centre for Educational Assessment, Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, and d-school Afrika.

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CHED can help you decide what to study

Are you thinking of studying at UCT, but you aren’t sure what to study? This video will help you to consider your options, as well as understand the application and admissions requirements.

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Why CHED at UCT?

What is CHED?

CHED’s mission is to promote equity of access, effectiveness of teaching and learning, and the enhancement of curriculum, with the aim of improving student success and developing UCT graduates who are locally relevant, socially responsive, globally competitive and representative of South Africa’s diverse population. Headed by the Dean of Higher Education Development, CHED’s organisational structure consists of a Dean’s Office and five departments:
• Academic Development Programme
• Careers Service
• Centre for Educational Assessment
• Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching
• Hasso Plattner School of Design Thinking Afrika

CHED’s Vision

CHED aspires to be a significant contributor to innovative educational development, practice and scholarship in teaching and learning, in order to champion and advance social justice and transformation within CHED, UCT, the higher education sector and the broader society.

CHED’s Values

CHED’s values reflect an aspiration to put students at the centre of all that we do, realised through the foundational principles of transformation and collaboration. Key values are:
• A commitment to social justice and transformation;
• Students as influential agents of change and one of UCT’s greatest assets;
• Educational development work informed by research based on ethical principles;
• Partnership with faculties to achieve common goals of access and success

CHED advances educational development by partnering with staff and students to enhance pedagogical, curriculum and assessment practice through innovation, scholarship, and research. In the last two years, CHED’s mandate was put to the test but it has risen to the challenge. Through a multifaceted approach across its departments and units (higher education research, academic and professional staff development, student success pathways and support, curriculum design and change, language and numeracy literacies, digitally enabled education, design-thinking, careers support, and educational assessment), CHED, and in particular CILT, has led UCT in the transition to online and now hybrid modes of teaching and learning.

Associate Professor Kasturi Behari-Leak Dean of Centre for Higher Education Development