SEAmester – South Africa’s first class afloat

• DOI: 10.17159/sajs.2016/a0171
• Publication Date: 2016-09-23T08:22:12Z
• Authors: Isabelle J. Ansorge; Geoff Brundrit; Jean Brundrit; Rosemary Dorrington; Sarah Fawcett; David Gammon; Tahlia Henry; Juliet Hermes; Beate Hölscher; Jethan D’Hotman; Ian Meiklejohn; Tammy Morris; Izidine Pinto; Marcel Du Plessis; Raymond Roman; Clinton Saunders; Fannie W. Shabangu; Marc De Vos; David R. Walker; Gavin Louw
• Keywords: H1-99; 020; National Development Plan; Science (General); Science; 4. Education; teaching and research platform; Q; Social Sciences; SA Agulhas II; Social sciences (General); Young researchers; Q1-390; H; Marine science; South African postgraduates; postgraduates; marine science; 14. Life underwater; Department of Science and Technology?s (DST?s)

The Department of Science and Technology's (DST's) 10-year Global Change Grand Challenge programme requires platforms to 'attract young researchers to the region and retain them by exciting their interest in aspects of global change; while developing their capacity and professional skills in the relevant fields of investigation'. In addition, in July 2014, President Zuma officially launched Operation Phakisa and announced that a key target of this Oceans Economy initiative would be 'for the Department of Higher Education and Training to drive alignment between theoretical and workplace learning'. SEAmester - South Africa's recently established Class Afloat - achieves just that. SEAmester introduces marine science as an applied and cross-disciplinary field to students who have shown an affinity for core science disciplines. It identifies with government's National Development Plan on education, training and innovation - critical to South Africa's long-term development and investment in this sector. SEAmester has a long-term vision aimed at building capacity within the marine sciences by coordinating and fostering cross-disciplinary research projects and achieving this goal through a highly innovative programme. The strength of SEAmester is that postgraduate students combine theoretical classroom learning with the application of this knowledge through ship-based, and more importantly, hands-on research. The state-of-the-art research vessel, SA Agulhas II, provides an ideal teaching and research platform for this programme; its size, comfort and shipboard facilities allow large groups of students and lecturers to productively interact over a period of 10 days.