UCT Plus, run by UCT Careers Service, is a leadership award programme that formally recognises students’ extracurricular work on their transcripts. The programme has various pathways, and students who are in elected positions, peer mentors, residence tutors and community service volunteers are eligible for formal recognition. Leadership teams of student organisations or programmes that are eligible to take part in UCT Plus 2024 should join their eligible members by 30 April 2024.

1. What extra-curricular activities or roles are considered eligible for UCT Plus Awards?

  • Community outreach volunteers for UCT student organisations such as SHAWCO, Ubunye, We Are Animals, Engineers without Borders and Habitat for Humanity are eligible for the Community Service Leadership Pathway. Please note this is not a complete list of organisations, check with the organisation where you plan to volunteer on whether they are UCT Plus aligned.
  • Students in elected leadership roles such as Faculty Student Council, House Committee, Student Parliament Management Committee; Development Agency Steering Committees e.g. SHAWCO, RAG, UBUNYE, GCI, UCT Radio and Varsity Newspaper; UCT Society Executive members and Sports Code Executive Committee members are eligible for the Elected Leadership Pathway. Sub-committee members are not eligible.
  • Students in role-modelling positions such as residence mentors and tutors, faculty mentors and ACES peer educators are eligible for the Role-modelling Pathway. Students in paid roles, for example faculty tutors, are not eligible.
  • Current UCT students who complete the dschool Foundation Programme in Design Thinking and accumulate enough hours (minimum of 35) in the process are eligible for the Active Learning Pathway.

2. Can I carry activities over from last year or previous years to be recognised for UCT Plus?

No, participants have to log all the activities in the year in which they are active in their role. As a result, participants can only be recognised for the activities for the current year in which they are registered for the programme and cannot be awarded retrospectively. You can also not receive an award if you are not a registered student for the relevant year.

3. What if I participate in more than one of the eligible activities, can activities from different roles and pathways contribute towards one award?

If your activities fall in different leadership pathways (see point 1), you will be registered for more than one pathway and can achieve more than one award in a year. If activities fall in the same pathway, you will choose the activity with the highest amount of accumulated hours at the end of your term. Hours logged for one activity (for example House Committee) cannot be added to another activity (for example Chair of the Ballroom Society) and hours logged in one pathway cannot be added to another pathway in order to qualify for the award. For example, 20 hours in a role on the Leadership through elected positions of responsibility pathway cannot be added to 40 hours on the Leadership through role-modelling within the UCT community pathway, in order to fulfil the hourly requirement of an award. Registering for two pathways will be registering as two distinct pathways and on successful completion, two separate awards.

4. What is needed to achieve an award?

You need to accumulate a minimum of 35 hours in your role to qualify for a bronze award. The requirements for a silver award is 45 hours and 60 hours for a gold award. A further requirement is the completion of an online, interactive reflection activity called the Power Pitch where we assess your awareness of the skills, values, knowledge and leadership growth you developed in your role. Students who accumulated a minimum of 35 hours will be given access to this reflection activity between August and October, depending on the role you are in. 

5. How do I sign up?

Organisations sign up members, track, verify and submit their hours to UCT Plus. You do not sign up as an individual participant. As one of the programme requirements is that your hours need to be verified, it is important that the leadership team of your organisation is on board. Deadline for teams to register is 30 April 2024.

The following people act as UCT Plus Administrators for their organisations:

  • Secretary and/or Chairperson of elected leadership team
  •  Head mentors/tutors or faculty mentor programme coordinators
  • Volunteer coordinators
  • Programme coordinator                 

For more information email the UCT Plus team at uctplus@uct.ac.za.