Graduates

Kobus Roux (South Africa) enrolled in 2015, as part of the 4th intake, on the M.A. Olympic Studies programme and successfully completed the qualification in 2018. Since it was an initiative to establish an Olympic Studies Centre at the University of Johannesburg (UJOSC), it was decided to build capacity among staff and thus to rather obtain a formal qualification in Olympic Studies and then to develop and teach programmes on Olympic Studies in South Africa (SA) and perhaps abroad. His experience in and passion for Physical Education (PE), sport and the Youth of SA added positively towards his decision to embark on this venture. He however expressed the visits to the different countries, intercultural interaction and relationship development as his highlights during this study period.

Kobus is currently an Associate Professor and the Head of Department of the Sport and Movement Studies Department in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Johannesburg (UJ), SA. He is also the Deputy Director of the UJOSC that was established in 2015. This Centre is the first on the African Continent and with the collaboration and support from the German Sport University (GSU) of Cologne, as consultants, various national and international initiatives and activities were conducted, and international colleagues were hosted by him and his colleagues at UJ.

He obtained various academic and professional qualifications from various Universities. All qualifications refer to Sport and Movement Education. He reinstated the training of PE Teachers at UJ and also developed a keen research interest in Adventure Education, Physical Education, Values Education and Adapted Sport and Physical Activity for People with Disabilities. Kobus has published widely and presented his research findings at various national and international conferences.

As part of his Master thesis entitled ´Ernst Jokl (1907-1997) and his contributions to Physical Education in South Africa´, he had the opportunity to work on the archive material and collections in the GSU Cologne. He also interviewed (now the late) 97 year old Prof. Isabel Nel who was a student of Jokl as well as a colleague of his at the University of Stellenbosch, SA, where he introduced the first degree in Physical Education in 1936.

A current interest and drive of Kobus is:

1.        To assist with the renovation and completion of the UJSC own venue before the end of 2019.

2.       To infuse Olympic Values, Olympism and late Nelson Mandela’s life philosophy through ‘Ubuntu’ into the PE school curriculum

He concluded: “May I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all the lecturers for the great work and for sharing their knowledge and experience with so much passion. Also to all my Olympic Studies friends from all over the world who made all the ‘get-togethers’ so special – I salute you and really want to recommend this programme to all future leaders in sport!”

You can find out more about Kobus’s research on:

https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=MuPpO4cAAAAJ&hl=en

or email him on croux@­uj.ac.za