Master of City and Regional Planning

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Master of City and Regional Planning Degree is to build on the Bachelor of City Planning Honours by expanding the learners' conceptual knowledge and skills to regional planning, to advanced environmental assessment, and to do in-depth research in the form of a 120-credit dissertation. It comprises theory courses, project work and a dissertation.

This Master's Degree is a professional qualification that develops students' specialist values, knowledge and skills necessary to make a contribution to society through meaningful planning and intervention in the built environment. The Master's Degree will extend the understanding of city planning (acquired in the linked Honours Degree) through a dissertation (should the dissertation focus on city planning) and through a course dealing with environmental impact assessment. It will impart the values, knowledge and skills for regional planning (and extend these should the dissertation focus on regional planning).

Rationale

City and Regional Planning is a recognised profession under the Planning Professions Act of 2003. It is a designated scarce skill in terms of the South African Government's Joint Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (JIPSA) as part of its accelerated economic growth programme. It responds to environmental, infrastructural and socio-economic priorities at national, provincial and local levels of governance. This degree will enable learners to achieve a professional qualification as a city and regional planner.

City and Regional Planners address the socio-economic and spatial development challenges of contemporary South Africa through the promotion of inclusive settlements and cities. It is core to enabling a sustainable built environment. The interdisciplinary qualification is informed by principles of engaged citizenship, social, spatial and environmental justice.

Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL)

RPL is designed to support access to higher education for candidates who have gained degree-related knowledge and skills through informal study or experiential means. In the academic context, it is the acknowledgment that academically significant and socially-useful knowledge is acquired through multiple formal, informal and non-formal means. This includes knowledge gained through non-formal study, paid work and unpaid work, community and organisational involvement, and individual enquiry.

The University process typically applies the process to applicants who have been outside of formal education for several years and who have gained experience in a work environment which they now wish to supplement with a formal higher education qualification.

The purposes of RPL

• To recognise and, where appropriate, grant advanced standing for the expertise gained by skilled individuals in non-academic contexts.
• To contribute to the holistic assessment and self-assessment of people entering onto a learning path.
• To enrich the academy and the curriculum by facilitating dialogue across sites of knowledge and practice.
• To facilitate access to higher education and provide redress for historical inequities.
• To promote and facilitate lifelong learning.

Entry Requirements

A Bachelor of City Planning Honours degree or any related qualification at NQF Level 8.

This qualification comprises 4 compulsory modules at NQF Level 9 totalling 184 Credits.

• Regional Planning Theory, 20 Credits.
• Regional Planning Project, 32 Credits.
• MCRP Dissertation, 120 Credits.
• Planning Techniques 3, 12 Credits.

1. The ability to analyse context, in terms which are meaningful for planning including specialist knowledge of ethics and professional practice.
2. Proficiency in the development of project programmes, in which the elements of projects are identified and quantified.
3. The ability to appreciate and evaluate personal responsibilities and roles in environmental and social problems.
4. The ability to frame a research problem pertaining to planning, executes a research dissertation, draw conclusions and glean recommendations for planning.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 1

• The role played by planning professionals in terms of complex regional environments is understood.
• Specialist understanding and integration of economic, environmental, social and spatial is demonstrated.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 2

• Visionary and sustainable responses to planning related problems are provided.
• Integrated holistic analysis of the natural resources and landscape systems to produce a holistic natural resource and landscape management framework is demonstrated.
• Specialist integrated spatial analysis of economic, social, settlement and environmental issues, to produce a regional spatial development framework and implementation is demonstrated.
• Knowledge of environmental assessment and management is understood.
• Sustainability and how to use resources sustainably is assessed.
• Spatial structure is manipulated and designed.

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 3

• Rigorous understandings of regional (and national) legal frameworks in relation to sustainability assurance are demonstrated.
• State, parastatal and civil society actors in the project area is analysed.
• The changing ethical frameworks and doctrinal contexts shaping approaches to natural resource and landscape management frameworks over time and in different regions in the world, and significance of this are understood.
• Consideration of value of environmental justice, diversity, different ways of knowing, social justice & intergenerational equity is displayed.
• Institutional processes of decision-making and any international or local constitutional frameworks which guide these, including making reference to rights is understood

Associated Assessment Criteria for Exit Level Outcome 4

• Appropriate research methods and techniques is chosen.
• Written communication skills are displayed.
• Links between disciplines to improve communication across disciplines are made in order to overcome the disciplinary divides in the search for sustainable solutions.

Integrated Assessment

The qualifications require considerable field work in the Cape Town area and in some cases field trips to other parts of the country are arranged. Each project culminates in the submission of a document and the oral presentation of project work. Continuous assessment and feedback based on the submission of project documents and oral presentations (Regional Planning Project); essay assessment (theory courses) and dissertation examination of document.