Faculty of Education Research Ethics Committee

The Faculty of Education Research Ethics Committee (REC) is resides in the Faculty of Education and is a registered National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC) and operates as a sub-committee of the Faculty Board. It serves the research ethics needs of all staff and students in the Faculty. This includes research proposals for undergraduate/postgraduate qualifications and for staff projects requiring ethical clearance. The REC may accept external applications in exceptional circumstances if these fall within the ambit of educational research.

The REC meets once a month from February to November each year. There are currently 20 members of the REC representing all five departments in the faculty and three other members who are legal experts or experts in child psychology.

• All research proposals are received via a dedicated mailbox: eduethics@uj.ac.za  and are initially screened by the Secretariat to determine completeness and structural compliance.
• All applications are ethically screened by Departments or relevant committee before submission to the REC.
• Masters Online students use an application form that is structured as a research proposal with a section on ethical clearance to be completed and approved by members of the REC in relevant department who only act as the first reviewer.
• All other applications follow a template with a preliminary section where the applicant ticks the level of study or the type of research project and confirms that this has been screened by the Department or the Doctoral Committee.
• Detailed notes are given in the rest of the application form to guide applicants to come up with a summary of their research proposals including critical elements of research methodology, informed consent and confidentiality
• The applications are finally allocated to REC members for review two weeks before the REC meeting for the month.
• All staff members are reminded about the submission deadline at least three weeks before hand via email
• Typically, all reviews take approximately 14 days from the deadline to approval by the REC at a duly constituted monthly meeting. The outcome of the REC is communicated soon after the meeting.
• Four outcomes of the review process are possible: i) Accept with no changes, b) accept with Minor changes, c) Major changes and resubmission and d) Reject.
• Annual progress reports must be submitted to the Secretariat every 12 months from the date of clearance.
• REC certificates are renewable every three years if the study has not been completed.

The REC is registered with the National Health Research Ethics Council (REC-110613-036).