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06 November 2018 Photo Sonia Small
Matrics 2018 a shift from access to success urgently needed in higher education
According to UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, we should ask ourselves how learners successfully exit institutions of higher learning – within the minimum time and with an appropriate qualification that will enable them to start earning an income and contribute to the economy.

Opinion article by Prof Francis Petersen

 

With Grade 12 learners from across the county in the full throes of writing their matric examination, one inevitably wonders about 2019 and where those who pass successfully, will find themselves.
 
The announcement of subsidised free education last year has increased learners’ access to higher education.
 
However, the question we should ask is no longer how these learners enter institutions of higher learning, but how they exit successfully – within the minimum time and with an appropriate qualification that will enable them to start earning an income and contribute to the economy.
 
Universities getting involved in schools

I believe universities have a critical role to play in ensuring their own students’ success. It often involves taking a step back and getting actively involved in the schools that supply us with a new cohort of first-year students annually. We should not wait until they reach our campuses to identify academic obstacles; we should be proactive and do what we can to help improve our school systems.

At the University of the Free State, we have established Social Responsibility Enterprises (SRE) on our South Campus in Bloemfontein, which focus on the mentoring of teachers in order to make a sustainable impact. A total of 78 schools in the Free State, Mpumalanga, and the Eastern Cape benefit from this programme. SRE mentors are assisting school principals with school management, while teachers in Mathematics, Physical Science, Accounting, and English as language of learning are assisted in mastering curriculum content, pedagogy, and classroom management. 

Mentors visit schools and share knowledge, extra material, and technology to improve the standard of teaching. The impact has been significant. Matric results, Mathematics pass rates, and Physical Science pass rates have improved dramatically in these schools. We also identify learners with the potential to get access to university (i.e. first-generation students) and assist them through extra classes and in applying for tertiary education and bursaries.

Using technology to reach learners

Another important initiative is the Internet Broadcast Project (IBP), established on our South Campus seven years ago. Our aim is to take quality education to all learners across the Free State, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds and the standard of education at their schools. Schools are equipped with internet broadcasting devices, and lessons by top-qualified presenters in a studio are transmitted live to learners. They also have an opportunity to interact with these presenters.  Currently, the departments of Education in three provinces (including the Western Cape) are also considering the implementation of the IBP as part of their interventions in schools.
 
A total of 71 000 learners in 83 different schools are currently reached through this project every week – and the impact is far-reaching. The Free State has delivered the best matric results in the country for the past two years. Last year, the Free State MEC for Education, Tate Makgoe, made special mention of the IBP for the profound role it played in this achievement.
 
Understanding students’ needs

However, preparing learners for access to higher education is not enough; the crucial factor is how they exit successfully. The university’s Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is continuously developing data analytics to better understand our students and to help them navigate their studies. Making use of international funding, CTL is playing a leading role nationally to develop academic advising (using predictive data analytics) that helps students match their studies with their career and life goals.

One of the main factors that has been found to inhibit student performance, is food insecurity. Research has shown this to be a challenge faced by universities across the world. In South Africa, our institutions of higher learning have risen to this challenge, responding with efforts in various forms. At the University of the Free State, the No Student Hungry initiative (NSH) was launched in 2011. A research study conducted by our Department of Nutrition and Dietetics indicated that 59% of the student population suffer from food insecurity. Many of these students eventually drop out of higher education because of the need to earn an income. The NHS provides our students in need with modest food allowances and daily access to one balanced meal. Students are selected in terms of financial need, academic performance, participation in student life, and a commitment to giving back to the community. The programme allows students to focus on their studies without worrying about their next meal, thus increasing their chances to excel academically and ultimately obtain their degrees.  Since its inception, close to a thousand students have been assisted by this initiative and have given back nearly 37 000 community hours to South African communities.
 
Currently, the NSH programme is enhanced through the development of an institutional endowment fund aimed at raising capital from business, industry, and the private sector. This provides an opportunity for these sectors to become involved and support the challenge of food security among students, thereby supplementing the efforts of the university and government. 

Teamwork needed to progress from access to success

Teamwork such as this is needed on all levels to transform the educational landscape in our country. As institutions of higher learning, we need to increasingly find innovative ways to become involved in the broader communities we serve – beyond our academic curricula.
 
In this way, we will finally be able to move beyond the question of access that has been dominating discourse and demonstration for so long and focus more specifically on ensuring that our students successfully exit the post-school system.

News Archive

SA universities are becoming the battlegrounds for political gain
2010-11-02

Prof. Kalie Strydom.

No worthwhile contribution can be made to higher education excellence if you do not understand and acknowledge the devastating, but unfortunately unavoidable role of party politics in the system and universities of higher education and training (HET).

This statement was made by Prof. Kalie Strydom during his valedictory lecture made on the Main Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein recently.

Prof. Strydom, who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the UFS in 2010, presented a lecture on the theme: The Long Walk to Higher Education and Training Excellence: The Struggle of Comrades and Racists. He provided perspectives on politics in higher education and training (HET) and shared different examples explaining the meaning of excellence in HET in relation to politics.

“At the HET systems level I was fortunate to participate in the deliberations in the early nineties to prepare policy perspectives that could be used by the ANC in HET policy making after the 1994 elections.  At these deliberations one of the important issues discussed was the typical educational and training pyramid recognised in many countries, to establish and maintain successful education and training. The educational pyramid in successful countries was compared to the SA “inverted” pyramid that had already originated during apartheid for all races, but unfortunately exploded during the 16 years of democracy to a dangerous situation of 3 million out-of school and post-school youth with very few education and training opportunities,” he said.

In his lecture, Prof. Strydom answered questions like: Why could we as higher educationists not persuade the new democratically elected government to create a successful education and training pyramid with a strong intermediate college sector in the nineties?  What was the politics like in the early and late nineties about disallowing the acceptance of the successful pyramid of education and training?  Why do we only now in the latest DHET strategic planning 2010–2015 have this successful pyramid as a basis for policymaking and planning?

At an institutional level he explained the role of politics by referring to the Reitz incident at the UFS and the infamous Soudien report on racism in higher education in South Africa highlighting explosive racial situations in our universities and the country.  “To understand this situation we need to acknowledge that we are battling with complex biases influencing the racial situation,” he said.

“White and black, staff and students at our universities are constantly battling with the legacy of the past which is being used, abused and conveniently forgotten, as well as critical events that white and black experience every day of their lives, feeding polarisation of extreme views while eroding common ground.  Examples vary from the indoctrination and prejudice that is continued within most homes, churches and schools; mass media full of murder, rape, corruption; political parties skewing difficult issues for indiscrete political gain; to frustrating non-delivery in almost all spheres of life which frustrates and irritates everyone, all feeding racial stereo typing and prejudice,” said Prof. Strydom.

A South African philosopher, Prof. Willie Esterhuyse, recently used the metaphor of an “Elephant in our lounge” to describe the syndrome of racism that is part of the lives of white and black South Africans in very different ways. He indicated that all of us are aware of the elephant, but we choose not to talk about it, an attitude described by Ruth Frankenberg as ‘colour evasiveness’, which denies the nature and scope of the problem.

Constructs related to race are so contentious that most stakeholders and role-players are unwilling to confront the meanings that they assign to very prominent dimensions of their experience; neither does management at the institutions have enough staff (higher educationists?) with the competencies to interrogate these meanings, or generate shared meanings amongst staff and students (common ground).  A good example that could be compared with “the elephant in our lounge” remark is the recent paper of Prof. Jonathan Jansen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS on race categorisation in education and training.

According to Prof. Strydom, universities in South Africa are increasingly becoming the battlegrounds for political gain which creates a polarised atmosphere on campuses and crowds out the moderate middle ground, thereby subverting the role and function of the university as an institution within a specific context, interpreted globally and locally. 

Striving for excellence, mostly free from the negative influences of politics, in HET, from the point of view of the higher educationist, is that we should, through comparative literature review and research, re-conceptualise the university as an institution in a specific context.  This entails carefully considering environment and the positioning of the university leading to a specific institutional culture and recognising the fact that institutional cultures are complicated by many subcultures in academe (faculties) and student life (residences/new generations of commuter students).

Another way forward in striving for excellence, mostly free from politics, is to ensure that we understand the complexities of governing a university better.  D.W. Leslie (2003) mentions formidable tasks related to governance influenced by politics:

  • Balancing legitimacy and effectiveness.
  • Leading along two dimensions: getting work done and engaging people.
  • Differentiating between formal university structures and the functions of universities as they adapt and evolve.
  • Bridging the divergence between cultural and operational imperatives of the bureaucratic and professional sides of the university.

Prof. Strydom concluded by stating that it is possible to continue with an almost never ending list of important themes in HE studies adding perspectives on why it is so easy to misuse universities for politics instead of recognising our responsibility to carefully consider contributions to transformation in such an immensely complicated institution as the university within a higher education and training system. 

Media Release
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication (acting)
Tel: 051 401 2584
Cell: 083 645 2454
E-mail: loaderl@ufs.ac.za
29 October 2010

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