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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

Moshoeshoe - lessons from an African icon - by Prof Frederick Fourie
2004-11-03

(The full text of the article that appeared in City Press and Sunday Independent)

Our understanding of history informs our understanding of the present. No wonder the contestation over historical figures in South Africa’s past is so fierce and so divisive.
The question is: could it be any other way? I would like to think that it could; that black and white South Africans, across linguistic, cultural, religious and other divides, can develop a shared appreciation of our history – at least with certain periods and personalities as a starting point.

One such personality whose legacy I believe offers a possible platform for unifying our still divided country is King Moshoeshoe, who lived from 1786 to 1870, and is acknowledged as the founder of the Basotho.

King Moshoeshoe is the topic of a documentary that has been commissioned by the University of the Free State as part of its Centenary celebrations this year. It is part of a larger project to honour and research the legacy of Moshoeshoe. The documentary will be screened on SABC 2 at 21:00 on November 4th.

Moshoeshoe rose to prominence at a time of great upheaval and conflict in South Africa – the 19th century, a time when British colonialism was entrenching itself, when the Boer trekkers were migrating from the Cape and when numerous indigenous chiefdoms and groupings were engaged in territorial conquests. It was the time of the Difaqane, a period when society in the central parts of the later South Africa and Lesotho was fractured, destabilised and caught in a cycle of violence and aggression.

In this period Moshoeshoe displayed a unique and innovative model of leadership that resulted in reconciliation, peace and stability in the area that later became Lesotho and Free State. It made him stand out from many of his contemporaries and also caught the attention of his colonial adversaries.

Such an evaluation is not a judgment about which model of leadership is right and which is wrong, or which leader was better than another; but merely an attempt to explore what we can learn from a particular exemplar.
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Historians point to the many progressive leadership qualities displayed by Moshoeshoe which he used effectively in establishing the Basotho nation and in defending it.
First, there is his humanism and sense of justice worthy of any great statesman. Confronted by a situation in which cannibals murdered and devoured his grandfather, Moshoeshoe chose not to take revenge. Instead he opted to rehabilitate them and feed them as he believed hunger drove them to cannibalism.

Secondly, there is his skilful alliance-building with his contemporaries such as Shaka in an attempt to neutralize those rivals who were intent on attacking his followers. This is also displayed in the way he sought the protection of the British to keep the Boer forces at bay.
Thirdly, his emphasis on peaceful options is also seen in his defensive military strategy which saw him retreat to a mountain fortress to be able to protect and build a burgeoning nation in the face of the many forces threatening its survival.

Fourthly, there is his remarkable inclusivity and tolerance for diversity which saw him unite disparate groups of refugees from the violence and hunger that displaced them and then weld them into the Basotho nation. He also engaged with French missionaries, inviting them to stay with him and advise him on Western thought, technology and religion.
These are but some of the qualities which belie the notion that all 19th century African leaders were merely marauders and conquerors that gained their ascendancy through violence. Instead Moshoeshoe is a prime example of the human-centred, democratic and pluralist roots of South African, indeed African society.

The Moshoeshoe project that we have initiated (of which the documentary, called “The Renaissance King”, forms but one part) derives from our location as a university in the Free State, a province with a particular history and a particular political culture that developed as a result of this very model of leadership. This province has benefited tremendously from leaders such as Moshoeshoe and president MT Steyn, both of whom many observers credit with establishing a climate of tolerance, respect for diversity of opinion, political accommodation and peaceful methods of pursuing political objectives in the province. Their legacy is real – and Moshoeshoe’s role can not be overstated.
In addition the project derives from the University of the Free State being a site of higher learning in a broader geo-political sense. As a university in Africa we are called upon to understand and critically engage with this history, this context and this legacy.
Besides the documentary, the UFS is also planning to establish an annual Moshoeshoe memorial lecture which will focus on and interrogate models of African leadership, nation-building, reconciliation, diversity management and political tolerance.

In tackling such projects, there may be a temptation to engage in myth-making. It is a trap we must be wary of, especially as an institution of higher learning. We need to ask critical questions about some aspects of Moshoeshoe’s leadership but of current political leadership as well. Thus there is a need for rigorous academic research into aspects of the Moshoeshoe legacy in particular but also into these above-mentioned issues.
While the documentary was commissioned to coincide with the University of the Free State’s centenary and our country’s ten years of democracy, it is a project that has a much wider significance. It is an attempt to get people talking about our past and about our future, as a campus, as a province and as a country – even as a continent, given the NEPAD initiatives to promote democracy and good governance.

The project therefore has particular relevance for the continued transformation of institutions such as universities and the transformation of our society. Hopefully it will assist those who are confronted by the question how to bring about new institutional cultures or even a national political culture that is truly inclusive, tolerant, democratic, non-sexist, non-racial, multilingual and multicultural.

I believe that the Moshoeshoe model of leadership can be emulated and provide some point of convergence. A fractured society such as ours needs points of convergence, icons and heroes which we can share. Moshoeshoe is one such an African icon – in a world with too few of them.

Prof Frederick Fourie is the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State

* The documentary on “Moshoeshoe: The Renaissance King” will be screened on SABC2 on 4 November 2004 at 21:00.

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