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Student Preparedness: It Takes a Community to Raise a University Graduate

17 January 2024 | Story Prof Francis Petersen | Photo Kaleidoscope

Opinion article by Prof Francis Petersen, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Free State.

The transition from high school to higher education is one of the most significant steps in a young person’s life. It represents a coming-of-age journey that is usually associated with great excitement and big dreams, but also with a fair amount of trepidation and uncertainty. Very often students find themselves ill-prepared for this important phase in their lives, causing even the most promising among them to struggle.

The old African proverb, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’, is true of a university context too. Because it requires nothing less than the combined effort and input of schools, parents, communities, alumni, higher education institutions, and the students themselves to ensure that they are adequately prepared for a successful journey from first year to graduate, says Prof Francis Petersen.

Over the past decade or two, most South African universities have invested heavily in various forms of student support offerings. The reason for this can be found in an important focus shift that has taken place in higher education – from concentrating on securing access to our institutions (which is still important), to ensuring the success of our enrolled students. But ideally, a successful university journey should start long before students even set foot on our campuses. In the months and years that precede their studies, they need to be systematically prepared for the important journey that lies ahead – and for this preparation to be truly effective, different role players need to get involved.

Career orientation

An important departure point is the identification of the right study programme – and by implication, the right career. Choosing a career remains one of the most important decisions in a person’s life. It is essential that every young individual takes personal responsibility for this, and diligently apply themselves to identifying a field that suits their specific set of aptitudes, skills, and interests. Much time and resources can be saved – and frustration avoided – by informed, well-considered career choices.

But learners’ eventual choice of a career should also occupy an important place on schools’ agendas. In my experience, learners from schools that go the extra mile to expose them to different career opportunities, arranging job shadowing and career talks, eventually make the most successful tertiary study choices. Parents and family members play an equally important role in exposing children to different career possibilities while they are still in school.

Academic preparation

Similarly, the foundation for the academic skills needed for successful higher education studies needs to be laid long before studies commence. Successful university students need strong core skills in writing, research, and critical thinking – ideally honed over the twelve years they spend at school. University studies are certainly a significant degree more rigorous than high school, demanding a higher level of self-discipline, academic proficiency, and time management. But successful students are normally the ones who have already shown academic commitment at school. They are the ones who are willing to invest the necessary time and apply themselves to continuously strengthening their existing academic skills – plus acquiring new ones.

An academic mindset needs to be cultivated in our schools, but also in parental homes. It is of course true that in our South African context a significant portion of our students are first-generation students – the first in their extended families to go to university. Which means that their parents would obviously not be in a position to share personal experiences and advice on how to approach tertiary studies. But what all parents can do, is to inculcate in their children a love for learning and an inquisitive outlook. Once this is established, practical tips and advice can be provided by teachers, counsellors, relatives, and even alumni from the neighbourhood.

Life skills preparation

For many students, transitioning to higher education also means venturing out on their own for the first time, independent of parents and guardians. Independent living skills in the form of basic cooking, laundry, and self-care will be needed to support students living away from home for the first time – skills that should ideally be established while living at home.

A certain degree of financial skills is also required – not only to be able to understand the workings of student loans and financial aid – but also to be able to manage a simple budget to prevent students’ expenditure from exceeding their resources or income. These are skills that can be taught at school – but they need to be reinforced and find practical application at home. As parents, we need to equip our children with the mindset, life skills, and confidence they will need as young adults.

Once again, our South African reality needs to be factored in. We have one of the highest rates of broken homes in the world, with only around a third of children in our country living with both their parents. One in five children have neither of their biological parents living with them. Although this rate of parental absence is disturbing, it is tempered by the prevailing trend of relatives and even neighbours getting involved – often pitching in to play an active part in child rearing. We need to tap into these encouraging examples of ubuntu in our communities, cherishing and expanding it. Our youth ultimately determines the future for all of us – which should urge us to take collective responsibility for them.

Social preparation

This includes preparing them for what is for many a new social reality after school. Students should be guided to embrace the diversity they will find on university campuses, and they should be encouraged to make new friends and broaden their cultural horizons. University life is, after all, not only about academics but also about personal growth, cultural exposure, and relationship building. The communication and collaboration skills developed and honed during higher education studies are also vital assets in the future world of work.

A significant portion of our students come from smaller rural towns and relatively isolated communities. They need to be prepared for the wide assortment of views and belief systems found on university campuses – which can be stimulating and fascinating on the one hand, but can also cause some students to feel alienated, and even a little lost. It is a matter of balancing an open mind and a willingness to consider new ideas, with a reaffirmation of those values and principles on which you are not willing to compromise. This bedrock of core values needs to be firmly in place when they leave home – having been shaped in their homes, schools, and communities.

Emotional preparation

The abundance of mental health challenges on our campuses clearly illuminates the importance of also making sure that students are emotionally prepared for university life. Nowadays, most of our university campuses are adequately geared to cater for students’ mental health needs. But these specialised support services are of little use if students do not choose to make use of them.

Once again, parents, guardians, and community role models can play an invaluable role – this time fighting the stigma by talking more openly about mental health issues – and even opening up about their own challenges. We need to encourage our young school leavers to accept a helping hand when needed – helping them to realise that these can be tools to build the resilience and adaptability needed to negotiate tough transitions.

There is another African saying which I think sums up the essence of higher education: ‘If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel together’.

With knowledge systems continually expanding and the resultant emphasis on lifelong learning, it is on the one hand all about travelling far. But it is also about travelling together. Higher education studies so often entail approaching challenges from multiple angles, embracing multidisciplinary approaches, and working towards co-creating solutions.

Successful university studies hardly ever constitute a solitary journey. Preparing for them should similarly be a collaborative process. It requires different role players to take hands to ensure that the university years truly are the best years of young people’s lives. And that they produce graduates who are focused on giving back to the communities that helped them get there.

News Archive

Institutional research culture a precondition for research capacity building and excellence

2004-11-16

A lecture presented by Dr. Andrew M. Kaniki at the University of the Free State Recognition Function for research excellence

16 November 2004
The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Frederick Fourie
Deputy Vice Chancellors, Deans
Awardees
Colleagues and ladies and gentlemen

It is a great pleasure to be here at the University of the Free State. I am particularly honoured to have been invited to present this lecture at the First Annual Recognition Function for Research Excellence to honour researchers who have excelled in their respective fields of expertise. I would like to sincerely thank the office of the Director of Research and Development (Professor Swanepol), and in particular Mr. Aldo Stroebel for facilitating the invitation to this celebration.

I would like to congratulate you (the UFS) for institutionalizing “celebration of research excellence”, which as I will argue in this lecture is one of the key characteristics of institutional research culture that supports research capacity building and sustains research excellence.

Allow me to also take this opportunity to congratulate the University of the Free State for clocking 100 years of existence.

Ahmed Bawa and Johan Mouton (2000) in their chapter entitled Research, in the book: Transformation in higher education: global pressures and local realities in South Africa (ed. N. Cloete et. al Pretoria: CHET. 296-333) have argued that “…the sources of productivity and competitiveness [in the knowledge society and global economy] are increasingly dependent on [quality] knowledge and information being applied to productivity”. The quality knowledge they refer to here is research output or research products and the research process, which (research) as defined by the [OECD] Frascati Manual (2002: 30) is:

“…creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications”

The South African Government has set itself the objective of transforming South Africa into a knowledge society that competes effectively in the global system. A knowledge society requires appropriate numbers of educated and skilled people to create quality new knowledge and to translate the knowledge in innovative ways. To this end a number of policies and strategies like the Human Resource Development [HRD] Strategy for South Africa, the National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) and the South Africa’s Research and Development [R&D] Strategy, have highlighted human resource development and the concomitant scarce skills development as critical for wealth creation in the context of globalization. The key mission of the HRD Strategy for instance is:

To maximize the potential of the people of South Africa, through the acquisition of knowledge and skills, to work productively and competitively in order to achieve a rising quality of life for all, and to set in place an operational plan, together with the necessary institutional arrangements, to achieve this.

The R&D Strategy emphasizes that maximum effort must be exerted to train the necessary numbers of our people in all fields required for development, running and management of modern economies. Higher education institutions like the University of the Free State have a key role to play in this process, because whatever form or shape a university takes, it is expected to conduct research (quality research); teach (quality teaching – and good graduates); and contribute to the development of its community! Thus the NPHE states that the role of higher education in a knowledge-driven world is threefold:

Human resource development;

High-level skills training and

Production, acquisition and application of knowledge.

Quality research output or knowledge which as argued is critical in determining the degree of competitiveness of a country in the knowledge economy is dependent upon quality research (process). Both the process of producing quality research and its utilization cannot and does not happen in a vacuum. It requires an environment that facilitates the production of new knowledge, its utilization and renewal. It requires skilled persons that can produce new knowledge and facilitate the production of new skills for quality knowledge production. Such an environment or in essence a university must have the culture that supports research activity. Institution research culture (that is a conducive and enabling institutional research culture) is a precondition to research capacity building. Without an institutional research culture that facilitates the development and nurturing of new young researchers it is difficult, if not impossible for a university to effectively and efficiently generate new and more quality researchers. Institutional research culture is also necessary to sustain quality research and quality research output or research excellence. It facilitates the development and sustenance of the institutional and people capacities required to do research produce quality research and generally attain research excellence!

We do recognize that the patterns of information and knowledge seeking, and knowledge generation vary among field or disciplines. For example, we know that in the humanities knowledge workers often work individually, and not as collaboratively as do those of the sciences, they all however, require supportive environments – institutional research culture to achieve and sustain research excellence. An institution does not simply attain a supportive research culture, but as Patricia Clements (English Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton) in her presentation Growing a research culture argues, research culture has to be grown [and maintained]. It unifies all natural and engineering scientists; medical researchers, humanists, and social scientists.

I therefore am of the view that Institutional Research Culture is critical to research capacity building and research excellence. I therefore want to spend a few minutes looking at the characteristics of research culture. To be effective, institutional research culture has grown and sustained not only at the institutional level, but also at the faculty, school and departmental levels of any university.

What is Research Culture?

In the process of researching on institutional research culture I identified several characteristics. Many of these overlap in some way. I want to deal with some of these characteristics; some in a little more detail while others simply cursorily. In the process what we should be asking ourselves is the extent to which an institution, like the University of the Free State, and its faculties, individually and severally, is growing and or sustaining this culture.

Institutional Research Strategy: As a plan of action or guide for a course of action, the institutional research strategy must spell out research goals that a university wants to achieve. It must be a prescription of what the university needs to be done with respect to research. As a strategy it is neither an independent activity nor an end in itself, but a component part and operationalization of the university policy or mission. ( Related to this is the Establishment of Institutional research policies)

Includes and makes public the targets, e.g. achieve so many rated scientists and make sure that every year we have so many SAPSE publications. That way people keep an eye on research agendas of the university and nation.

The UFS is obviously on its way, having launched its own Research strategy (A Strategic framework for the development of research at the University of the Free Sate. August 2003). Note that this strategy refers specifically to the “Culture of research” Fig 1

A set of administrative practices to support and encourage research. Patricia Clements (English Department, University of Alberta, Edmonton) in her presentation Growing a research culture argues that that research activity and output within the her Faculty (Arts) were very low and, in spite of the numbers of staff, with no Associate Dean for Research in the Faculty as though they had accepted that research belonged to Medicine and Science and Engineering, and teaching, separated from inquiry, belonged to the Arts. With the change in the thinking about research and development of research culture, it became clear that there was a major role for research support in a faculty her size (now about 360 full time continuing academic staff). The faculty developed a support system for research and began to address the SSHRC issues.

Reduce the bureaucracy system and micromanagement of research! This however, also implies that there is capacity and policies and procedure to manage and guide research processes

Establishment of Intellectual Property regulations and assistance

Research ethics policy and safeguarding by research administration

Focused, applied and suitable nature of the delivery mode (an institution open to new methodologies for conducting research

Programmes suited both full and part-time study particularly at graduate level (Mainly at Faculty/school and department level, and depending on what’s manageable)

Hiring senior academics to engage in, teach on and supervise postgraduate students to facilitate exchange of and transfer ideas and most importantly mentorship especially in view of declining numbers of researchers in particular fields

Quality instruction and facilitation in learning about research processes

A high retention rate of students maintained by the supportive and challenging learning environment and the use of online facilities to support collaboration and in-class learning

Availability of research grants: and awareness of sourcing funds from external sources like the National Research Foundation; Water Research Commission; Medical Research Council, private philanthropies and others outside the country. For example an institution should be able to assess how much of the slice the available funds (NRF etc) its able acquire and possibly top slice from institutional budget.

Adequacy of the financial reward system to encourage university staff members to do research (General Celebration of achievement for research excellence and achievement. This ranges form Annual reports mention; celebratory dinner. At Alberta researchers were given lapels. I don’t know of any academic who do not feel a sense of achievement to get into print or recognised. Access to research facilities within and outside the institution

Provision of infrastructure to support university-based research (e.g. equipment, admin support, etc.) – but also awareness of publicly funded and available research facilities and equipment!

Internet connectivity and changes in the bandwidth of the internet to download articles

Subscription to related bodies by the library so that researcher can download articles

Facilities and resources to attend international conferences to keep one updated

Number of visiting professors/speakers targeting senior scholars and invite them to lunch to ask them to participate and to encourage their best graduate students to do so within the institution and across institutions

Research training seminars for research students including young academics

Participation of staff/students in delivering research papers to national and international conferences

Establishment of research groups to provide interaction frameworks to achieve critical mass of research-active staff

Facilitation for more research time: Targeting new scholars and giving them reduced teaching loads in their first year or two for the purpose of developing their research programs. For the purpose of helping new colleagues to see the shape of South African research support, personalizing it, and creating research community

Take research to the community and argue its necessity, and utility

And, finally celebrating excellence. We must recognize achievement - parties and public recognition for colleagues who achieve splendid things in their research.

In conclusion, I want to reemphasize that research culture has to be grown it does not simply exist in an institution. If it is grown it needs to be nourished, nurtured and sustained. An institution cannot simply leave on borrowed reputation and expect to remain research excellent. It is on this basis that instruments like the National Research Foundation rating system recognizes excellence within a given period of time and not necessarily for a life time! This it is believed encourages continued research excellence.

THANK YOU and best wishes

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