Helping Weak Students – Three Decades of Research on Student Support in Southern Africa

Abstract

‘Access’ and ‘equity’ are terms which can be found in the higher education development plans of most countries in Africa. The challenge of widening access, while at the same time maintaining standards, is one which the southern African region has been grappling with for the last 30 years. The new imperative to open previously closed doors to South African students of all races at the end of apartheid produced a number of models of student support from which lessons can be learned. The review covers initiatives in Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland and focuses on one case study - a well documented Science and Mathematics Foundation programme at the University of the North in South Africa. This annually selects 150- 250 students from disadvantaged education backgrounds with special aptitude tests which show they have potential for further studies, despite weak paper qualifications. Students are admitted into an integrated preparatory foundation year before entering degree programmes. Tracer studies reveal that ex-foundation students, previously judged to be too weak to be admitted to degrees, consistently out-perform others in the subsequent years of degree studies. By the beginning of the new millennium, virtually every university and technikon in South Africa had created a student support system. The paper emphasizes that the nexus between students and research is essential to prove the impact of interventions such as those described and concludes by showing how specially designed programmes can also contribute to equity issues.