INLSA
When we celebrate our graduates we often overlook the large percentage of those who, for various reasons, did not make it. Photo: Jason Boud
South Africa badly needs more good graduates. This topic seldom gets the attention it warrants because public consciousness regarding education is so taken up by the problems of the school system.
Yet our endemic shortage of advanced knowledge and competencies affects almost all aspects of our national life. We need good graduates to foster economic, scientific and social development and, equally importantly, to provide a new generation of teachers who will have the capacity to break the vicious circle of dysfunction that is undermining our education system.
However, we are far from producing the graduates we need. The recently released report of the Council on Higher Education (CHE) Task Team on the role of undergraduate curricula in improving student success has confirmed the continuation of distressing performance patterns. These include that: only 27 percent of “contact” students (that is, excluding Unisa) graduate in regulation time; only 48 percent of contact students graduate even within five years, and that 55 percent of the total student intake will never graduate.
Racial inequalities
Of particular significance are persisting racial inequalities in success. For example, while 61 percent of white students graduate within five years, only 42 percent of African students do so. It is clear from the figures that, contrary to common perceptions, no group is doing well; however, it is African and coloured students who are least well served by the current system.
South Africa is not alone in experiencing high attrition in higher education. It is well known that the US’s graduation rates are not much better than ours. However, there is a key difference. The US, along with most other countries with high attrition rates, has very high levels of access to higher education, and can thus be expected to experience extensive drop-out.
A common measure of participation in higher education is the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER), which shows overall enrolment (of any age) as a percentage of the youth population. South Africa’s GER is 18 percent, compared with the US’s 82 percent (and South Korea’s 95 percent). As it is generally only the top achievers who get into higher education in South Africa, our current students therefore represent a small and selected group that – contrary again to widespread belief – must collectively have high potential to succeed.
Moreover, despite major improvement in access since 1994, our GER remains racially skewed, with African and coloured participation still under a quarter of white participation. The net effect is that only about 10 percent of African and coloured youth enter higher education – yet fewer than half of these students succeed. This represents an untenable waste of talent, with severe consequences for development, since the graduate growth we need must come predominantly from our majority population groups.
Given the pervasive damaging effects of the shortage of high-level knowledge and skills, the time must surely have come to take decisive action to deal with these systemic faults in realistic ways. We cannot afford to be impeded in this by the misapprehension that large numbers of our students are “not university material”.
It is against this backdrop that the CHE appointed a Task Team – comprising senior academic leaders and chaired by former UCT vice-chancellor Professor Njabulo Ndebele – to investigate undergraduate curriculum structure as a key issue affecting student success. The central questions that had to be considered were:
* What are the major causes of the poor performance in higher education?
* Can higher education be expected to compensate for the deficiencies and inequalities in basic education?
* How does the higher education curriculum structure affect student success?
* Would curriculum reform affect higher education quality and standards?
* Is curriculum reform affordable?
The Task Team concluded that changing the traditional structure of our undergraduate curricula is an essential condition for substantially improving both student success and the quality of our degrees and diplomas.
The proposal has two major elements: extending the formal time of our core undergraduate programmes by a year, to provide essential additional learning time for the majority of the student intake; and creating a flexible structure that accommodates the diversity of educational background in our student body, particularly by enabling those who can complete their studies in less time to be able to do so.
The questions the Task Team considered are all complex, but here are some key points in the case for reform.
* Major causes of under-performance in higher education.
The impact of financial difficulties and psycho-social factors on many higher education students is fully recognised. However, the Task Team has concluded that learning-related obstacles are at the heart of the matter. Why would this not be the case, considering what we know about the school system?
Failure and drop-out on the scale we are experiencing, among a small student intake with high potential, cannot be blamed on the students nor simply on poor university teaching. Student “under-preparedness” for university study is widely seen as the root cause of poor performance, but this is not a simple concept. In essence, under-preparedness arises from discontinuity between students’ prior learning – at school and in their life experiences – and what higher education demands. So it is critical to analyse which sectors of the education system are able to address the discontinuity effectively.
* Should higher education have to compensate for deficiencies in the school system?
Very few would dispute the negative impact of the inequalities and deficiencies of the school sector on students’ success at university. However, if higher education is to rely on improvement in schooling to solve its performance crisis, it must be clear about the extent to which this improvement is possible.
The Task Team calculated that, to enable higher education to function efficiently within its current structures and approaches, the number of well-prepared students in the intake would need to increase by two to three times – that is, by about 100 000 well-prepared entrants.
Virtually all expert analyses in recent years indicate that there is no prospect of this improvement being achieved for the foreseeable future. Apart from what it will take to deal with the poor conditions and performance in most schools, we need to face the reality that the school sector has had to grow extensively, that teacher supply is a major challenge, and that schooling has to fulfil a number of purposes other than preparing pupils for university.
Reduce obstacles
Powerful constraints apply also to the embryonic FET College sector, which will continue to be hard-pressed to fulfil its central mandate of producing intermediate technical and vocational skills, let alone delivering well-prepared candidates for higher education.
In short, while it is vital to keep pushing for fundamental change at pre-tertiary level, higher education cannot depend on external improvements to produce graduate growth on the scale the country needs.
Higher education therefore faces a clear choice: to accept the status quo or to be willing to act decisively to reduce obstacles to student success that are under its control. The Task Team strongly endorses the latter path, and has identified undergraduate curriculum structure as a key systemic issue that we can feasibly address without compromising academic standards or integrity.
* Why focus on curriculum structure?
Curriculum structure – including the starting point and progression paths of programmes – provides the framework for all teaching and learning, and is either enabling or constraining. South Africa’s undergraduate structure was adopted nearly a century ago and, despite the huge social changes that have occurred, has not been substantially changed since then. This, together with much evidence from performance patterns, points clearly to the need for it to be adapted to our contemporary realities.
Analysis has identified key aspects of our curriculum structure that negatively affect the majority of students and the quality of our programmes. These include the discontinuity between secondary and higher education; transitions within curricula that trip up students who are not adequately prepared for them, and the need to enhance our programmes to meet 21st-century conditions.
There is no curriculum space within our current structures to meet any of these critical needs – hence the importance of extending the formal time of our curricula, in the interests of the majority of the students and of future development. At the same time, the diversity of our student body must be accommodated by enabling students who can complete in less time, to be allowed to do so.
Quality and standards
The Task Team has concluded that the proposed reform will have no adverse effect on quality and standards – but rather, the opposite. Perhaps the most common fear is that lowering the starting point represents a lowering of standards, but this is not justified. It is exit standards that matter, and the proposal explicitly requires that these be maintained. There is no universal higher education entry level, and any structure that strengthens student learning will benefit the individual and the country.
Affordability
Finally, it is understandable to assume that adding time to curricula would greatly increase costs to the state and the students. However, comprehensive financial projections have shown that this is not so. In essence, state and students are currently paying for the unacceptable levels of failure and repeating in the system, and the efficiencies expected from curriculum reform would actually reduce the cost per graduate. Most importantly, the greatest beneficiaries would be the many students who would gain a qualification instead of dropping out and losing their investment in higher education.
* Professor Scott is the director of academic development at UCT. He led the research process and the development of the report of a Council on Higher Education task team titled A proposal for undergraduate curriculum reform in South Africa. The full report is available at http:// www.che.ac.za/sites/default/ files/publications/Full_Report.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
