Chapter 5: Discussion of the findings of the study
5.2 The factors related to access to health sciences education in universities
5.2.5 Alternative access
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academic performance at university (Wilkinson, Zhang & Parker, 2011). These authors thought it could be because the students selected into medicine were highly selected and high performing and so perform very well on the UMAT (Wilkinson, Zhang & Parker, 2011). NBT`s are useful when making decisions about whether students should be placed in extended programmes and what additional support is needed, just one of the initiatives in an arsenal of student support services. In the context of poor schooling there might be more students who need extra curricula support that those who don’t and so higher education needs to develop other strategies to deal with the large numbers of under prepared students. Reid & Cakwe (2011) described the use of the Health Science Placement Test which they say is used by most faculties and is aimed at identifying potential rather than absolute ability however in the current research no participant mentioned the use of these tests.
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admission criteria is one that is fraught with controversy in South Africa (Nkosi, 2013;
Price, 2013; Johnson, 2013; Ncayiyana, 2012). Black students who have been selected into courses wonder if they have been selected on merit or on skin colour and other race groups consider the priority selection of Black students who just meet the minimum criteria (Ncayiyana, 2012) as “apartheid in reverse”. This is made worse by the very limited places available for students to study the health science courses which they choose to. Coupled with this is a feeling amongst certain sectors of society that the standards are dropping (SAPA, 2014). The researcher feels that universities must guard against the trait of colour coding – they claim to be transforming but actually the Black students who are accessing their courses are not disadvantaged Black students but those who have had a good education and do not “deserve” the assisted places (Wangenge-Ouma, 2010; DoHET, 2010; Wangenge-Ouma & Cloete, 2008).
Historically White universities deliberately seek to recruit Black students and make alternative routes available for selection such as assessing potential rather than actual achievement (Ncayiyana, 2012; Boughey, 2012) in an effort to meet their transformation objectives. Alternative routes to access health science courses highlighted in this research included students successfully completing a general science degree or at least passing the first year of a science degree with a minimum mark of, for example, 60%, completing a university foundation programme of 1 year and agreeing to be placed in an extended curriculum course which means completing a 3 year degree in 4 years and a 4 year degree in 5 years, additional foundation courses are included in the whole qualification.
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Faculties of Health Sciences, from a social redress perspective, need to continue to be creative in facilitating access to students, from underserved communities, who have the potential and meet the minimum entrance requirements in order that they have the opportunity of realising their potential as envisaged in the White Paper 3 (Department of Education, 1997). One suggestion which came out of a review of Australian higher education is to stipulate an enrolment target of students from designated groups (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008). The review suggested that by 2020, 20% of higher education enrolments at undergraduate level should be people from low socio-economic status backgrounds (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008). Articulation between the Further Education and Training (FET) sector and the higher education (HE) sector should be easy (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008) which is a principle advocated by the South African White Paper for Post-School Education and Training (DoHET, 2013). The National Qualification Framework has been developed and amongst other things, enables all qualifications to be placed at a level from 1 to 10 and so allow different pathways to access higher education i.e. if you have a qualification at an appropriate FET level it could give you access to a programme in higher education. Bradley et al (2008) suggested that these articulation possibilities would allow FET and HE providers to collaborate more closely and affect an increase in the number of students transitioning between FET and HE. Higher education qualifications, for example, Bachelor of Nursing degree, are on the Higher Education Qualification Sub-Framework (HEQSF) which is a sub-framework of the NQF and includes all qualifications from Level 5 to 10 – Level 5 being a higher certificate and Level 10 being a doctoral degree (South African Qualifications Framework (SAQA), 2012). The Australian experience shows that although the differentiated
pathways to access from FET to HE had been successful in expanding participation this was amongst those who were already well represented in HE but it did not make a
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significant impact on access for those who are under-served (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent &
Scales, 2012). South African HE should be cognizant that some strategies might increase participation but not necessarily participation of the targeted groups, specifically Black students from lower socio-economic groups and those from rural areas. During the interviews participants mentioned that they had anecdotal evidence that students who had come through the alternative access route had greater success than those who accessed mainstream programmes straight from school. The Review of Australian higher education (2008) reported success amongst those who accessed HE from the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector (Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales, 2008) which makes a case for the articulation between FET and HE for students who have deficits in their basic school education. Flexible admission requirements are an important strategy to increase participation of designated students from under-served populations such as Black, rural students from low socio-economic backgrounds.