5.2.1 Demographic profile of students
This section briefly presents and discusses the demographic profile, featuring the age, gender, level of study and the field of study of students that participated in the study. The student sample for this study resided in on-campus residences with 56% of the students being males and 48% being females. According to the findings, the majority of the participants were undergraduate students (72%). Students in the second year of their studies made up 30% of that undergraduate’s percentage. The remaining 28% comprised of postgraduate students. The majority of the students, 66% were in the College of Humanities, while 24% were from the College of Engineering and just 10% were in the College of Law. This is to be expected given that the residences are located in Howard College campus. The age distribution showed that half of the participants were in the age group 19-21, 32% in the 22-24 age group, followed by 16% in 25-27. Only 2% of the students were in the age group 16-18 whilst none of the participants was above the age of 27. Table 5.2 below shows a joint frequency distribution of age, level of study against the gender of students who participated in the study. Table 5.2 shows that the male students in the study were fairly distributed between the identified age intervals and the majority of the males were postgraduate students (38%). On the other hand, over half (63%) of female students were between the 19-21 age group and half, 50%, of the female students were in the second year of their studies.
Table 5.2: Socio-demographic characteristics of UKZN students, by gender
Female (Percentage) Male(Percentage) Age intervals (in years)
16-18 19-21 22-24 25-27
˃28
4 63 33 0 0
0 38 31 31 0 Level of study (in years)
First Second Third Fourth Postgraduate Total
8 50 17 8 17
100% (N=24)
23 12 15 12 38
100% (N=26) Source: Own calculations from the Student Electricity Behaviour Survey (SEBS) data
68 | P a g e 5.2.2 Students’ perceptions of the on-campus residence services
On-campus residences at UKZN refer to student housing facilities built within the vicinity of the campus environment. On-campus residences are exclusively university owned buildings, assets and facilities that accommodate students. The university management is responsible for the supervision and management of students’ activities in these buildings. Accommodation in on- campus residences is usually highly competitive due to a number of reasons that includes safety and its closeness to learning facilities. A study by Suki and Chowdhry (2015) showed that parents prefer their children to stay in on-campus residences to off-campus buildings because of safety and security concerns. Students tend to regard university residences as ‘a home away from home’
if they are satisfied with the services rendered to them and hence also prefer on-campus residences.
They also reduce travelling costs.
Therefore, the quality of services offered to students play an important role in instilling that sense of belonging during their stay in the residences. Figure 5.1 below shows how students rated the residence services offered to them at UKZN. As illustrated by Figure 5.1 most students were highly satisfied with accommodation and electricity services, 72% and 96% respectively. More than half of the students (56%), were satisfied with the kitchen facilities and likewise 54% were satisfied with the security. However, 48% of the students were not satisfied with the water provision whilst 40% were happy with water supply and only 12% were neutral regarding water supply. As shown in Figure 5.1, the majority of students, 44% were not satisfied with internet access while 32%
stated that they were satisfied with internet access and 24% were neutral in their response.
70 | P a g e Notably, both students at UKZN and those in Malaysia (Suki and Chowdhury, 2015) regarded electricity supply as satisfactory. A study at Covenant University in Nigeria also showed that “the satisfaction from electricity was ranked highest with a mean 4.2037 and 79% of the students rated electricity supply as very satisfactory” (Oluwunmi and Izobo-Martins, 2012:107). It is interesting to note that students, particularly in Africa rated electricity supply as very satisfactory at a time when the continent was characterised by a sharp rise in energy imports and load-shedding. In its 2012/2013 report, eThekwini Municipality explained the paradox by demonstrating how the load- shedding initiative is geared towards protecting those sectors that are vital to the region’s economic growth such as industries and public institutions (eThekwini Municipality, 2014).
This explains why public institutions such as hospitals and the universities were rarely affected by the load-shedding schedules. When asked about the effects of load shedding at UKZN, some students acknowledged the fact that UKZN hardly experienced load shedding. A student stated that
“The load shedding does not necessarily affect the university that much because we hardly have it here (UKZN)” (Student 20, September 7, 2015).
In support of this assertion, data from the real-time meters monitoring energy and water consumption at UKZN showed that the University was only affected by load shedding ten times in 2014. As can be seen in Figure 5.2, load shedding was only intense in the first and last quarter of the 2014 academic year. All the zero (0) meter readings in Figure 5.2 are an illustration of load shedding. As can be seen in Figure 5.2 below the University seldom experienced load shedding at a time when most sectors in the country were constantly experiencing load shedding. This explains why the students, in spite of the looming energy crisis across South Africa, rated electricity supply as very satisfactory.
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