CHAPTER 5: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS
5.1. Findings from the focus groups
5.1.1. Perceptions of academic and non-academic staff, and community members
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• High cost factors with a lagged DoHET funding system and slow progression of students on their graduation path, and
• DoHET’s requirement that participation and throughput rates in higher education be increased.
Budget constraints: for most of the participants in the above categories, student attrition, and poor graduation, or low throughput rates were perceived as the outcome of both dysfunctional educational institutions prior to entering higher education triggered by a fundamental mismatch between the resources available, and the educational challenges faced by HEIs grappling with greater diversity in the student body.
Participants explained that the feeder high schools and the HEIs at large and UKZN in particular are under- resourced but over-challenged in terms of the purpose of schooling, meeting the national agenda of transforming higher education, organizational effectiveness (academic year planning, staffing, and class rosters/timetables), with budget constraints making matters worse (the budget was perceived as not commensurate with the needs). High cost factors result from the DoHET’s lagged funding system and the slow progression of students on their graduation path.
Poorly prepared learners: academics expressed several criticisms with regards to students presently enrolled at UKZN and other South African universities. They perceived declining academic standards over the years at the universities, which are grappling to sort out the problems of poor quality students emanating from high schools. They explained that the bulk of first-year students are ill-prepared by high schools for higher education. This is coupled with the fact that some HEIs admit students with lower scores in matric because of their disadvantaged backgrounds in order to comply with DoHET recommendations.
Collectively perceptions were that poorly prepared students from high schools educated in a context of budget constraints cannot improve educational outcomes in South Africa.
Insufficient infrastructure and support systems versus flood of students: participants perceived that the present dismal trends in higher education represent a misallocation of state resources (uneven geographical distribution of infrastructure and provision of public goods) that are becoming even scarcer in this era of global economic meltdown and financial crisis. Community members acknowledged that student support systems are crucial. Social disadvantages and the low educational background of parents were also alluded to. They stressed that a majority of students admitted to HEIs are first-generation students with a lack of parental involvement and appropriate financial support, lack of study materials, who cannot afford prescribed textbooks, equipment, and who have inadequate transport. These students tend to suffer from weaker family involvement, and face discrimination from their peers in the HEIs and in the communities.
147 Communities lack adults role models committed to contribute from the level of early childhood development to the transition to higher education. Generally, communities attempt to meet educational challenges with inadequate responses. There was also some hiatus around of the time of the merging of HEIs in South Africa and this contributed to poor student performance.
Calls in the public arena for the accountability of HEIs: some academics and administrators were puzzled by the growing calls for institutional efficiency and accountability targeted at HEIs by parents, members of parliament, or government policies. Their contention was that concerns about underachieving students should be directed to pre-university education, which affects the cognitive ability of students prior to gaining access to tertiary education. Contogiannis (2005) points out that the main reason for high failure and dropout rates, slow progression, poor graduation, or low throughput rates in BCom degrees is that the students are weak and do not put enough effort into economics courses that are demanding. Examinations are not usually difficult, students have the workbook, a lot of the questions were repeated from the tests, there was a mix of lecturers (so one cannot blame the lecturers), the marking has been fair, etc. HEIs are expected to find solutions not only to these educational challenges, but also to sundry others which are societal. It is wrong to assume that these issues do not influence Student persistence or retention in higher education. South Africa needs to close inefficient schools and create more centralised super schools, staffed by truly committed educators and allocate subsidies to bus pupils in. Both academics and administrators acknowledged being accustomed to low expectations: low pass rates, high dropout and failure rates, high student attrition, and poor graduation, or low throughput rates. Participants perceived that as the education system stands, with a keen sense of history inherited from apartheid, all South Africa needs are competent educators to effectively man the schools, not a wholesale rehashing or building of more schools.
Student-Lecturer ratios: academics argued that there is a disjuncture between efficiency in HEIs to government’s transformatory educational policy goals. Academics feel that high student-lecturer ratios will drag the whole higher education system down (the higher student-lecturer ratio is about 56:1 in the School of Accounting above the national average of 46:1, where none of the participants knew the figures specific to Faculties or Schools at UKZN).
DoHET’s requirement to increase participation and throughput rates in higher education: some academic and administrative staff members felt that to let in more educationally under-prepared students just to increase participations rate in higher education is a waste of the scarce resources devoted to higher education. A recurrent contention in the focus groups was that holding on to underperforming students
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Individual perceptions are reported verbatim below to highlight the disparate reasons that are perceived to be responsible for high student attrition, and poor graduation, or low throughput rates.
1. Students drop out not because they do not have the required I.Q. but because of the hardship of their socioeconomic background and family responsibility. Somebody needs to acknowledge that time must be spent on these non-HEIs related reasons (male administrator at UKZN).
2. Student attrition, poor graduation, or low throughput rate in South Africa is impervious to any effort and reform inputs because the school system is the one failing Matric pupils in term of the quality of learning provided. The school system is under-resourced, has an insufficient number of appropriately skilled educators, poor facilities and neighborhoods (academic at UKZN).
3. We (Academics and administrators) have acknowledged spending gratuitous time on tasks that are not traditionally our responsibility as well as solving problems that are beyond the remit of the HEIs. We have tried to help students by making teaching material available online and availing counselors, tutors and academic development officers but students do not meet us half way - it is just waste of resources (Academic at UKZN).
4. The blame lies with us – education stakeholders - not valuing education. Students have no manners but more rights than us. They do not do their homework and do not take discipline. If I knew what I know now I would have chosen a different career (Academic at UKZN).