Chasing a Dream Four-year degree to curb high dropout rate

| As the value of a matric slides in the job market, SA youth set their sights on tertiary qualifications

MANY students could be forced to spend an extra year at university from as early as 2017.

The Council on Higher Education has recommended to Minister of Higher Education Blade Nzimande that he introduce a pilot project under which some degrees and diplomas that now take three or four years would be extended by one year.

The council’s submission to Nzimande in December followed research in 2012 that showed that only one in four students completed their courses within the prescribed time and about half dropped out.

Stellenbosch University said it supported the extension proposal, but there would be implementation challenges.

“[It] should be implemented with caution and in a phased approach in selected programmes,” it said.

The council said universities and colleges were failing to produce graduates “required for the reconstruction and development of South African society”.

It said 18 of the 22 universities that commented on the reform proposal supported it, but several believed the focus should be on improving education in schools.

The four universities that did not support the proposal, according to the council, said their graduation rates were better than the national average.

The council’s recommendations to Nzimande included:

That all higher education institutions be required to im- plement the new structure;

That degrees or diplomas that already had satisfactory graduation rates should not be extended; and

[It] should be implemented with caution and in a phased approach in selected programmes

That changes be carefully implemented to avoid disruption and be phased in over the “medium to long term”.

“An independent evaluation of the pilot process should be undertaken before embarking on a second phase in which the reform is extended,” the council said.

Its CEO, Ahmed Essop, said medical qualifications might not need to be extended by a year because most students completed them within the standard time.

He said he expected the piloting of one or two qualifications to start by 2017.

Professor Ihron Rensburg, vice-chancellor of the University of Johannesburg, said there was strong support for the proposed curriculum reform, but that it would need more staff and facilities.

He said that just under 84% of students successfully completed their modules each year.

Professor Andrew Crouch, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of the Witwater- srand, said the university supported the proposal.

“This is a much-needed, brave proposal that attempts to get to the nub of the problem,” he said.

The University of Cape Town said its senate had resolved not to support the extension of the Bachelor degree because this was not necessary “to achieve the goals of improving throughput and the overall quality of teaching and learning”.

It said a key assumption was that student success rates in individual courses in the new, longer degree would be substantially better than those achieved in the current courses.

“Simply inserting more courses over a four-year degree is not necessarily going to improve success rates,” the university said. Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.timeslive.co.za