A programme aimed at supporting previously disadvantaged commerce students is showing good results
William Ramwell
Education accounts for 40% of First National Bank’s (FNB) focus on coporate social investment, and the rest is spent on supporting health, community service and training, job creation, arts and culture, the environment and public policy initiatives.
In education the focus falls mainly on commerce, maths and science. The aim is to expose less privileged groups and individuals to further education, says Tracey Henry, manager of the FNB Fund.
The FNB Fund does not grant individual bursaries to students pursuing further studies, but involves itself with the financing of bridging and academic development programmes, which are presented at most of the country’s universities and technikons.
One such programme to which FNB has committed R150 000 this year is Rhodes University’s Commerce Foundation Programme, which aims to fulfil South Africa’s need for qualified black commerce students. The need is glaringly obvious when one considers that 93% of chartered accountants in the country are white.
The programme was established six years ago at the Rhodes faculty of commerce. The programme is coordinated by Este Coetzee, who works on a personal basis with the students.
Coetzee stresses that the programme is not for weak students but rather for the best students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It aims to bridge the gap between a poor, rural environment to an urban educational environment, and helps students adjust to the gap.
“The majority of foundation students come from environments in which there is no electricity or running water, and homes consist of only one or two rooms where all family members live and sleep. A large part of their education consists of adapting to single rooms in communal residences, eating in dining halls, arriving at lectures and tutorials on time and other important cultural adjustments.”
The students are selected from candidates applying to study at the university. The dean of commerce refers all students with English as a second or third language to the coordinator who goes through the applications and chooses the top pupils from disadvantaged schools.
In their first year foundation programme students are put on a fixed curriculum consisting of computer science, English for academic purposes, financial mathematics, foundation accounting and statistics. They also study introduction to business skills and life skills.
The group is kept small, consisting of no more than 30 persons. This enables lecturers to give individual attention to students. Active learning and continuous assessment techniques are used.
The students have two extra contact hours a week a subject. They work in supportive groups and receive additional tutoring and mentoring from senior colleagues.
In addition to their studies, students are introduced to business leaders, who volunteer to visit the campus as guest lecturers, and to business situations through trips to various businesses and industries.
Second-year students take the rest of the prescribed first-year commerce course management, economics, commercial law and the second part of first-year accounting. Academic support and peer group assistance continues to form an integral part of the students’ second foundation year.
In their third and fourth years the students are indistinguishable from the mainstream students in the commerce faculty. At this stage they are encouraged, and are usually eager to become tutors for younger students thereby earning pocket money and getting an opportunity for self-development.
“The foundation students as a group have achieved the second highest score in the faculty. These achievements are all the more remarkable when one considers that none of these students would have got to university at all without the foundation programme,” says Coetzee.
“The values of FNB embrace everything that is South African,” says Henry.
“These are to be proud, supportive South Africans, to show respect for ideas and the individual, and to be focused on the community. Because the bank is so visible throughout the country it believes its community projects have to touch every aspect and region of South African society.”
This year the fund will receive R21,6-million from FNB, representing 1% of after-tax profits.
Commenting on the success of the programme, Henry says: “Initially we were concerned that the programme was producing a low number of graduates some 125 students have participated in the programme since 1994 and 25% have graduated. Of the 32 graduates, the bulk are in formal employment while four are doing post-graduate studies. However, prior to this programme there were only 13 BCom students from disadvantaged schools enrolled at the university, of whom none had graduated.
“The programme appears to be making a meaningful impact and is steadily increasing the number of graduates participating in the programme. Eighteen graduates are now employed in the financial and commercial sectors.
“The fund considers this to be an important initiative aimed at increasing the pool of qualified commerce students from disadvantaged communities. The project also fits in very well with the FNB Fund’s policy of supporting programmes in the field of commerce education that will introduce new learning opportunities or broaden access to university study in these fields to previously disadvantaged students.”
The FNB Fund also provides support for similar programmes at the University of Natal, the University of the Free State’s School of Management and the University of Stellenbosch.
The FNB Fund forms part of the FirstRand Foundation, which incorporates the individual investment programmes of all the companies within the FirstRand Group Discovery Health, Momentum, Rand Merchant Bank and FNB.
All companies within the FirstRand Group donate 1% of after-tax profit to the foundation every year.