The release of the senior certificate results of 2006 has again brought into focus critical issues related to the interface between schooling and higher education. The fact remains that the better learners perform at this “high stakes” exit level, the greater their chances of exercising choice and gaining access to their desired qualification pathway.
As Higher Education South Africa (Hesa) pointed out in late December, results are an important barometer of the health of our schooling system; secondly, the fact remains that higher education must rely on the quality of school graduates entering our universities in order to sustain the core task of knowledge generation, research and innovation.
However, we also must accept that change is a slow process. Issues of access will remain high on the agenda of higher education and it therefore should not come as a surprise that higher education collectively has taken a keen interest in the changing interface between schooling and higher education.
As is the case with the current “matric” or senior certificate, the new national senior certificate (NSC) will undoubtedly be used as the primary source that informs admissions to universities, universities of technology and comprehensive universities.
Since the first draft policy on the national curriculum statement for grades 10 to 12 was released in late 2002, the sector has engaged both as critic and supporter of the efforts of the national department of education (DoE) to actively shape the alignment between schooling and higher education studies.
At the same time the sector has, through Hesa, geared up its development of an enrolment system responsive to the needs of prospective students and preparing its institutions for this new interface.
What has changed?
At the end of 2008 learners will exit the schooling system with the new NSC based on a new curriculum. The continual message given by the DoE is that the new curriculum is more demanding, that school time is sacred and must be dedicated to conceptual development, that extensive reading and writing are required and that all students will do some form of mathematics.
Similarly, the department has said that the new grade 12 examination will be “tougher”. Learners will not be able to pass with a minimum aggregate, which has allowed them to fail some subjects and still pass. The new NSC requires them to pass six of their seven subjects — three with a minimum of 40% and four with 30%. Given the demands of higher education study, minimum entry requirements are set at higher thresholds for entry into diploma and degree studies.
For the 2008 NSC examination, all 29 subjects will be nationally set, moderated and examined. The DoE has assured higher education and the public that preparation for this exam is well under way: national exams were written by pilot schools in grade 10 in 2006 and will be written by all grade 11s in 2007 in order to ramp up for the full grade-12 examination process at the end of 2008.
Higher education welcomes these changes and no doubt the results of the first NSC exam will be keenly observed. Our interest is, in particular, in the capacity of the schooling system to develop increasingly literate and numerate cohorts of learners who enter universities prepared to engage with the rigours of knowledge production at this higher level of learning and, indeed, in the capacity of higher education to prepare students to participate in a changing world of work.
Aligning systems
Situated between schooling and the world of work, higher education has a limited window of opportunity in which simultaneously to address the challenges of access in a developing country such as South Africa, and to prepare the kinds of graduates needed by a knowledge-driven economy.
However, the reality is also that, while immense disparities in the provision of quality schooling remain, the challenges of access must entail more than basing admission solely on the strength of school-leaving performance.
In different terms, in a number of cases entry into higher education is not automatic and requires additional forms of assessment and intervention in order to fairly and accurately select and place students. While it is clear that the NSC will remain the primary source of information at this critical entry point, institutional experience has shown that school performance as a reliable predictor of future success only holds where results fall in the top-range scores. For the bulk of new entrants, this is not the case. An institutional imperative is therefore to provide “second chance” entry opportunities for intellectually talented learners with poor school-leaving results.
But access entails much more than securing entry to specific institutions. At a system level, it involves enrolment planning in terms of both numbers and achieving a balance between enrolment in specific fields of study. This is to align access with the human resource and knowledge needs of this country and a 21st-century world.
Enrolment planning also relates to the “shape and size” of the student profile and the equity and redress issues that remain. Also, it importantly relates to planning for sustained financial assistance needed by large numbers of students. At an institutional level it further entails balancing the educational task (or curriculum responsiveness) against the nature of entry profiles; the latter often associated with the refrain of “access with success”.
In what ways has Hesa interfaced with these processes of planning and alignment in building, at a national sector level, a responsive enrolment system? Its energies have been focused on four distinct yet interrelated services:
Offering a system-wide information and career-advising service through the National Information Service for Higher Education (NiSHE).
In partnership with member institutions and the DoE, the focus has, in the first instance, been on informing learners, schools, parents and the public of what higher education requires at entry levels, its role in society and what it offers, and finally, how qualification pathways intersect with the world of work. This flagship project has produced Into Higher Education: A Guide for Schools (2005; new edition, 2006) that has been widely disseminated.
The next challenge is to expand career advising and the fully fledged development of materials and an interactive website that will support this critical focus.
Regulating minimum entry thresholds through the existing Matriculation Board and future Minimum Admissions Service.
The role of the Matriculation Board has perhaps most often been misconstrued as “gatekeeper” to access. While its traditional role has been to maintain, at a national level, the minimum entry thresholds required for degree study, this role will now be extended to also include the setting and maintenance of minimum thresholds for entry into certificate and diploma studies. Its services include the issuing of exemption certificates to students who do not meet the minimum thresholds and involves the ongoing task of equivalence setting — nationally, regionally and indeed internationally.
Developing entry-level benchmarks through the National Benchmarks Test Project.
The purpose of this project is to provide both schooling and higher education with important information on the competencies of their exiting (in the case of schools) and entering (in the case of universities) students; information that does not duplicate the essential information delivered by the NSC, but that provides an important extra dimension. Additional assessment will support students entering higher education by establishing a better match between the student’s abilities and his or her interests. Tests will focus on academic literacy and numeracy as well as mathematical proficiency, and it is anticipated that high-quality national benchmark tests can realistically be achieved by 2008.
Monitoring systems flow in terms of enrolment, throughput/retention and graduation.
The purpose of this data project is to provide accurate information and analyses on system flow and the “shape and size” of enrolment, efficiencies, and strategic sector action that may be deemed necessary.
The collective engagement of the sector
In conclusion, it is important to comment on the consequence of the collective engagement of the sector in the changing interface between schooling and higher education. The level of engagement has perhaps been unprecedented in the history of public higher education. Particularly in the past year the focus has shifted to close engagement in the analysis of the fit between the anticipated outcomes of the new schools curriculum and the knowledge, skills and competencies required for specific qualification pathways.
It is my sense that this close liaison with the DoE’s objectives and the engagement of the sector signals a new chapter, one that extends higher education’s reach back into schooling in order to offer increased support and to give learners greater access to career choice. Increasingly, there needs to be an understanding that higher education begins with the subject choices made in grade 9, and with the knowledge and skills foundation constructed in especially the senior years of schooling.
Professor Duma Malaza is the CEO of Higher Education South Africa