A new analysis of South Africa’s huge university dropout rate confirms some suspected causes of students not completing their studies. But it also provides surprising reasons for optimism.
Finances, poor school preparation and inadequate academic teaching and support are among the leading reasons cited by students who have dropped out. Yet 70% of the students surveyed nevertheless found employment and raised sufficient funds to resume their interrupted studies.
Conducted jointly by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Council on Higher Education (CHE), the study was funded by the Ford Foundation. It is based on responses from 3 328 students who dropped out of seven universities between 2000 and 2002.
Last year, the Mail & Guardian reported on new education department figures showing that 50% of undergraduate students drop out of university before completing their qualifications. The HSRC/CHE study takes in a range of different kinds of institutions — Wits, Stellenbosch, Fort Hare, Limpopo, Western Cape, Tshwane University of Technology and the former Peninsula Technikon (now part of the merged Cape Peninsula University of Technology).
The analysis provides detailed reasons for non-completion as students perceive them. It also disaggregates these reasons by ‘raceâ€, exposing considerable variations in the factors different groups cite.
Of the 3 328 students surveyed, 2 870 were African, 220 coloured, 192 white and 46 Indian. They responded to a list of possible reasons for dropping out, and the study’s complex system of weighting the answers allows an assessment of the relative significance of each factor.
‘I did not have the funds to pay for my studies†emerges as the major factor, with 80% of respondents citing this. But the weighting of the factors shows that funding is a far greater factor for Africans and coloureds than for Indians and whites.
Fleshing out this finding is the study’s data on the socio-economic status of the students’ families, calculated according to both the income and the education levels of their parents or guardians. About 70% of the dropouts are in the ‘low†category — that is, their parents earn R1 600 per month or less and have at most ‘some secondary schoolingâ€.
Other finance-related factors the students cited included:
– ‘I had to travel too far to get to the institutionâ€;
– ‘I did not have a space where I could study in peace and quietâ€; and
– ‘My parents/relatives put pressure on me to leave my studies to look for a job so that I could support them/my familyâ€.
In all these cases, too, they were more significant factors for Africans and coloureds than for Indians and whites.
Yet when it comes to academic factors fuelling the dropout rate, there is generally more unanimity among racial groups. For instance, almost equal significance is given to the reason, ‘I realised that even with good [matric] symbols I could not cope with higher education studyâ€, which 78% of respondents cited.
This is also the case with related reasons such as:
– ‘I battled to learn all the new terminology and ‘think’ in my chosen field of studyâ€;
– ‘The poor quality of teaching at the institutionâ€; and
– ‘My lecturers were so inaccessible that I did not think I could approach them for helpâ€.
On the other hand, Africans, Indians and coloureds all cited as more significant than did whites the reason that ‘I had no induction programme to my studies, which made it difficult for me to cope from the beginningâ€.
Surprisingly, 77% of respondents cited difficulty with their institution’s language of instruction — but there was minimal difference in the significance accorded this by different racially classified groups. Coloureds attached a little more importance to it than the others.
Less surprising is the almost equal importance for all groups of ‘a very active social lifeâ€, reinforcing long-standing arguments that the rigidities of the school environment ill-prepare many for the greater freedoms of campus life. Indians accorded this greatest importance, followed very closely (in descending order) by coloureds, whites and Africans.
Yet the fact that 70% of the students managed to find employment, which in time enabled their return to tertiary studies, means that the findings are not ‘all gloomyâ€, says the HSRC’s Moeketsi Letseka, the study’s project leader.
‘It means that to drop out isn’t a recipe for disaster. There is a silver lining here: employers do pick up dropouts, and when they return to their studies they’re better prepared for it,†said Letseka.