University vice-chancellors will engage in discussions with President Thabo Mbeki and education decision-makers about the viability of a four-year undergraduate degree that addresses students’ academic shortcomings and prepares them for the working world.
This is one of the agenda items for next week’s presidential working group meeting with Mbeki, Education Minister Naledi Pandor and her education officials, the vice-chancellors’ association, Higher Education South Africa (Hesa) and the qualification accreditation body, the Council on Higher Education.
With the exception of engineering, medical and professional degrees, most undergraduate degrees in the humanities, commerce and science are three years long.
Drop-out rates in the university sector are about 50% while business and industry complain about the need to retrain graduates who cannot apply their knowledge.
Currently several universities conduct access tests on students. Students are sent on remedial courses or extended degrees when neccessary. In some cases a BA degree may take four years, while a four-year engineering degree may be extended to five years, allowing the struggling student an extra year to cope.
According to a Hesa document, the rationale behind an investigation is a major concern which is shared by institutions around learners’ entrance into university, pass rates and graduation.
“The underpreparedness of learners entering higher education, the high drop-out rate, coupled with complaints from business that graduates are not work ready — all suggest that higher education would benefit from increasing the duration of undergraduate degrees and diplomas.”
Hesa says there is a need for space in the curriculum for a systemic inclusion of an academic development component. “This would address some of the problems associated with low pass rates.”
In addition Hesa says a four-year degree “will also assist the challenges in the output with regard to the acquisition of additional work-related skills to ease students’ transition into the world of work”.
Hesa chairperson, Dr Theuns Eloff said the organisation needed to discuss the issue further, but his view is that while the education department has been funding one-year foundation programmes, in addition to three-year degrees at some universities, this should formally be converted into four-year degrees.
“It would be a good idea to have this and I’m sure other vice-chancellors will not be averse to it.” He said such a degree would address shortcomings in students’ reading, writing and numeric abilities and would equip them better for university life. “We underestimate the students’ inability to speak English, when they might have had no access to English at school or their teachers might have been poorly qualified.
“These students then sit in a first-year class and have to contend with their lecturers speaking fast in English and it comes as a surprise when they drop out in June.”
He said while a four-year degree would have major funding implications for the department of education, “maybe they should introduce it for the BCom and BSc degree as a pilot project”.
But such a qualification would allow flexibility for students who want to complete a BCom in three years and the fourth year would be the equivalent of an honours degree.
“I’d much rather we go for the four-year degree and not lose good students,” he said.
Conceding that universities do not do enough to prepare graduates for the world of work, he said that a four-year degree would not solve the problem.
But a workable idea is to devote two periods per week in the last semester of a three-year or four-year degree to “corporate grooming” where outsiders like engineers, teachers and pharmacists share what their work entails.
“An aspect of this is already happening at some universities. This is absolutely necessary and private and public sector companies would applaud it.”
Last year then chairperson of Hesa and current vice-chancellor of Unisa Professor Barney Pityana said that higher education institutions constantly raise the concern that there is a wide knowledge gulf between leaving school and entering tertiary education. “For many institutions, the alleviation of this gap means that institutions set up bridging, access and foundation programmes that are not the responsibility of the institutions.”
He proposed that South Africa moves towards a four-year undergraduate degree and a three-year diploma. “The programme could be arranged in such a manner that students could undertake some compulsory modules which could include: culture studies and theories of knowledge; language competencies including reading skills and writing; more importantly, an opportunity to learn a language other than their first or second South African language; philosophy of science; and mathematical numeracy.”
He said that in their final year students could produce a project, portfolio or an essay of limited length. With such an arrangement the honours degree as a formal qualification would cease to exist.
He said students who receive 60% or more in their undergraduate studies could proceed to master’s, provided they meet all other prerequisites for a particular degree. Anyone who achieves less than the required pass rate may need to undertake further studies by way of modules equivalent to the current honours course.
According to Piero Granelli, head of Deloitte’s graduate academy, which runs a one-year work-readiness programme for graduates, universities do not cover skills and attitudes that graduates are required to have for the workplace. “Universities cover knowledge. Universities don’t cover skills and attitudes. Graduates have some knowledge but little ability to apply it in a way that the employer sees value.”
The academy’s one-year programme for graduates is accredited by the South African Qualifications Authority. Companies send their new recruits on the programme, which is tailor-made for their needs. About 175 recruits have been through the programme and the demand is growing.
The programme covers issues such as communication skills, business processes and the application of knowledge. Recruits spend three months at the academy then nine months in real life projects. “Learning needs to happen in the workplace,” said Granelli.
At the end of the leanership, recruits have knowledge, skills and attitudes and are competent in knowledge application.
Analysts say although it would be costly for the government to introduce a four-year degree, the cost benefits would be substantial: a reduction in drop-out rates from 50% to 30% would benefit the economy, student-loan agencies and the national student financial aid scheme.
According to Dr Cheryl de la Rey, chief executive officer of the Council on Higher Education, “the proposal of a four-year first degree emerged in discussions about the impact of underpreparedness of school leavers. The council is of the view that the proposal needs to be considered as part of comprehensive initiatives aimed at improving the quality of higher education graduates”.
She said this includes issues such as improving the quality of teaching, learning, curriculum design and assessment practices.
“The overarching question is in what cases and under what circumstances a four-year first degree may be the appropriate mechanism for improving the quality of our graduates.”
The Department of Education’s Deputy Director General of higher education, Dr Molapo Qhobela said the idea of extended curricula is “something that is already happening and is already being funded by the department and offered by higher education institutions”.