First step at varsity trips up students

© Lucian Alexandru Motoc – 123RF.com

The South African National Resource Centre for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition will, for the next three years, be looking at why the majority of students who leave universities before graduating do so in their first year.

It is a problem that affects all universities and experts are calling it a crisis.

On Tuesday, 19 April the head of the centre, Dr Andre van Zyl, revealed the extent of the problem.

A study published in 2013 that tracked students who enrolled in universities in 2006/2007, found that 41% had dropped out.

Most of those who dropped out did so in their first year.

There were many reasons for the dropout rate, said Van Zyl, and a major reason was the pressures of poverty.

Kayin Scholtz, from the South African Education and Environment Project said students were not coping because they did not know how to seek help.

"For a lot of students they arethe first generation to go to university.

"They can't approach their parents for help, they are not seeking help and this affects their motivation," he said.

The SA Education and Environment Project has a programme that helps disadvantaged students to stay at university.

Scholtz said they had a retention rate of 85%.

"We provide nurturing, on a case by case basis, that parents can't give."

Dr Jennifer Keup, the director of the National Resource Centre for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition in the US, said that many of the challenges faced by South African students were the same as those in her country.

The difference, however, is the extreme poverty in South Africa. "It is a shock to us where students don't have enough food," she said.

Van Zyl said that at the University of Johannesburg, where he is the director of the academic development centre, 35% of first-year students were not getting enough food. This had prompted the university to introduce feeding schemes.

"We need to track students more effectively," he said of the new centre.