Tertiary institutions need to offer support for 2021 first-year students – experts

Experts said tertiary institutions would need to offer support to incoming first-year students next year.

They added there was no doubt a poor matric pass rate should be expected because of Covid-19.

But one expert said Covid-19 should not be the only factor being looked at but all the other year-to-year issues faced by the education system.

Universities and colleges will probably face a challenge come 2021 with the intake of first-year students due to Covid-19 and other factors.

According to higher education expert and head of the School of Education at Wits University Felix Maringe, tertiary institutions would need to implement more bridging programmes for some first-year students who might not have good results.

Maringe told News24 this week it should be expected 2020 matric results would not be of a good standard due to the effects of Covid-19 on the sector.

He expected the results to be particularly more unsatisfactory for pupils from rural provinces.

The final National Senior Certificate final examinations started this week following months of uncertainty on whether the assessments would continue due to the pandemic.

Maringe said research had shown when there were disruptions, pupils and students were affected in multiple ways and there would be what might be referred to as “cognitive erosion” during the period.

He added: “That cognitive erosion implies that students are going to forget some of the things they were taught, therefore the level of their preparedness for examinations are going to be compromised. ”

Maringe said it was usually pupils from poor socio-economic backgrounds who were mostly affected by cognitive erosion.

He added while the Department of Basic Education was able to put in place interventions, including blended online learning, the reality was they were more suited to those in privileged areas and higher socio-economic groups.

“The less privileged, especially those in the rural areas, mining communities and informal settlements, do not always have the capacity and the means to be able to afford the kinds of ICT gadgets and other technologies that were required for them to undertake online learning.

“And so the cognitive erosion is likely to have affected the more disadvantaged [rather] than the privileged students.”

Maringe said that, in itself, was a measure of the kinds of structural inequalities that have always existed within society and were going to continue being seen and evident in the performance of individual pupils who wrote the assessments.

“That … is likely to compromise issues around equity in terms of admissions because universities have got their set targets in terms of the levels of performance of learners who they accept.

“And therefore universities are probably this year going to experience that inability to attract learners from the more rural schools, which therefore will exacerbate the inequalities in our societies.”

Maringe added: “There is going to be quite a bit of some work and I think universities will require a budget. There is no shortage of willingness on the part of universities to bridge the gap, but a lack of budget usually compromises that willingness.”

He said institutions usually did not have large budgets for bridging courses and those that were present, were poorly funded.

Maringe added they would need to secure budgets to ensure students were brought up to speed with the demands and expectations of post-schooling.

“That, to me, is going to be a real challenge. I can tell you that some students come from rural schools and have never used a laptop and so before you start teaching the mathematics, calculus, and so on. So, you, first of all, need to teach them how to be able to use those simple gadgets such as laptops.

“Let alone the more complex technological kinds of equipment that are found in labs of universities and colleges.”

Quality of education

Another expert, Dr Sara Black, concurred, saying there was doubt around a good pass rate from the class of 2020 given the circumstances they worked in due to the virus.

Black said people should, however, be careful not to focus on blaming Covid-19 as if the “normal situation that matrics face is OK”.

“What I mean by that is, very few of the students who even get to Grade 12, and remember, that is a minority – get to write their exams and get a matric exemption that will gain them access to a university.

“Most students who write will not get access to university, and that’s under normal conditions, and that is because of the quality of education they receive from grades 1 to 11.

“And so, I think when we focus on the students going into university, we [are] looking at a privileged minority and not the vast majority who our system fails every year, not just in a Covid-19 year.”

Black said tertiary institutions would need to look into results and establish what they could expect and what support they could offer incoming students and compensate for weaker matric results.

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