Access and Success: How can we address this complex crisis Matete Madiba

Crisis: Yes Complex: Yes “although South Africa has since 1994 witnessed a significant growth in enrolment in both the schooling and the higher education sectors, graduate output has not kept pace with the country’s needs”. “…high attrition and low graduate rates have largely neutralized important gains in access”.

Previous and current interventions: is it not time for better focus? (SAQA and) CHE quality initiatives – (NQF to the HEQSF) – Institutional audits and programme accreditation cycles Teaching Grant, NSFAS CHE/HELTASA Teaching Awards ‘Vital Stats’ publication and the work of SAIRR ……………………………………………………………………… A proposal for undergraduate curriculum reform in South Africa: The case for a flexible curriculum structure.

Complexities and Challenges: Conflicting discourses Research and teaching as competing entities, crippling and stifling research and the level of inquiry into teaching and learning If knowledge matters in various disciplines, it should also matter in teaching and learning We do not as yet know all that there is to know about teaching and learning, and student success, the level of inquiry and scholarship should deepen and must be supported, not stifled: OERs, Large classes, curriculum design and delivery

More complexities and challenges Teaching and learning (and research and community engagement) as core business; dislocating the role of other (transformation) agency in support divisions (academic, professional, non-academic and administrative): core versus peripheral Limiting core business to teaching and learning (only) leads to fragmentation and problematic power relations; understanding student success requires a holistic approach: A broader understanding of means and ends?

In and outside the classroom Complexities and challenges are not limited to the classroom Misunderstanding the complimentary nature of ‘student life’ in and outside the classroom and completely separating ‘student life’ outside the classroom from student success leads to a narrowing of perspective in dealing with these complexities: Academic, financial, social, personal

In Crisis Mode A Deficit Model, fragmented and narrow focus instead of a holistic approach; pathologised students, and reactive student politics Underprepared students, Unresponsive curricula, Underprepared teachers (lecturers) and institutions?

An agenda for continuous improvement Through inquiry, questioning, critical observation and reflection it is possible to arrive at theoretically sound, data informed, proactive and evidence based interventions, and put research, evaluation and continuous improvement at the centre of the student success project Longitudinal, collaborative and cross-institutional research projects on student life in relation to student success by those leading teaching and learning, lecturers, students (SRCs), those support divisions

Many questions to explore: Are students and student leaders on board in these discussions? Are students discussing this new report? Are they asking questions, for example, about the relationship between ‘Student life’ and Student Success? Do they know who among their peers are not succeeding and why (equity) Do they know who is succeeding and how (proactive) For those few who are succeeding, what helps them to defy the odds of underpreparedness and disadvantage

Research based and proactive interventions: The (emerging) work of Martin Seligman, Angela Lee Duckworth et al provides much hope, … linking grit, self control and resilience to academic performance, they argue for a ‘new theory of intelligence’; and through inquiry highlight the level of potent agency in students, for their own success. How to increase grit and self control for persistence and success?

Will this agenda enjoy leadership and support from in and outside academia?