HERDSA 1996: Van Tonder - academic development programmes for engineering in South Africa

An overview of academic development programmes for engineering at South African universities

Aletta Hd Van Tonder
Bureau for University Education
Rand Afrikaans University

In this paper the author intend to give an overview of academic development programmes for engineering at South-African universities, highlighting a brief overview of the types of programmes, selection procedures, staffing, curriculum, student perceptions and funding. The main aim of academic development programmes for engineering at South-African universities is to identify academically talented but unprepared students who wish to pursue a career in engineering, and to help them develop skills and resources needed to obtain a tertiary qualification in this area.

Introduction

In 1989 the total number of engineers and technicians in SA was approximately 54,000 which represents only 6% of the total high level manpower in that year. Similarly, the cumulative number of engineering degrees awarded in the 4 years 1986-1990 totalled +/- 8,000 or 6% of all degrees awarded. In addition to the low percentage of engineers in South Africa, changing demographics must influence the supply of manpower. It is therefore fairly obvious that the traditional source of engineering potential i.e. white males, will no longer be able to meet the demand. Our concern about the development of black technological skills is therefore not a social responsibility issue but an economic one (Lamprecht, 1992:72).

On the total of the previous 8,000 engineering degrees, only 469 were awarded to other races. In fact only 3.7% of engineers in South Africa are black. The reason is fairly obvious. Of 10,000 black entrants to the school system only one completes matric with exemption in mathematics and science. On top of this, only a small number if these students want to study engineering. The traditional career choices are law and medicine. It is therefore essential to create role models to encourage students in the engineering discipline (Lamprecht, 1992:72). Science and technology is of the utmost importance in South-Africa if we intend to make an afford at keeping in contact with the more wealthy countries of the world. It is only through such endeavours that this country's primary products can be upgraded and thus gain added value in the world market (Marais, 1992:9).

In the long run the restructuring of the education system will hopefully produce candidates which are adequately equipped to handle the demands of technological tertiary training. This is a priority of the new government, but initially funds will only be sufficient to spend on pre-primary and primary education and industry will have to contribute to the development of human capacity in order to obtain the skills it requires.

South-Africa had seventeen different departments of education based on colour or ethnicity, and especially the black students had problems as the teachers in the sciences and maths were underqualified, there were constant interruptions in the education, classes were overfull, there were not enough handbooks etc. Which places all of these students in high-risk categories. Further a large percentage of the students are not familiar with the field of study they wish to enter, as they have had no exposure to engineering as field of study or tertiary education as such, as none or few of their parents had any exposure to tertiary education. It was a problem that even if academically disadvantaged students gained access into mainstream engineering education at universities and technikons, they were unsuccessful. Academic development programmes was born out of the necessity to provide industry with a more representative feedstock for future management. It had been found that industry was committed to the development of human capacity and in particular the development of technical skills and thus supported possible engineering students, especially in an academic way.

Program types

There exists two basic different outlooks on Academic Development Programmes, the one view is that the school should prepare students for tertiary education. This viewpoint is questionable with the history of South-Africa where there exists differentiated schooling, dissimilar education opportunities and school standards which is not comparable. All of this leads to students that are not properly prepared for studies at university (Troskie, 1994:94). The other option is that universities should be responsible for academic development, and the answer lies in a part of the universities' mission statements in which the university has a responsibility towards the wider community (Troskie, 1994:95) and thus partly responsible for uplifting students for their entry requirements. The problem here is that there exists no formal financial structure at the universities to accommodate this form of developing program.

Initially the universities started out with two types of programs, the full year bridging program in which the students receive no university credits, some times this program was reduced to six months. The other type of program is the academic development program where a student does some bridging courses but is also enrolled for some credit bearing engineering courses. Presently most of the institutions are moving away from the full bridging idea. Reasons for this is the status of the students, that the students want to be viewed as regular students and thus preferring following some credit bearing courses as well as the financial credits received by the institutions for students participating in credit bearing courses. The institutions following the full bridging idea either for six months or a year is moving towards awarding a type of diploma to the students participating in this course, enabling the students that do not continue on to the main stream to have some credits for the work done, especially where some practical workshop skills were included in the bridging course, enabling the students to seek employment with some background in practical engineering skills. Because of the practical preparation of the bridging students and the positive attitude of the students, most institutions find that students with the minimum entry requirements for the main stream applies to enter the bridging courses for they feel that the bridging students are better prepared to enter the main stream and have a better chance of success than they would have entering the main stream directly from school.

Financing

Academic development programmes and bridging courses at universities and technikons are not subsidised by the state, consequently other sources of finance had to be found, and the main contributors here was industry, whom in the long run would employ these students. The involvement of industry in the success of bridging courses in engineering stays an important factor, as bridging students at the various institutions does not receive any financial credits for the institution. Not all the students on bridging programs are sponsored students. Some institutions split the financial support for a few students amongst all the students they have so that more students have the opportunity to go through the bridging program. Other students support themselves in the hope of finding financial support later from industry when they have proved themselves successful in the study of engineering. Another way of making bridging in engineering more financially viable for the different institutions is to let the students start with some, mostly two credit bearing courses, with much needed additional support, so that the institution gets some financial credits for these students.

Selection

Selection is essential but there is no one indicator that is consistently reliable. Each and every institution has there own model of bridging for engineering and thus there own way of selecting students to participate in the bridging courses, but their are certain similarities. In the selection of students, industry is involved in two ways. Industry either does the selection of the students and gives them full financial support, the institution accepts these students and is not involved in any further selection procedures. The other method of selection is that the institution selects the students mostly with the minimum mathematical requirements in tact, and industry selects students from these students to award financial support.

The whole idea of selecting students on the grounds of psychometric testing is not acceptable at present. The main objection here is that the available psychometric tests is viewed as biased and not acceptable for the type of student that wants to apply for a bridging course in engineering. Psychometric testing is only employed to support the initial selection method for aspects such as the motivation and attitude of the students, or in supporting the student in the selection of a particular engineering field.

The most widely used form of selection is the interview. Here the skills of the interviewing panel is viewed as important, especially their experience in similar situations. In most cases the panel is made up of more than one person. Industry, support there interviews with some psychometric testing, where the interest and motivation of the student is valued. At the different institutions the interviewing panel is made up from faculty, in most cases the dean and/or the head of the bridging unit, some of the lecturers and other people that are going to work with the students. In both cases great care is taken not to intimidate the students so that an honest view of the student may be made during the interview. In order for the students to relax some interviews is started of with asking questions on sports and family activities. Although the interview as selection method is very important, it is still necessary to have an idea of what the student is capable of in the academic situation, and it was found that most institutions vies the individual students' capability of handling mathematics at school level as very important. Most institutions will not accept any students with a score in mathematics of less than a D(50-60%) mark in matric on higher grade. With a mark less than a D the students has a very small chance of ever completing the bridging part and a even smaller chance of successfully completing the main stream courses. Students with mathematics on standard grade is not accepted even if they have achieved an A for mathematics on standard grade, as it has been found that even if these students complete the bridging courses successfully, they are not able to cope with the main stream subjects. Apart from achievement in mathematics, most institutions also require a minimum score of a D on higher grade for Natural Science. Most institutions give additional bridging in Mathematics and some employs the success of the students in this bridging course in mathematics as their main selection criteria.

One very important factor to take into consideration is that selection of students does not only imply the selection of students for academic development programmes, but after completion of these programmes the students must be able to successfully complete there mainstream engineering courses.

Staffing

You find that only a few of the staff members participating in the academic development programmes is actual university staff, the rest is employed on a part time basis to reduce costs and to enable specialists in a field to teach the students, and so that the student /staff ratio is high enough to allow for a reasonable degree of individual attention.

The purpose of academic development programmes is to provide a learning environment that is sensitive to students' academic and non-academic needs (Jawitz 1992:37), therefore more than just academic staff is involved in the development programmes.

Mentoring

Three types of mentors is utilised, some universities make use of all three, and some not. There is the academic mentor, where senior students some times ex academic development programmes students, help the students with academic development and help sort out problems. Some institutions make use of senior students to act as social tutors to the students, by residing with them and being readily available for social and academic guidance. Thirdly you get the mentor in industry were the sponsoring companies are required to identify a number of junior and middle management engineers who are supportive of the scheme and prepared to take a personal interest in academic development and site work training of their students. Each of these individuals is allocated one or more students for the duration of the development year, whom he is expected to develop a relationship with in order to encourage and motivate them to utilise every aspect of the course to its fullest extent (Hillman, 1992:56).

Counselling

Counselling implies mainly vocational counselling, life skills training, including workshops on stress and time management and personal counselling. In addition, the counsellor facilitates feedback sessions during which the students can air their feelings, and issues of concern can be communicated between staff and students.

Factors that contribute most to the success of the students in the academic development programmes is the inclusion of activities which require active student participation and which facilitate peer-group learning thus the curriculum is designed around these concepts.

Curriculum

The purpose of these programmes is to identify academically talented but unprepared students from DET schools who whish to pursue a career in Engineering, and to help them develop the skills and resources needed to obtain a tertiary qualification in this area (Grayson, 1992:19). Once students have been identified as having sufficient academic potential they are admitted into the academic development programme. In designing the structure of the academic development programmes, the staff took cognisance of the wide gap that exists between where the students are when they come in and where they need to be when they leave if they whish to enter mainstream tertiary education. It has been identified that the disadvantaged students has specific needs in the following areas:

cognitive, meta-cognitive and affective;
environmental;
emotional;
social and psychological.

You find that the course content for the academic development programmes is established on important principles in which the main focus is not the content, but an intertwinement of the teaching of skills, both cognitive and practical together with content. The course content or curriculum has been designed to provide certain remedial, bridging, and enrichment elements in each of the three key components: academic studies, personal development, and engineering awareness, therefore there is an introduction to the new subjects of mechanics, graphics and computing and a course in communication studies that include remedial English for those that require it. The type of skills include problem solving skills, reflection skills, reasoning skills, practical skills, thinking skills, and conceptual understanding. Furthermore the curriculum introduces skills in report writing, note taking, study skills, time management, public speaking, debates, current affairs, politics, economics, and personal finances (Hillman, 1992:50). Some of the environmental and social needs are addressed by having the students live in residence. Peer learning is encouraged, which in turn creates a social context for learning. Emotional and psychological needs are addressed by building a formal counselling component into the programme, developed and run by registered counselling psychologists, as has been stated previously.

Student perception

On the part of the universities and industry there has been much involvement and consideration in developing academic development programs. But I felt it necessary to include the students' perception of this process they have been exposed to. In the whole the students are very positive towards academic development programs for engineering. It seems as if the students are appreciative of the opportunity to study engineering in the present form and they understand that they would not have been able to cope in the main stream. The students are positive although there is still some that cope with difficulty. This positive attitude of the students result in some students asking to enter the development program although they qualify for main stream. An important development is that the students stay in residence on campus as any other student, which did not happen at the onset of the academic development programmes, this resulted in the students feeling more a part of the university life and thus feeling very positive on the whole development program idea.

Conclusion

In conclusion as Reynolds (1995:3) stated 'universities involved in the education of engineers have a huge task to increase the number of engineers in South-Africa from a pool of under prepared matriculants. Without access programs it is doubtful if we can come anywhere near our requirements', thus emphasising the urgent need for academic development programs for engineering in South-Africa, and with our present high unemployment rate we need engineers as they are the people that create jobs.

References

Grayson, D. (1992). The science foundation programme - a holistic approach. The second HSRC seminar on academic bridging courses in tertiary education for Mathematics, Science and Engineering. Pretoria: HSRC.

Hillman, J.C. (1992). Wits Engineering bridging scheme content, development and results. The second HSRC seminar on academic bridging courses in tertiary education for Mathematics, Science and Engineering. Pretoria: HSRC.

Hunter, P. (1989). The transforming of learning: the evolution of an academic support programme. South African Journal for Higher Education, 3(2), 68-78.

Jawitz, J. (1992). The performance of ASPECT students in the first-year Mathematics and Applied Mathematics courses at university of Cape-Town. The second HSRC seminar on academic bridging courses in tertiary education for Mathematics, Science and Engineering. Pretoria: HSRC.

Lamprecht, A. (1992). Eskom's experiences with bridging education. The second HSRC seminar on academic bridging courses in tertiary education for Mathematics, Science and Engineering. Pretoria: HSRC.

Marais, H.C. (1992). Opening address. The second HSRC seminar on academic bridging courses in tertiary education for Mathematics, Science and Engineering. Pretoria HSRC.

Troskie, C. (1994). Identifying problems by first-year students in Academic development programmes. Pro Technida, 11(2) December 1994, 94-117.

Author: Dr Aletta Hd Van Tonder, Bureau for University Education, Rand Afrikaans University, South Africa. Email: ahdvt@rau1.rau.ac.za
Please cite as: Van Tonder, A. H. (1996). An overview of academic development programmes for engineering at South African universities. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/vantonder.html

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