Browsing by Author "Van Zyl, Gerhard"

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    Disparity : threat or opportunity to distance education throughput at the South African military academy
    (Stellenbosch University, Faculty of Military Science (Military Academy), 2015) Khoza, Lindiwe; Van Zyl, Gerhard
    Improved student throughput remains on the South African Higher Education (HE) priority list. To achieve greater throughput, all institutions of higher learning need to contribute. The South African Military Academy offers distance education (DE) programmes to employees of the South African Department of Defence (DoD). Its distance education (DE) programme, earmarked to become the main HE provider to the DoD, compared to its residential programmes, displays poor throughput. Poor DE throughput contradicts recent advances in educational technologies which provide a range of mitigation and support opportunities through the creation of learning spaces that mediate successful student learning anytime anywhere. This article contributes to the body of knowledge on firstly the disparate profile of Military Academy DE students, and secondly, their disparate access to learning technologies in their working and learning spaces. A survey among DE undergraduates and DE lecturers revealed disparity among respective DE students’ HE-related demographics, and disparity in their access to learning technologies (LT). Resolving disparity in access to LT can mitigate demographic disparity to promote graduate throughput.
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    The 'nervous conditions' of neo-liberated higher education students
    (2015) Van Zyl, Gerhard
    To the newly liberated citizens of South Africa, a higher education (HE) qualification in 1994 represented both a means to a prosperous end, and a hope-filled end in itself. Whichever party has managed to achieve political victory two decades later, the current South African HE situation remains one that requires critical thought and accurately applied resources from both the victors and others, because in failed HE there can be no victors. HE fails when an abnormally high number of students either fail or withdraw from their studies prematurely and involuntarily. This article aims to redefine the HE mainstream by presenting a window into the hope-taken, hope-lost, hope-deprived realities of a particular HE student body; their nervous condition. The majority of students enrolled at transforming higher education institutions (HEIs) hail from despairing socio-economic contexts. Desperation defines the neo-mainstream. Universities embarking on a hope-generating road terminate that same hope should they remain either ill-informed about, or non-sympathetic towards real-life situations of neo-mainstream students.