Contextualising the South African Higher Education Academic Interventions for Student Success: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

South African Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are increasingly feeling the pressure to produce graduates that contribute towards economic transformation, and sustainability through skills necessary to address the challenges of the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR). However, the rate of academic failures and high dropouts in South African Universities has been alarming. This study contextualized the South African HEIs’ Academic Interventions to uncover the challenges and opportunities HEIs face in their quest to advance student success throughout their academic and early professional career. To aid the study’s investigation on the institutional practices that inform the forms of academic interventions for Student Success, in South African Universities, this study’s main research question focuses on uncovering how the student success interventions conceptualisation within the context of the South African system of Higher Education are carried out. The objectives of the are multifaceted. Firstly, the study investigates how academic interventions address the challenges leading to the high drop-out rate in Higher Education Institutions. Secondly, the study employs a narrative literature review to uncover the challenges and opportunities to mitigate possible risks affecting the advancement of conducive and equitable prospects for effective student success interventions. Finally, the study contributes to the ongoing discourse on student success interventions in relation to the South African 1997 White Paper on Higher Education Transformation, which indicates an improved access to HEIs. However, this study’s findings uncover a deficit in interventions that mitigate drop-out rates. The paper argues for an enhanced collaboration to strengthen institutional best practices as a fundamental step to transform challenges into opportunities when responding to student success interventions, in South African HEIs.