Students during a face-to-face class at the Pretoria Learning Centre
The Integrated Learner Support Programme is dedicated to Unisa students, and aims to increase students’ success and pass rates. The South Africa Survey issued by the SA Institute for Race Relations states that Unisa is South Africa’s most productive university with approximately 350 000 enrolled students.
Moreover, Unisa awards a total of 12.5% of all degrees in the country according to a draft document on Unisa’s Advancement Strategy 2012-2015: “Access and Success”.
Most importantly, one of the tenants of improving students’ success rates at Unisa is in the provision of tutorial services. Prof Matshepo Matoane, Director of Instructional Support and Services (DISS) in the Department of Tuition and Facilitation of Learning, spells out that student support in an ODL context is not only about being student-centred, but also about bridging the distance between the students and their learning environment.
“The programme is also about influencing the student success rate by bridging the gap between students and academics and students as well as among the students themselves. We often find that students study in isolation and with the support that we offer they are able to have a rich learning experience especially when they learn with other students.”
Simply put, the Integrated Tutor Model is a strategy aimed at addressing the Unisa 2015 strategic objective 6.5, which reads as follows: “to establish service-orientated, technology-enhanced learner support to increase retention and throughput”. This is done by ensuring that there is effective planning, coordinated delivery, evaluation and quality assurance in tutorial services.
Prof Matoane elaborates this point further by saying that the role of the tutor has been brought to the fore.
Prof Matoane is the Director of Instructional Support and Services
“Previously,” she says, “tutorial services were seen as an add-on to teaching and learning, but with the introduction of the Integrated Tutor Model, tutorials are integrated into teaching and learning from the point of course design to course delivery”.
Unisa offers tutorial support both through face to face and online mediums (through the use of e-tutors). The introduction of the e-tutor system has also added to the greening of the environment by going paperless. The system is currently rolled out in phases and this year, NQF level 5 will benefit from the roll out proceeding to NQF level 6 in 2014 and NQF level7 in 2015.
Prof Matoane says that face-to-face tutoring will still continue for modules categorised as ‘high risk’ and those that are called ‘barriers to graduation’. “We might end up with a situation where face-to-face tutoring will continue taking place concurrently with e-tutoring for as long as these categories of modules continue to exist at Unisa, as the aim is to promote student success.”
“Evidently, the scope is very big and we must continue to improve the pass and throughput rates that we pride ourselves with at the University. Alumni of the University can play a vital role in this process as they can become part of the programme in order for it to thrive.”
She concludes by challenging alumni to take up their key role in acting as tutors as they themselves have been through the system. “They have the experience of learning at a distance and are therefore in a better position to support the students as they can relate to their learning experiences. It only makes sense for us to tap into that vast pool of alumni we have as a University, this will also serve to create development and career-pathing opportunities for our own alumni.”
