Tshepiso Matentjie is coordinator of the Career Guidance and Counselling Unit at Technikon Southern Africa (TSA). This unit is located within the Academic Development Centre of the Technikon, which reports to the Learner Support Vice-Principal. Ms Matentjie is involved in a range of projects, including career and personal counselling, managing a resource centre and peer-counselling project, and marketing of the unit. In addition to this, she is driving an important strategic initiative at TSA – the Pre-Registration Assessment (PRA) project – which is meant to identify learner support needs of TSA learners at registration.

Ms Matentjie argues that - while other educational institutions implement screening and selection tests - TSA is concerned that pre-registration assessment (PRA) should not be a screening and sifting mechanism, but should rather be used to identify strengths and weaknesses of learners at entry. Through this approach, learner support programmes can be tailored to meet their unique needs, with PRA thus becoming a proactive rather than reactive measure.

PRA is aimed at determining the level of learning, so that new work can build on foundations of existing knowledge. Ms Matentjie believes that current learner support programmes presuppose that learners are homogeneous and therefore have the same support needs. As a result, these programmes do not respond adequately to learners’ individual needs. She further points out that - unlike other assessment methods, which are often used as gate-keeping mechanisms – PRA is in line with TSA’s ‘open door policy’.

PRA is a response to the high failure rate at tertiary institutions and the reality that many learners require increased support if they are to succeed in their studies. In challenging the idea that all learners are homogeneous and require the same type of support, Ms Matentjie argues that learners have a broad profile, including corporate clients, matriculants, and those who want further education. Different learners have different needs, which must be identified prior to registration. This will shape what learner support they will require.

According to Ms Matentjie, PRA is underpinned by a philosophy that if institutions are not responsive to learner needs and contexts, learners cannot be blamed for poor performance at tertiary institutions. Through PRA, TSA commits itself to sharing responsibility for the performance of its learners, by making a commitment to relevant and responsive learner support programmes. The shift in conception is that learners’ poor performance will no longer be attributed solely to learners, but that all stakeholders will share responsibility for learner performance.

Ms Matentjie argues that all learners, and not only the so-called ‘weak ones’, have areas that could be developed and improved. As TSA is a distance learning institution, some learner support needs may be related to the type of problems distance learners often experience, such as the following:

Other problems may be linked back more specifically to educational backgrounds and specific content or subject areas.

The Pre-Registration Assessment project is not limited to the Academic Development Centre only. Other stakeholders, including students, academic staff, and administrative staff, are actively engaging in the project. The PRA initiative is shared within TSA, and current developments include the establishment of a committee to drive the project. An audit is also being conducted to determine the existence and level of skills available within TSA for providing learner support programmes. One aim of the audit is to determine the availability and fields of learner support programmes, as well as their current impact on learner success.