Modelling Customised Student Support Framework to Enhance University at-risk Students’ Study Skills

Poor pass rates are a severe concern for the Department of Higher Education and Training and the universities in South Africa. Throughput rates remain low and programme completion takes much longer. On the other hand, universities suffer high dropouts due to general students' poor academic performance. One feasible intervention is student support. Universities should implement efficient and monitored student support systems (SSS). The paper discussed ways in which students may be supported with their study skills. It explored the attributes that are useful to improving students’ pass rates and the general students’ academic performance at a selected South African University (SSAU). These attributes can be integrated through planning implementation, monitoring, evaluation and control (PIMEC) processes. Action research benchmarking exercise adopting the theoretical frameworks of constructivism and symbolic interactionalism was conducted. Some successful approaches and benchmarks from international and developed countries’ universities were used to formalise and model student support in a modern tertiary institution setting. The boosted PIMEC concept and the improved student support response systems (SSRS) were blended in developing the PIMEC framework that this paper proposed for the SSAU. Besides, the concepts and approaches (such as crowdsourcing and incubation) used in business success were used to fortify the model. This resulted in a PIMEC-Enhanced SSRS Blended Model for improving the current SSS, emphasising communication within the system from top management, ICT and academic operation levels. Thus, it recommended the identification of at-risk students early during formative assessments.