goodluck edward
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- Sep 22, 2021
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Why do students differ so much in their academic performance in Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs)?
I will elaborate much on non-universities institutions.
Students are most essential asset for any educational institute. The social and economic development of the country is directly linked with students’ performance. The students’ performance (academic achievement) plays an important role in producing the best quality graduates who will become great leader and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country’s economic and social development.
University education in Tanzania has changed in many dimensions since independence in 1961. The number of university institutions has grown from one (1) University College at the time of independence to 34 Full-Fledged Universities, 15 University Colleges and eleven (11) University Campuses, Centres and Institutes in 2018. This is exclusive of non-university institutions, which have also increased tremendously in the past two decades.
The fact that all higher learning institutions in the country operate under the same national policy, that is, each institute produce its on final examinations, one would expect the academic performance for the institute to be more or less the same but this is not what is displayed by the institutes at the final examinations results. The non-university institutions display a tremendous non-uniformity in their final academic examination performance. Some institutes perform academically high, while some perform low.
Far less attention has been given to the possibility the socio-cultural environmental factors, such as characteristics of non-university institutions (example; physical facilities, teacher training, discipline systems), neighborhoods (example; poverty, crime, pollution), and families (example; parental education, use of language, disciplinary practices).
For a developing country like Tanzania, the provision of quality education is indispensable in order to produce well-trained human resources to respond not only to national development needs consistent with the National Development Vision (NDV) 2025 and other national development objectives, but also to existing and emerging regional and global labour market demands. The observed increasing trend in the population of non-university institutions in Tanzania in the past recent decades requires corresponding concerted efforts by all stakeholders in order to ensure that indeed, graduates from these institutions are of acceptable quality to meet the labour market needs.
Social constructivism theory:
Social constructivism theory postulates that social and cultural contexts can very much shape people’s thinking and learning. Social constructivists believe that knowledge is situated and collaborative.
The theory on the grounds that family background determines the level and quality of education that one could attain. Most students in non-universities institutions take business and medicine courses and not law or engineering courses. It further influences the kind of a higher learning institutions that a child attends and their carrier destiny.
The cultural capital of the parents has an influence to children’s academic performance. Low social economic status negatively may affect academic achievement in non-university institutions because low social economic status prevents access to vital resources and creates additional stress at home. The social status of parents also had significance on the expectations from the children and this can be attributed to the support that the parents were rendering to their children.
Source: TCU (2019)
In total, 34,236 students who were enrolled into various Bachelor degree programmes in public and private non-university institutions during the 2017/2018 academic year. Enrolled Bachelor degree students accounted for 95.5% of the total students’ enrolment in the 32 non-university institutions that offered Bachelor degree programmes. Of the total students who were enrolled into various Bachelor degree programmes, 19,606 (57.3%) were males and the remaining 14,630 (42.7%) were females.
Gender differentials on enrolment into Bachelor degree programmes was also observed in non-university institutions. It has been revealed that female students were more likely to have been enrolled into the Business cluster than male students. More than 70% of the total female students were pursuing Business related programmes compared to 62.1% of the total male students who were in the same cluster. In contrast, male students were more likely to be enrolled into the Engineering cluster than female students. Of the total male students who were in different years of study pursuing Bachelor degree programmes, 12.1% were enrolled into Engineering programmes while the corresponding percentage for female students was 2.6%.
The downfall enrolment of female into engineering programmes is another issue to address in Higher Learning institutions in Tanzania.
The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania through the Tanzania Commission for Universities has played a critical role in creating an enabling environment necessary to bolster the establishment of university institutions in the country.
Recommendation:
It has to be mandatory that all non-university institutions should develop counseling programmes and the community and Government must ensure counselors are trained and are assisting students in the Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs).The effectiveness of the counseling programme and what should be done to improve it in non-universities institutions, is an area to be looked upon.
Researchers need to focus on what works in education instead of always focusing on what is not working, This will help to understand the strengths and emulate for quality teaching and learning.
Thank you!
I will elaborate much on non-universities institutions.
Students are most essential asset for any educational institute. The social and economic development of the country is directly linked with students’ performance. The students’ performance (academic achievement) plays an important role in producing the best quality graduates who will become great leader and manpower for the country thus responsible for the country’s economic and social development.
University education in Tanzania has changed in many dimensions since independence in 1961. The number of university institutions has grown from one (1) University College at the time of independence to 34 Full-Fledged Universities, 15 University Colleges and eleven (11) University Campuses, Centres and Institutes in 2018. This is exclusive of non-university institutions, which have also increased tremendously in the past two decades.
The fact that all higher learning institutions in the country operate under the same national policy, that is, each institute produce its on final examinations, one would expect the academic performance for the institute to be more or less the same but this is not what is displayed by the institutes at the final examinations results. The non-university institutions display a tremendous non-uniformity in their final academic examination performance. Some institutes perform academically high, while some perform low.
Far less attention has been given to the possibility the socio-cultural environmental factors, such as characteristics of non-university institutions (example; physical facilities, teacher training, discipline systems), neighborhoods (example; poverty, crime, pollution), and families (example; parental education, use of language, disciplinary practices).
For a developing country like Tanzania, the provision of quality education is indispensable in order to produce well-trained human resources to respond not only to national development needs consistent with the National Development Vision (NDV) 2025 and other national development objectives, but also to existing and emerging regional and global labour market demands. The observed increasing trend in the population of non-university institutions in Tanzania in the past recent decades requires corresponding concerted efforts by all stakeholders in order to ensure that indeed, graduates from these institutions are of acceptable quality to meet the labour market needs.
Social constructivism theory:
Social constructivism theory postulates that social and cultural contexts can very much shape people’s thinking and learning. Social constructivists believe that knowledge is situated and collaborative.
The theory on the grounds that family background determines the level and quality of education that one could attain. Most students in non-universities institutions take business and medicine courses and not law or engineering courses. It further influences the kind of a higher learning institutions that a child attends and their carrier destiny.
The cultural capital of the parents has an influence to children’s academic performance. Low social economic status negatively may affect academic achievement in non-university institutions because low social economic status prevents access to vital resources and creates additional stress at home. The social status of parents also had significance on the expectations from the children and this can be attributed to the support that the parents were rendering to their children.
Source: TCU (2019)
In total, 34,236 students who were enrolled into various Bachelor degree programmes in public and private non-university institutions during the 2017/2018 academic year. Enrolled Bachelor degree students accounted for 95.5% of the total students’ enrolment in the 32 non-university institutions that offered Bachelor degree programmes. Of the total students who were enrolled into various Bachelor degree programmes, 19,606 (57.3%) were males and the remaining 14,630 (42.7%) were females.
Gender differentials on enrolment into Bachelor degree programmes was also observed in non-university institutions. It has been revealed that female students were more likely to have been enrolled into the Business cluster than male students. More than 70% of the total female students were pursuing Business related programmes compared to 62.1% of the total male students who were in the same cluster. In contrast, male students were more likely to be enrolled into the Engineering cluster than female students. Of the total male students who were in different years of study pursuing Bachelor degree programmes, 12.1% were enrolled into Engineering programmes while the corresponding percentage for female students was 2.6%.
The downfall enrolment of female into engineering programmes is another issue to address in Higher Learning institutions in Tanzania.
The Government of the United Republic of Tanzania through the Tanzania Commission for Universities has played a critical role in creating an enabling environment necessary to bolster the establishment of university institutions in the country.
Recommendation:
It has to be mandatory that all non-university institutions should develop counseling programmes and the community and Government must ensure counselors are trained and are assisting students in the Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs).The effectiveness of the counseling programme and what should be done to improve it in non-universities institutions, is an area to be looked upon.
Researchers need to focus on what works in education instead of always focusing on what is not working, This will help to understand the strengths and emulate for quality teaching and learning.
Thank you!
