Ample literature on the retention of undergraduate students is available. However, information on the retention of postgraduate students in doctoral research is not abundant, especially when the population comprises working adult students studying on a part-time basis. This article aims to explore factors that influence retention in this group of…

Institutions of higher education in South Africa have seen a shift in the student demographic of student population, and from contact teaching approaches to distance and online approaches to instruction. This has posed challenges as students find themselves without adequate support in online environments to successfully fulfil their studies. There…

The evaluation of a program's compliance with service delivery and features necessary for the attainment of the program's educational objectives, student outcomes and continuous improvement is an important element in program accreditation and continuous improvement process. The study reported in this paper investigated the possible effects of…

The purpose of this study was to understand the nature and extent of subject content and curriculum knowledge that part-time Post Graduate Certificate in Education students in one South African university, brought to the classroom, and the kind and level of knowledge that they expected and sought from the programme. The study employed a…

This paper reports on a study which explored the mentoring experiences of professionally unqualified practicing teachers enrolled in a part-time Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The study sought to understand the mentoring experiences these students received from their teacher mentors, who…

The purpose of this study was to determine in-service students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the Advanced Certificate in Education (ACE) programme offered by Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in preparing them to be confident teachers of Mathematical Literacy, Life Sciences or Physical Sciences in the Further Education and Training…

Objective: To examine HIV/AIDS knowledge, perceptions of knowledge and sources of HIV information among university students in four countries with different HIV prevalence rates. Methods: A survey was completed by 2,570 randomly selected university students from the USA, Turkey, South Africa and Nigeria. Logistic regression analysis was used to…

This article is contextualised within the field of post-graduate, continuing teacher education in South Africa, through an essentially "distanced", that is, part-time, mixed-mode teaching and learning model. It draws on a broader phenomenological research study into the experiences of students taking a one semester module, "Reading…

The relevance of short learning programmes as an alternative to full-time tertiary degree courses at open and distance learning institutions forms the primary focus of this article. A new kind of student is on the increase in higher education: the mature student who prefers to study part-time in order to combine his or her studies with the…

The relationship between the academic labour market and the global labour market provides an important context for this research. There appear to be growing numbers of part-time lecturers at universities worldwide, which is seen as an extension of casualisation of labour more generally. From a social justice perspective, it is therefore of concern…

South African universities have responded in a variety of ways to national policy directives to broaden access to mature adult learners. In this paper we examine the progress made by one institution--the University of the Witwatersrand--to open its doors to adult learners through the Centre for Part-Time Study, known as "Wits Plus." We…