---
title: "Universities confront growing gaps between school and first-year demands"
description: "Passing matric remains every school learner’s proudest milestone. Yet across South African universities, academics warn that the leap from secondary school to tertiary study exposes gaps few students see coming, and that closing them is a shared responsibility, not a student failing."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "LEARNING CURVEBALL"
author: "Siyabonga Goni"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/siyabonga-gooni/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-09-16-universities-confront-growing-gaps-between-school-and-first-year-demands/"
published: "2026-09-16T15:17:18"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 969
---

# Universities confront growing gaps between school and first-year demands

> Passing matric remains every school learner’s proudest milestone. Yet across South African universities, academics warn that the leap from secondary school to tertiary study exposes gaps few students see coming, and that closing them is a shared responsibility, not a student failing.

By Siyabonga Goni · Published 16 September 2026, 17:17 SAST

## Key points
- High school matric passes mask a harsh reality: many first years – especially in engineering and computer science – hit a steep workload and pace at university, with Stellenbosch reporting almost 20% first-year engineering dropouts despite support measures.
- The weak link is often foundational: inadequate maths and science grounding, memorisation-based study habits, poor time management and rising reliance on AI leave students unprepared for higher‑order university demands.
- Universities are fighting back with extended programmes, bridging years, summer schools and mentoring, which students say make a real difference — yet falling lecture attendance and AI misuse blunt those gains.
- Solutions must be shared: schools should assess and teach for understanding rather than recall, while universities must create coherent, enabling learning environments that align curriculum, teaching, assessment and support.

## Content

Collecting a bachelor’s pass is viewed as a great achievement. For many students, stepping onto campus a few months later brings a sobering realisation that passing school and surviving university are not the same thing.

Daily Maverick spoke to academic experts across the country to describe the gaps they often see in first-year students’ abilities. Experts said that students struggled, not because they lacked ability, but because higher education asked something different of them.

### **The foundational gap**

![Stellenbosch University.  (Photo: Gallo Images / ER Lombard)](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/MUe9wqceHW5NWS9OyuKClJpwOCA=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/MC-Stellies-News24.jpg)

*At Stellenbosch University, the gap between school and tertiary education is most keenly felt in engineering. (Photo: Gallo Images / ER Lombard)*

At Stellenbosch University (SU), Professor Wikus van Niekerk, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, said that gap was felt acutely in engineering.

“The workload and pace of work are a big step up from school to university in general, and engineering specifically,” Van Niekerk said. He added: “A very strong background in both mathematics and science remains foundational to success in engineering studies.”

The scale of the problem is measurable. SU says close to 20% of first-year engineering students drop out, despite a raft of support measures already being in place. Van Niekerk said it was “lower than most other engineering programmes in the country”, not evidence that Stellenbosch was failing its students, but a sign of how demanding the transition was even at an institution built to manage it.

At the University of Cape Town (UCT), Professor Michelle Kuttel sees the same fault line from a different department. Heading a Computer Science programme with first-year classes of more than 1,000 students, she spoke about where the trouble started.

“Typically, the biggest issue is skills in mathematics,” she said, noting that whether a school offered IT as a subject mattered far less than whether it taught mathematics properly. “We would like more schools to offer mathematics as opposed to Maths Literacy.”

University of Johannesburg (UJ) student Simamkele Qoyo told Daily Maverick that time management was difficult for him.

“When I received assignments, I would usually do them at the last minute... This was caused by the workload, and in those times procrastination would hit, and rather than working on it one would just leave it to AI, which is not good because that results in failure,” said Qoyo.

### **A mismatch, not a deficit**

![Durban University of Technology campus](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/hBRMhlZJbZ8XWM8H146nVwfw3gU=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/2985/DSC09957jpg_832433.jpg)

*Durban University of Technology campus. (Photo: Envision2030)*

Not every academic Daily Maverick spoke to framed this as something lacking in students. Dr Shoba Rathilal, Acting Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the Durban University of Technology (DUT), pushed back on the idea altogether.

“I would be cautious about describing these as student deficits,” she said. “Students arrive with significant strengths, capabilities, aspirations and diverse forms of knowledge. However, they do not all arrive with the same educational opportunities or prior learning experiences.”

She added. “The purpose of schooling is not to produce finished graduates, but to establish the foundations upon which universities can build.”

Beyond subject choice, several academics point to how students have learnt to think. Professor Daniel Wilke, Head of the Wits School of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering, said he had watched a shift in first-year habits.

“There has been a shift in student inclination to rely on memorisation, instead of investing time in understanding to develop thinking,” said Wilke.

According to Wilke, schools should “invest in students developing an understanding of concepts, principles and ideas and avoid memory-driven education, and clearly differentiate between assessments that promote memory versus assessments that promote understanding”.

Qoyo made a similar point.

“The method I usually used in high school to study did not work here, so basically if they \[schools\] had given us other alternatives of studying, maybe I would have adapted better,” said Qoyo.

### **The extended-programme lifeline**

Universities aren’t waiting for schools to close the gap. Stellenbosch runs a full extended curriculum bridging year for under-prepared engineering students, backed by summer schools, study-skills lectures, educational psychologists and AI tutor-bots, under a standing rule that “there should be no hungry engineering student at Stellenbosch”.

![Siya-studentgambling-awareness](https://cdn.dailymaverick.co.za/i/eOFF-EwIwzigFQD3727wxKisyrI=/200x100/smart/filters:strip_exif\(\)/file/attachments/orphans/1749742857052_337433.jpg)

*Wits Dean of Student Affairs, Professor Jerome September. (Photo: LinkedIn)*

Wits Dean of Student Affairs Professor Jerome September points to the Gateway to Success programme.

“The Gateway to Success programme is designed to help first-year students orientate themselves within the university, connect with their peers and access support services.”

Speaking about the importance of the extended programmes, Yuyo Mabuza, a Cape Peninsula University of Technology student studying Architecture, said he was able to work well after entering the programme.

“It helped a lot because I was able to tolerate stress and high-pressure conditions. I basically had to work twice as hard as anyone. The course is about drawings, and I didn't have any background in them,” said Mabuza.

DUT frames its support differently, as developmental, not remedial. Rathilal lists tutorials, mentoring, academic advising and diagnostic literacy assessments, but insists support alone won't fix the problem.

### **Enabling learning environments**

“Student success cannot be achieved by attempting to ‘fix’ students. It requires creating enabling learning environments in which curriculum, teaching, assessment, technology, student support and student agency work together coherently,” said Rathilal.

Van Niekerk also flagged a fresh problem of falling lecture attendance alongside “excessive use of artificial intelligence to solve homework and tutorial problems”. The effect, he said, had been “complacency, especially among first-year students, resulting in them being underprepared for final assessments and therefore achieving a lower pass rate in at least two modules, compared to previous years”.

Speaking on how the problems faced can be resolved, Wilke wanted assessment in schools to be redesigned to reward understanding over recall. Meanwhile, Rathilal framed it as shared responsibility between schools and universities.

“The question is not whether students are deficient, but whether the educational opportunities available to them have adequately prepared them for the demands of higher education.” **DM**