EVALUATING THE INFLUENCE OF PROGRAMMES FOR FIRST-YEAR STUDENTS ON ACADEMIC ATTAINMENT
M.G. Mbonambi, M. Ngibe, M.P. Msomi
First-year students often have a hard time acclimating to a new educational setting and social scene, which may not be like high school. An estimated 40% of undergraduate students drop out of school because they can't transition to university life. Students from rural areas find the transition from high school to higher education institutions even more challenging since they often lack access to fundamental tools that are necessary for instruction and learning. Thus, in order to guarantee that first-year students' total campus experience is favorable for academic achievement, universities are expected to take a leading role in promoting the crucial yet understudied topic of student transition. This study article aims to ascertain the impact and efficacy of the university of technology's first-year introductory programs in fostering a favorable tertiary environment. The study employed a positivist research design and relied heavily on a probability sampling technique to choose 175 first-year students. The most recent version of SPSS was used for data analysis, including both descriptive and inferential analysis. According to the empirical results, first-year students had a hard time adjusting to life in a higher education, which naturally presented significant obstacles to their academic success and advancement. The report offered a number of doable strategies that the university might implement to enhance the first-year student experience on campus and reduce the dropout rate while increasing throughput rates.
Keywords: Student transition, University of technology, first-year students, higher education, students experience programmes.