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“We’ve got you pegged”: programme choice in the transition to, and passage through, higher education

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Abstract

A 2010 paper published in Higher Education investigated the relationship between South African Grade 12 students’ programme preferences in 2001 for study in higher education, student enrolment in higher education programmes in 2002, and student graduations in 2006, devising what the author dubbed a preference-enrolment-graduation (PEG) model. The current paper, while recognizing the value of that model, points up its design limitations, proposing an alternative methodology for comparing student preferences, enrolments, and graduations that, using centralised Higher Education Management Information System (HEMIS) student record data, tracks the 2005 cohort of Grade 12 students along their higher education trajectories for the next 5 years (2006–2010), investigating the consistency of choice between programme preference, enrolment, and graduation.

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Notes

  1. LSAY is a programme managed by the National Centre for Vocational Education and Research on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations.

  2. Personal communication with Jean Skene, Director of HEMIS in the South African Department of Higher Education and Training.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Capacity Enhancement Unit, Human Sciences Research Council, Private Bag X41, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa

    Michael Cosser

  2. Education Portfolio Committee, Gauteng Provincial Legislature, Private Bag X52, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa

    Sekinah Nenweli

Authors
  1. Michael Cosser
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  2. Sekinah Nenweli
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Correspondence to Michael Cosser.

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Cosser, M., Nenweli, S. “We’ve got you pegged”: programme choice in the transition to, and passage through, higher education. High Educ 67, 333–348 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9655-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9655-3

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