Mandela FYS practitioners shine at 11th Annual AMS Colloquium #R2bP

Zintle Magele and Zonele Mdiya 

Zintle and Zonele’s paper entitled “FYS Practitioners’ Use of Student Voice as a Contributor to the Implementation of the FYS Programme at Nelson Mandela University,” co-authored with Dr Lekwa Mokwana, Director of Learning Development.

They argued that student voice always existed, and through critical reflections they illustrated how it contributed to the implementation of the FYS programme at Mandela Uni.

However, they acknowledged that the inclusion of student voice was not intentional rather emerged as they worked collaboratively with FYS buddies.

They learned through their reflections that the FYS Buddies’ voice was an embodiment of their lived experiences and voices of the first-year students, thus afforded them opportunities to understand students’ needs relevant to the FYS programme.

They concluded that student voice was used as an enabler for building interventions to assist student success and enhance social and academic integration for first-year students. Furthermore, student voice served as an immediate monitoring and evaluation tool which allowed them to make timely adjustments to the FYS programme.

Zintle said “Our presentation being recognised as one of the best was such an affirming moment for us. It reinforced the importance of making sure that the voices of our students are heard and that we are constantly adapting to meet their needs. We are truly honoured that our work in the FYS Programme got so much attention from the participants.”

Zonele echoed Zintle’s sentiments, adding, “Preparing for this colloquium was a journey of reflection and growth. It was an opportunity for us to not only share our work but also learn from others. To have our presentation ranked so high among so many impactful contributions is an incredible milestone for us.”

Dr Mokwana, expressed his hearty congratulations to the duo and indicated that this is only the beginning “As Learning Development, we have made an intentional decision to participate in various platforms with our peers in the sector, to make sure our work is informed by research, and it also informs research, while we continue to address students’ everchanging contemporary academic and social challenges.”

The colloquium was hosted by the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), under the theme “Student Voice as a Contributor to Student Support and Success”. It brought together student support practitioners, academics, students and researchers and provided a platform for reflection on experiences, challenges, achievements and initiatives for elevating student success.