Underprivileged Student’s Motivation for Higher Academic Pursuit

L07 5

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Abstract

The South African Higher Educational Institutions has a priority to serve postgraduate students and promotion of research and development especially in broadband technologies and their applications since Information Communication Technology indeed is the future and the key to 21st Century teaching and learning. However, to ensure that Higher Educational Institutions do make a significant impact in the South African economy, they need to reassess their strategies in addressing the imbalance of black South African students in the Universities. To this end, the paper outlines factors influencing South African black student’s lack of academic aspirations and further proposes recommendations that need to be followed by Higher Educational Institutions in order to mitigate outlined factors. The research follows a systems approach to system development. However, this is not to imply that the paper produces a software artifact, but the result is a theoretical framework that outlines and curbs factors influencing South African black students not to continue with postgraduate studies. The adopted systems approach offers a step-by-step technique to developing Higher Educational Institutions social responsibility in bridging the imbalance in numbers of South African and International students.