Abstract

Research on tutoring practices in South African universities and across the globe reveals that effective tutorial planning and implementation at higher education institutions has positively influenced student success, engagement, and through-put rates. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a strategic analysis as a first step in working toward the institution’s strategic planning process to enhance tutoring practices across the institution. This study implemented a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis as a strategic tool to investigate existing tutoring practices across seven of the faculties at a University in the Western Cape in South Africa. The study employed quantitative and qualitative approaches for information gathering and analysis of the tutoring practices at the university. The findings reveal that implementing effective tutoring practices were a challenge for many academics due to a lack of direction, funding, support, and tutoring guidelines offered at institutional and faculty level. However, the paper concludes that in spite of these constraints, the majority of tutoring programs offered had a positive influence on students’ academic performance and through-put. The data collected from the SWOT analysis were valuable as it provided a platform for the faculties to reflect and assess tutoring practices from an internal and external perspective. The results obtained formed the basis for developing action plans to ensure quality improvement to the tutoring practices in the institution.