Students Views on Universal Access Transition and Completion of their Higher Education at Kwame Nkrumah University

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue X, October 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Students Views on Universal Access Transition and Completion of their Higher Education at Kwame Nkrumah University

Dr. Annie Penda (PhD) and Dr Oliver Magasu (PhD)
Kwame Nkrumah University P. O. Box 80404, Kabwe –Zambia

Abstract. This paper is a research carried out at Kwame Nkrumah University to establish the views of students on how they access and complete their higher education. The objectives of the study were to; determining how students access higher education, establishing the students’ transition during the period of acquiring higher education and to examining students’ completion of higher education. This study used a mixed approach to collect data. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used for collecting data. The population comprised of all the forth year students, without and with disabilities. The sample size was thirty. Data analysis was done using thematic and SPSS soft-ware version 22. The key findings were that, universal access was realized, during transition period some students faced challenges which made some to stop school and it was also discovered that majority of the students manage to complete higher education successfully while a small number failed to complete successfully.

Key Words: Students, Access, Transition, Completion, Higher Education, Disabled and Non-Disabled

I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Education is a process of imparting knowledge into learners (Ndhlovu, 2012). Higher Education institutions have this noble duty of imparting knowledge into the students. This is done through teaching and learning, research and publication, giving of service to the institutions and community service. In order for students to acquire this education, the students have to access it. Universal access to higher education is the ability of all people that is both the disabled and non-disabled to have the equal opportunity of accessing it regardless of the social class, gender, ethnicity, background, physical or mental disabilities. There is also a great need to students who are enrolled to have a driving force which makes them benefit from education as it is being offered to them which helps them to keep on going or transit from one academic year to another. According to O’Donnell, Kean and Stevens (2016), education transition presents a challenge to researchers, policy makers and practitioners alike because of the variety of ways in which the term is used and understood. Colley (2007) argues that it is impossible to arrive at a single definition of transition that might gain consensus, yet lack of engagement with the definition means that conceptualizations of transition are not explicitly articulated. Ecclestone (2006) suggests that there are four ways in which transition is conceptualised. The first he terms ‘institutional transition’ and refers to (for example) moves from one

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