A critical investigation into the current shortage of information technology postgraduates produced by Unisa

Abstract

Postgraduate studies (master’s and doctoral studies) are vital for any higher education institution with regard to funding and reputation. It is therefore important to ensure that the headcount and throughput rates of postgraduates are monitored on a continuous basis. However, there are a number of higher education institutions that are currently failing to offer postgraduate studies to meet the targets set by the Department of Education. This is especially the case within open distance learning (ODL) institutions. The primary investigation in this paper is the current shortage being experienced by the industry and government sectors regarding postgraduate students who have specialised in Information Technology (IT). This is of great concern because IT is one of the fields in which South Africa needs to be remain competitive within the economic sector. Firstly, the headcount and throughput rate at the University of South Africa (Unisa), the largest ODL-based university within South Africa, are investigated. The second part of this paper deals with four dimensions of postgraduate success which, for this paper, are identified as the headcount, the throughput rate, time to completion and the dropout rate of students enrolled for master’s or doctoral studies within the School of Computing at Unisa.