Page 12 - UWI QUALITY CIRCLE Vol.19 May 2017

Student Success: Retention Strategies
BY DR. ANGELLA STEPHENS, SENIOR PROGRAMME OFFICER OFFICE OF THE BOARD FOR UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES (OBUS), THE UWI OPEN CAMPUS
Promoting student success is a major challenge faced by higher education institutions worldwide. It is further compounded by the increasing emphasis on widening access
without a similar focus on appropriate retention strategies. The literature speaks to several strategies in tertiary level institutions in the USA that resulted in little improvement in retention rates. On average only 39% of students in four-year colleges and universities in 2006 complete a bachelor’s degree on-time and 52.9% complete within six years.
The University of the West Indies (The UWI) also faces a similar challenge especially as it continues to internationalise its matriculation requirements across the Caribbean diaspora and beyond. This results in various socioeconomic obstacles that contribute to attrition. University-wide rst year attrition rates for students registered in 2008/2009 on three physical campuses and 2009/2010 on all four campuses were 11.0% and 16.3% respectively. While it is comforting that the data show that these attrition rates fall below those of comparable higher education institutions in the USA, less comforting are The UWI survey data which indicate that 42.6% of students university-wide were required to withdraw due to poor academic performance.
Additionally, data collected between 2006 and 2012 indicate that from the Caribbean Secondary Education Certi cate/General Certi cate of Education Ordinary Level (CSEC/GCEO) category of lower level ‘matriculants’, only 32% graduated from a total of 18,462 registered students. Of signi cance is the fact that the percentage who persevered did well with the majority achieving degree grade point averages (GPAs) between 2:00 and 3.99. These ndings indicate that while The UWI’s focus is on widening access, its core business has to be placed on retention strategies for greater throughput.
It is noteworthy that since 2015/2016, faculties and campuses university-wide have aggressively implemented various intervention strategies to improve student retention and success. These include closer monitoring of pass and failure rates and mandatory reporting
of failure rates of 25% or above. A year later, the data point to a majority reduction and only a slight increase overall in the number of courses reporting failure rates of 25% and above. In fact, at the St. Augustine campus which recorded the highest campus attrition rate in 2010 (13.7%), there have been decreases in the number of courses with failure rates of 25% and above in all faculties which imply overall, ceteris paribus, that these strategies have proven successful. The UWI continues its vigilance in implementing retention strategies with the aim of supporting students in achieving their academic goals.
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