Department of Academic Development
GENERAL
DESCRIPTION OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT
The aim and purpose of this department is to facilitate the bridging between a
school and/or work environment and a tertiary environment in order to meet the
articulated need of our client, the South African National Defence Force, to
develop and enhance student candidates’ educational potential. Although this
department resides in the School for HRD, it renders services to students at
under and post graduate level in all the schools, also those students enrolled
in the Distance Education programme. Academic Development is directed primarily
at equipping first-years with the generic skills required to fulfil their roles
as students initially, and as professional officers eventually.
All potential students of the Faculty of Military Science are subject to a selection
process. The results of a psychometric selection battery are taken into
consideration when decisions are made about their admission to the Faculty of
Military Science at the Military
Academy. Against this
background Academic Development strives to meet a constantly changing client
need in presenting tools and strategies that would complement the challenges of
mainstream academic programmes, and at the same time equip and prepare our
student officers for careers of varied length and application.
Currently, this department comprises three units, namely: Academic Support
Services, Educational Psychological Support Services, and Academic Language
Services. The Academic Support Programme entails specific academic writing
support and learning, and self organisation and management skills in the first
semester. This programme is aimed at all first year students. The
learning skills component focuses on processing knowledge and information,
discovering personal thinking and learning styles, a variety of study methods
and test and examination writing skills, while the self management and self
organizing component deals with coping with stress, time and relationships –
factors through research listed as impacting on academic performance. In the
language support programme the focus is on improving grammar, sentence and
paragraph construction and basic academic writing skills, such as sentence,
paragraph and academic essay structuring and referencing techniques.
In addition to the pivotal involvement of Psychological Services during
selection boards, ongoing individual and group counselling is another important
responsibility of this department. A reading programme and a mentoring system
for subject specific support supplement the Academic Support Programme.
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