ABSTRACT
The issue in this case study is that of helping first-year accounting students to survive their course in the context of a very high failure rate.
Background
Vista University is a multi-campus, historically disadvantaged, black institution of higher education in South Africa. This case study takes place on the Welkom Campus, which is in the goldfields mining area of the Free State province. Despite being a mining community, many students come from rural towns and from severely deprived educational environments. At the Welkom Campus, students’ examination results have been notoriously poor. In 1996, for instance, there was a 94 per cent failure rate for firstyear accounting students.
