Man gets job after pushing trolleys by day, secretly studying engineering by night

[surface]

Man gets job after pushing trolleys by day, secretly studying how to fix cars by night

To support his family, Steven Arendse was pushing trolleys for a supermarket six days a week.

www.news24.com

 

[ToxicBunny]

Saw this story this morning, and its a great example of what hard work and dedication can do...

I wish him all the best with his job and his future studies to get to N3 and even beyond that hopefully.

 

[konfab]

I have said it before and I will say it again, online education is the only way that SA can get out of the mess it is in. Instead of funding the adult day care centers that universities like Stellenbosch, UCT and Wits have become, the government should be spending the money lowering the barriers to online institutions like this and UNISA, where people can still work their day jobs and do something productive with themselves at night.

 

[Mar Vin]

Great way to start the morning!...
Lets hope those who did not get it all this morning will stay off this one....

 

[Ancalagon]

That's awesome! Man that must be difficult, studying something like engineering at night on your cellphone, late into the night. His girlfriend probably thought he had a porn addiction. I hope it leads to much better pay for him.

 

[krycor]

I have said it before and I will say it again, online education is the only way that SA can get out of the mess it is in. Instead of funding the adult day care centers that universities like Stellenbosch, UCT and Wits have become, the government should be spending the money lowering the barriers to online institutions like this and UNISA, where people can still work their day jobs and do something productive with themselves at night.

So I agree with the whole online course study.. as the way forward.. but the failure rates from what I’ve seen has been dismal at UCT via getSmarter. If I recall my spouses financial maths, project management and some other course as part of marketing has a high failure rate and there was talk of them shutting it down as a result.

For IT in particular I don’t understand why it’s not offered online especially postgrad. Kinda annoys me that they haven’t moved on from there.. even undergraduate courses can be optimized by making courses blended online.. ie lectures streamed, limited places which are aligned with assessments and help/assistance or other scheduled events. So u always have a small class in class for one on one assistance throughout the year.. but the rest consume via net till their turn.

That's awesome! Man that must be difficult, studying something like engineering at night on your cellphone, late into the night. His girlfriend probably thought he had a porn addiction. I hope it leads to much better pay for him.

Unfortunately he is in Cpt so jury is out on that last one..

 

[Willie Trombone]

Man gets job after pushing trolleys by day, secretly studying how to fix cars by night

To support his family, Steven Arendse was pushing trolleys for a supermarket six days a week.

www.news24.com

So glad these news publications are publishing these good news stories. They're out there. We need to hear more! Thanks for posting.

 

[ShaunSA]

"I would stay up every night till 12, 1am, 2am to work on my course on my cellphone. I must admit my eyes did burn [looking at the small screen]."

Kudos to him. I couldn't study if you paid me

 

[SAguy]

So I agree with the whole online course study.. as the way forward.. but the failure rates from what I’ve seen has been dismal at UCT via getSmarter. If I recall my spouses financial maths, project management and some other course as part of marketing has a high failure rate and there was talk of them shutting it down as a result.

That's not true at all, overall course pass rate is around 90%.

 

[Sanzer]

This is fantastic to hear. It couldnt have been easy working off the cellphone. Well doe to him and thanks for sharing this. Wecould all use positive news like this.

 

[Gaz{M}]

Great way to start the morning!...
Lets hope those who did not get it all this morning will stay off this one....

Ok I won't point out all the negatives, just this once.

 

[R13...]

I have said it before and I will say it again, online education is the only way that SA can get out of the mess it is in. Instead of funding the adult day care centers that universities like Stellenbosch, UCT and Wits have become, the government should be spending the money lowering the barriers to online institutions like this and UNISA, where people can still work their day jobs and do something productive with themselves at night.

Problem with that is that places like UniSA have the lowest completion rates of any higher education institution. I think it's in the 20s the last time I saw the report in financial mail or finweek.

Which makes sense as only the dedicated complete while the laggards drop out. Harder to drop out of the commitment of full time education. And mind you even there the completion rates are in the 60s for the best.

 

[Mar Vin]

Ok I won't point out all the negatives, just this once.

Hope the withdrawal symptoms wont be that bad....

 

[satanboy]

Nice story.

 

[konfab]

Problem with that is that places like UniSA have the lowest completion rates of any higher education institution. I think it's in the 20s the last time I saw the report in financial mail or finweek.

Which makes sense as only the dedicated complete while the laggards drop out. Harder to drop out of the commitment of full time education. And mind you even there the completion rates are in the 60s for the best.

The key number is the amount of Rand per students that graduates.

Unisa's total income in 2018 was R7.4bn (fees and subsidies)
The amount of graduates they produced in that year was 52318.

Which is about R142k per graduating student per year.
https://www.unisa.ac.za/static/corp.../Annual reports/docs/unisa-annual-rpt2018.pdf

Stellenbosch on the other hand produced 8 899 graduates at the cost of R5.413bn.
Which amounts to about to R608k per graduating student per year.
http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Docume...Report/2018/2018_SU_Annual Report_English.pdf

This is for total income, if we just looked at government income:
Unisa gets R3.6bn, whilst Stellenbosch gets about R2.023bn.

Which then means that the cost to the government per graduating student is about R70k per student for UNISA, whereas it is R220k per student at Stellenbosch.

These numbers should easily show you why UNISA is a better investment for education than almost any other adult day care centre university.

 

[Knyro]

The key number is the amount of Rand per students that graduates.

Unisa's total income in 2018 was R7.4bn (fees and subsidies)
The amount of graduates they produced in that year was 52318.

Which is about R142k per graduating student per year.
https://www.unisa.ac.za/static/corporate_web/Content/News & Media/Publications/Annual reports/docs/unisa-annual-rpt2018.pdf

Stellenbosch on the other hand produced 8 899 graduates at the cost of R5.413bn.
Which amounts to about to R608k per graduating student per year.
http://www.sun.ac.za/english/Documents/Annual Integrated Report/2018/2018_SU_Annual Report_English.pdf

This is for total income, if we just looked at government income:
Unisa gets R3.6bn, whilst Stellenbosch gets about R2.023bn.

Which then means that the cost to the government per graduating student is about R70k per student for UNISA, whereas it is R220k per student at Stellenbosch.

These numbers should easily show you why UNISA is a better investment for education than almost any other adult day care centre university.

Universities aren't just for producing graduates. Those "adult daycare centres" also pump out a hell of a lot more research, at higher quality than UNISA. You need to factor that into your calculations as well.

 

[flippakitten]

I have said it before and I will say it again, online education is the only way that SA can get out of the mess it is in. Instead of funding the adult day care centers that universities like Stellenbosch, UCT and Wits have become, the government should be spending the money lowering the barriers to online institutions like this and UNISA, where people can still work their day jobs and do something productive with themselves at night.

Old man here, I wouldn't really call the kids in Uni adults.

 

[flippakitten]

As for the story, we need more people like him. Great story. I can only imagine how hard it must be to study on a cellphone.

 

[krycor]

That's not true at all, overall course pass rate is around 90%.

I’m talking about the post grad course (masters/honours level without thesis) not the short course.

Short courses don’t have exams.. just the financial maths alone had a lot of repeats for the pgdip.

 

[krycor]

Universities aren't just for producing graduates. Those "adult daycare centres" also pump out a hell of a lot more research, at higher quality than UNISA. You need to factor that into your calculations as well.

Was about to say similar.. the other thing is unisa is catering for multiple levels/tiers of education hence the inflated registration/completion numbers ie a national diploma is not comparable to a bachelors.. they different (they offer both).

While there is a distinct difference between the different tiers.. business in SA continually proves they are incapable of understanding this and using the skills appropriately. So I always find it frustrating when the news cycle pumps out stories of business saying there are no skills in SA.. we just have had to pathetic people/skills management because the morons in industry have structured salaries such that “manager” in title is valued wrongly. Ie seen as an advancement rather than a heavy responsibility to shape organization and its human capital.