Academic Exclusion from Unisa
In our previous posts we talked about academic exclusion
from full-time universities here in South Africa, and we talked about how many
people register at Unisa in order to get credits to be reconsidered at the
universities they were excluded from. Today we will discuss what happens to
students who get excluded from Unisa, we will talk about how and why students
get excluded from Unisa as well as what they can do to be readmitted at Unisa
after exclusion. Academic exclusion is not being allowed to register at a
university because you failed to pass the minimum courses required for
readmission for the next year. Below we will share what the readmission
requirements are at Unisa.
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| pic from: @JamesGrantZA |
Requirements for readmission at UNISA:
- For an undergraduate student in 1st year of study to be readmitted they must complete at least 36credits per year which is equal to 3 semester courses/modules in a year.- For a second year undergraduate student to be readmitted they must pass at least 48 credits per year, which is about 4 semester courses.
If you do not pass the minimum
number of courses/modules required for readmission in a year or two consecutive
semesters you will get excluded.
The other way to get excluded is if you are taking too long
to finish your degree, there is a stipulated time for completion of all
qualifications at unisa e.g you have 3 years to complete a 120 credit higher
certificate, 8 years to complete a 3 year degree (360 credits), go to the Unisa
website here
to read more. For any queries with regard to academic progression its best to go
straight to the horse and hear directly from UNISA here> readmission@unisa.ac.za. Also just in
case you don’t read your UNISA emails or you haven’t seen this update UNISA
made as from 2013 with regards to Academic progression please go and read this announcement
Why UNISA students get excluded
There are many reasons that can lead to you not meeting the requirements mentioned above, I will mention some of them below.
- Since most Unisa students don't attend lectures, they do not have a strict study timetable and may leave exam prep for last minute.
- Students did not study the course content properly and did badly in assignments but well enough to be admitted to exam (as Unisa does not require alot of effort to admit people to write exams and class record usually doesn't count alot) but lack of preparation catches up to you during exam.
- Students have jobs and families which keep them busy and makes it difficult for them to allocated time
- Students do not read the rule books and do not know they are at risks of exclusion.
- Students do not have a proper study technique which lead to failing exam even if you did study.
- Some students have full time jobs and they take too many courses/modules than they can handle and end up failing whereas they you should have taken courses they could handle and fit into their schedule. If you don't have a good history of passing many courses in a single semester its best to do less courses to give them your full attention so you can pass all of them.
- Lack of support to help students when they do not understand course content, those who have people studying the same course living in the same area and helping each other usually do better than those who don't know other people doing that course.
- No access to internet - having access to the internet is a major advantage as you can download previous papers and email lecturers and search the internet for help, other people do not have access to the internet and it puts them at a disadvantage.
What to do after you have been excluded from Unisa?
After you have been given notice of your exclusion you are
given a chance to appeal to the readmission committee and state your reasons
for not meeting these requirements and provide evidence to support your appeal.
If you have good reasons for failing to meet readmission requirements you may
be given another chance to continue studying, but if you are not readmitted
following your appeal you will have to go study at an institution which offers a
one year higher certificate course preferably related to what you were studying
and pass that course. According to the UNISA website an excluded student must
have at least completed 48 credits before your readmission can be considered.
They require that the course you do be at an NQF 4 or higher in the higher learning institute you enrol at or you could enrol for a UNISA short learning programme. Examples of institutions that offer higher certificate courses and NQF 4 + qualifications are FET colleges, Mancosa, Varsity College, Damelin etc. I have covered the first part necessary for readmission after exclusion from Unisa, the second part is that a student applying for readmission must submit readmission application for the consideration of the registrar on prescribed Unisa form. Please read the Unisa rule book or download it online it has information regarding this.
They require that the course you do be at an NQF 4 or higher in the higher learning institute you enrol at or you could enrol for a UNISA short learning programme. Examples of institutions that offer higher certificate courses and NQF 4 + qualifications are FET colleges, Mancosa, Varsity College, Damelin etc. I have covered the first part necessary for readmission after exclusion from Unisa, the second part is that a student applying for readmission must submit readmission application for the consideration of the registrar on prescribed Unisa form. Please read the Unisa rule book or download it online it has information regarding this.
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