Director of UP’s Department of Student Affairs Dr Kgadi Mathabathe chats about the changes she has made to the department to ensure that students feel fully supported at all times.

“I’ve been at the University of Pretoria (UP) since my first year, so I know all about being a student here,” says Dr Kgadi Mathabathe, who’s been the Director of Student Affairs at UP since January 2024.

The lively atmosphere in the Department of Student Affairs speaks of a space where students feel heard, helped and at home. The SRC also reports to the department under the Student Life portfolio, and Dr Mathabathe facilitates the SRC’s engagement and input on all university matters.

Having grown up in the rural township of Temba in Hammanskraal and attended an under-resourced school, she’s acutely aware of what it takes to succeed at university – which she did with the help of the government-funded Funza Lushaka Bursary for education students and a UP achievement bursary, granted for her outstanding academic performance at high school.

“The moment I entered the UP gates, the playing fields were levelled,” recalls Dr Mathabathe, who is a National Research Foundation-rated researcher with a PhD in Science Education. “I could access all the resources and opportunities the University offered; this is what I want every student at UP to experience.”

Today, she has more than 15 years of experience in higher education, formerly as a chemistry and science education lecturer; followed by administrative roles, first as the Head of community-based research on Mamelodi campus, then as Deputy Director: Academic Development in the Department for Education Innovation; and now as the Director of Student Affairs.

What changes have you made over the past year in the department?

Coming from the Department for Education Innovation, one of my responsibilities was the Student Success Pillar; I was the institutional lead to enhance student success through wrap-around support. UP has an incredible range of initiatives aimed at assisting and inspiring students to complete their degrees in the minimum amount of time, including FLY@UP, the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Programme and the Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme, to name a few.

I brought the Student Success Pillar into the department to integrate our approach to student development, leadership and psycho-social development, student life and student academic success in partnership with UP’s governance structures and all the faculties. This is working well.

One challenge we’re addressing is that of students taking up support services when it’s too late. Last year, I introduced a new position to the department – a data analyst and analytics coordinator who tracks student performance across all the faculties. We’ve been fortunate to get an electronic system to do the tracking, and we work with student lecturers, tutors and academic success coaches to track and identify students at risk. This way, we can immediately refer them for academic or mental health counselling support, to the learning disability unit, or to the nutrition and food security programme. At the moment, we’re concentrating on first-year students but would like to extend the tracking and support service throughout the undergraduate and postgraduate years – the entire student life cycle.

I have a dashboard where I can see the data in real time of each of the more than 9 000 first-year students and how they’re performing in all the faculties. Our annual intake is usually about 8 500, but in 2024, more high schools produced learners with university entrance passes, including for the scarce skills STEM programmes. Many of the Quintile 1 to 3 schools did well. To give you an indication of this, more than 50% of our first-years in 2025 are funded through the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS).

How are you addressing student hunger?

Many students come from financially stressed homes, and we’re keenly aware of student hunger. Through the Student Nutrition and Academic Progress Programme (SNAPP), we have a partnership with companies like Tiger Brands for non-perishable foods. We provide food parcels, food vouchers and meal allowances, where, like any other student, those in need can go to the University canteens and use their voucher for a meal.

Before a student can be admitted to SNAPP, we first establish their level of need by getting them to fill out the financial aid application on the UP Portal. We also determine if they’re on the NSFAS or any other bursary programme. In this way, we can also avoid double dipping. The beauty of digitisation is that it provides us with an integrated audit trail for decision-making purposes. For some students who have been at UP for too long without progression, we have to tell them the road ends here. NSFAS has an N+1 rule, where they only finance a student for one extra year.

We’re also planning for students on SNAPP to receive extra tutorials to help them succeed academically and to make them more appealing to bursary funders. Every year, bursaries go unused because students don’t meet their academic requirements; we want to close this gap.

Why was the Disability Unit renamed Access, Disability and Inclusion Services (ADIS)?

I received executive approval for the name change at the end of 2024. The rationale for the renaming is that ADIS promotes access and inclusion for all students, including those with physical disabilities, and students with what we call “invisible disabilities”, such as learning disabilities or psychological and emotional trauma.

How does your department address mental health challenges?

We have considerably enhanced our focus on mental health and interventions. This includes growing our Student Counselling Unit contract services to help all students in need, online and in person. We have a mental health resilience podcast, a peer-support programme and we work with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group, offering a 24-hour helpline. We also want to introduce a mental health app.

There is a serious increase of students with mental health challenges such as depression, and there are several reasons for this, including the fact that university is a high-pressure environment and a shock to the system. The pressure is exacerbated among students from households with a high rate of unemployment. They send bursary money home or take up jobs, which means they miss several classes, or their student funding comes in late. There is also the phenomenon of ancestral calling among some of our students where they need special attention and to be given concessions, such as taking a leave of absence when required.

Students come to us with all sorts of traumas, including suicidal ideation, or not being able to afford accommodation. We’re fortunate to have a donor who has donated several rent-free flats and we’re working on identifying more donors to add to these.

How do students get to know about what Student Affairs offers?

Our team is intentional about communicating what we offer. I converted one of the positions in the department into a dedicated media and marketing position. We produce a quarterly Department of Student Affairs newsletter that every student receives, and we do activations at every student event. When the University has events such as ChooseUP day, we’re there to showcase what we offer, and distribute FLY@UP-branded items like pens with messages and our contact details. We also share what we do on social media and our staff members get interviewed by TuksFM.

In partnership with Spec Savers, we have made it possible for students to get their eyes tested for free, and if they need spectacles, we pay for them as part of the FLY@UP campaign. We also advertise and run a thrift store where all staff and students donate clothes and everyone can choose items for themselves. For some students, it’s the only way they get nice clothes, but they never feel singled out, as everyone participates.

How do you stay sane?

My family keeps me sane. I am a mom to two boys, 14 and 7, and I have a very supportive husband. He is studying psychology and theology through UNISA. He is also a great cook, which is wonderful as I can’t cook to save my life.  

Also, I recently started going to gym after work, and stopped drinking sugary drinks, which I was addicted to. Now I drink lots of water. I reduced my carbohydrate intake and increased my consumption of vegetables and proteins. I’m feeling much better, but it is a journey.

Another aspect that keeps me sane is my personal time. I get up at 3am and enjoy a few hours where there are no demands on me. I use the opportunity to focus on my research, and read and write research articles, which I love doing. I also catch up on my supervision of master’s and PhD students in chemistry and science education.

I’m also very interested in Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) – a US-developed teaching methodology that assists students to do well in STEM subjects like chemistry, which is critical. If students fail subjects like maths and chemistry in their first year at UP, they cannot progress to second year.

I learnt about POGIL while I was doing my PhD. This was galvanised when I was selected for former President Barack Obama’s flagship programme – the Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) – to participate in a six-week leadership programme in the US. Coming back from it, I successfully applied for the MWF alumni grant funding together with a fellow POGIL practitioner, an American by the name of Caroline Lehman, to support township STEM teachers in Mamelodi and Hammanskraal to teach better using the POGIL method. The method also became the focus of my postgraduate student, Dr Charles Mamombe’s PhD. He graduated in April 2021.

Ultimately, I get great satisfaction out of helping others to succeed, and for our student body to know they have all the support they need. They must seize it with both hands and put in the hard work and sacrifices that are required to graduate.