REFLECTIONS ON THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY HONOURS PROGRAM USING A SYSTEMS APPROACH

Abstract

In the South African context, most universities offer a three-year undergraduate degree followed by a further year of study to obtain an honours degree. Programmes in computing, such as information technology and other programmes with computer science majors (collectively IT), follow this same format. The high demand from students and constrained institutional resources for this further year of study necessitate the implementation of a student selection process, all the while being mindful of, among others, the expectations of students, the industry’s demand for graduates, and the university’s own academic requirements and financial constraints. There is also a rapidly changing IT environment that all role-players need to be cognizant of. This results in different perspectives on the honours programme and the handling thereof. This complexity, therefore, demands a critical reflection on the honours programme from different stakeholder perspectives to identify different problems and pressures. Therefore, the problem to be addressed in this research is effectively managing the IT honours programme and training lifecycle. Subsequently, the aim of this paper is to present a systematic reflection to diagnose the problems and posing questions with IT honours students’ training lifecycle, based on the methodology of Churchman’s systems approach: A problem can be referenced in terms of its objectives, sub-systems or elements, environment, resources, and management or coordination of all these. The three questions of Kant on reason are used to guide the process. Results anticipated from this study are the identification of the problems and arising questions within the IT Honours programme as well as the environment in which it functions. This is to be followed up with action research to do further reflective practice to improve the recognised problems. This will be done by examining the programme from several perspectives.