The Extra Year That Is Not a Setback | Inside SU’s Extended Curriculum Programmes
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SU Student Success Initiative Series: Episode Fourteen.
Recorded on Tuesday 20 October 2026.
Offered the extended programme instead of mainstream? That letter can land like a verdict. It is not one. Stellenbosch University has run a STEM extended programme since 1995, and the data on where its graduates end up tells a very different story from the one most students assume. This conversation is about what the extra year actually gives you.
Jacolette Kloppers hosts the fourteenth of 15 conversations on Lunch Club, joined by Dr Marnel Mouton, Senior Lecturer in Botany and Zoology and Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) Coordinator for Science, AgriSciences and Engineering; Shona Lombard, lecturer in the Arts and Social Sciences ECP; Dr Sharon Malan, Programme Leader for the ECP in Economic and Management Sciences; and Buhle Mpanza, a BA (Language and Culture) student in the programme.
What we cover in this episode:
- Why these programmes exist at all: Dr Mouton on the academic development work of the 1980s that ECPs grew out of, how the STEM foundation year is structured, and what students study before joining the mainstream programme.
- What the data actually showed: Her Teaching Fellowship study compared ECP and mainstream student outcomes and found the programme has produced a large and diverse body of SU graduates, many of whom went on to postgraduate study. She discusses what the numbers told her and what surprised her.
- Making the rules of the game explicit: Dr Mouton explains, in plain terms, how Legitimation Code Theory changed her teaching, and why spelling out the unwritten conventions of university science matters most to students who are new to it.
- Equity is not a lower standard: Her argument is that equity means giving every student a fair opportunity to reach the standard, not lowering it – and that the real question is whether the university is designed to let students succeed.
- Peer mentoring since 2015: Ms Lombard has led the Arts and Social Sciences mentoring programme for a decade, with senior ECP students mentoring first years. She explains why she chose peers over staff, what happens in a typical session, and why that support matters most in the first semester. One mentor told her a good mentor needs ‘street smarts’ alongside kindness, patience and self-control.
- What mentors get back: Since 2017, mentoring can be recognised on academic transcripts through co-curricular accreditation. Ms Lombard discusses what mentors gain, how many former ECP students return to mentor, and which piece of student feedback has stayed with her.
- From memorising to understanding: Dr Malan’s doctoral research developed a problem-based learning approach for a foundation programme. She explains what she learnt about how students shift from memorising to genuinely directing their own learning, and what changed when she flipped Introduction to Economics.
- Productive struggle: The title of her own podcast episode was ‘We have to grapple to learn’. Dr Malan explains why struggle is part of learning, and how she supports students through it without removing any of it, including how AI pushed her into a rethink of assessment built around evaluative judgement.
- The student’s account: Ms Mpanza on how she came to be in the ECP and how she felt about it at first, what surprised her about university compared with school, how the slower pace helped her settle, and the moment she felt she genuinely belonged. She closes with what she would say to a Grade 12 learner or a parent who sees the extra year as a setback.
Where to find support:
SU website: https://www.su.ac.za/en/students/success – or from the SU homepage, click Students, then Support, then Student Success.
Recorded on Tuesday 20 October 2026.
Offered the extended programme instead of mainstream? That letter can land like a verdict. It is not one. Stellenbosch University has run a STEM extended programme since 1995, and the data on where its graduates end up tells a very different story from the one most students assume. This conversation is about what the extra year actually gives you.
Jacolette Kloppers hosts the fourteenth of 15 conversations on Lunch Club, joined by Dr Marnel Mouton, Senior Lecturer in Botany and Zoology and Extended Curriculum Programme (ECP) Coordinator for Science, AgriSciences and Engineering; Shona Lombard, lecturer in the Arts and Social Sciences ECP; Dr Sharon Malan, Programme Leader for the ECP in Economic and Management Sciences; and Buhle Mpanza, a BA (Language and Culture) student in the programme.
What we cover in this episode:
- Why these programmes exist at all: Dr Mouton on the academic development work of the 1980s that ECPs grew out of, how the STEM foundation year is structured, and what students study before joining the mainstream programme.
- What the data actually showed: Her Teaching Fellowship study compared ECP and mainstream student outcomes and found the programme has produced a large and diverse body of SU graduates, many of whom went on to postgraduate study. She discusses what the numbers told her and what surprised her.
- Making the rules of the game explicit: Dr Mouton explains, in plain terms, how Legitimation Code Theory changed her teaching, and why spelling out the unwritten conventions of university science matters most to students who are new to it.
- Equity is not a lower standard: Her argument is that equity means giving every student a fair opportunity to reach the standard, not lowering it – and that the real question is whether the university is designed to let students succeed.
- Peer mentoring since 2015: Ms Lombard has led the Arts and Social Sciences mentoring programme for a decade, with senior ECP students mentoring first years. She explains why she chose peers over staff, what happens in a typical session, and why that support matters most in the first semester. One mentor told her a good mentor needs ‘street smarts’ alongside kindness, patience and self-control.
- What mentors get back: Since 2017, mentoring can be recognised on academic transcripts through co-curricular accreditation. Ms Lombard discusses what mentors gain, how many former ECP students return to mentor, and which piece of student feedback has stayed with her.
- From memorising to understanding: Dr Malan’s doctoral research developed a problem-based learning approach for a foundation programme. She explains what she learnt about how students shift from memorising to genuinely directing their own learning, and what changed when she flipped Introduction to Economics.
- Productive struggle: The title of her own podcast episode was ‘We have to grapple to learn’. Dr Malan explains why struggle is part of learning, and how she supports students through it without removing any of it, including how AI pushed her into a rethink of assessment built around evaluative judgement.
- The student’s account: Ms Mpanza on how she came to be in the ECP and how she felt about it at first, what surprised her about university compared with school, how the slower pace helped her settle, and the moment she felt she genuinely belonged. She closes with what she would say to a Grade 12 learner or a parent who sees the extra year as a setback.
Where to find support:
SU website: https://www.su.ac.za/en/students/success – or from the SU homepage, click Students, then Support, then Student Success.
