Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / After the first democratic election in South Africa in 1994, the new democratic government harnessed all its resources towards establishing a non-racial society based on a constitution that embodies equal rights. One of the enduring legacies of apartheid is the extreme socio-economic disparities that emerged in the South African society. Higher education in the context of South Africa is also a means of bridging the inequality gap created during the colonial and apartheid periods (Reddy, 2004). Moreover, apartheid education, as with other sectors of society was racialised in favour of whites creating a drought in skills within the other race groups. The need to establish an equitable and efficient higher education thus became one of government’s pivotal priorities. The adoption of affirmative action policies that have prioritised university access by underprivileged black students has been pointed to as one of the means to address racial inequalities in education. The thesis postulates that that the use of race in implementing affirmative action policy is neither a sufficient means to, nor an end of, redressing the ills of apartheid. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, the present study analyses the impact of affirmative action policies at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and gauges the level of transformation as a result of the use of race as a proxy for admission into UCT. The study examines the equality of access and enrolment of first time entering undergraduate students into UCT through race based admission. Despite government and institutional (for example UCT) efforts to pursue a transformatory agenda, affirmative action policies continue to cause ruptures both within university communities and beyond. This research is going to use both quantitative and qualitative designs. The quantitative approach will be used where necessary – such as in reviewing racial split of enrolment over time – to glean on the figures. Such figures will however not be generated by the study itself but from officials from UCT. On the other hand, the qualitative approach will be used through the analyses of debates occurring in the UCT community in order to gauge perceptions on the policy.

The language and communication skills of foreign students have long been a concern in U.S. universities. The majority of U.S. universities require foreign students for whom English is not their native language to take English language proficiency tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) as part of admission requirements. Some universities have included interventions to increase the success of Chinese students against their struggle to understand English course content. One such program is the Gateway to Successful Tomorrow Bilingual Degree Program (GST). The gap to be addressed on this study was that the effectiveness of GST has not been formally evaluated among foreign students particularly overseas Chinese students studying at U.S. universities. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the GST among overseas Chinese students studying at U.S. universities as measured through students' grade point averages (GPA) and TOEFL scores. The theoretical framework that guided this study was the Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. The quantitative study used a causal comparative design to gather quantitative data from student achievement records and TOEFL scores. Pearson's correlation analysis and analysis of variance were conducted to predict if underlying relationships exist among variables. Key findings of the analyses showed that GST students had a significantly higher GPA than non-GST student. However, results also indicated that there was no evidence that the GST program significantly improved TOEFL scores. The GST program had an overall positive impact on the international Chinese students' academic performance and with continued research international students stand to gain even more from this program.