Increasing student success via Student Affairs professionalisation: SASS 2025 is launched
Developed by Universities South Africa’s (USAf) Higher Education Leadership and Management (HELM) programme and supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), SASS is more than just a training course, it is a movement to elevate the practice and impact of Student Affairs across the sector.
The programme’s foundation is built on pedagogy of a holistic understanding of the student life cycle, extending beyond simple graduation rates to encompass everything from enrolment through to the student’s post-university impact on society as a responsible citizen. This is especially crucial in the South African context, where universities face historic and systemic inequalities that challenge student throughput rates. The SASS programme directly addresses this by equipping staff with essential competencies and understandings to effectively support and engage students and impact the contextual factors that play a critical role in student success..
The programme works on the following guiding pillars:
1. Principles of Good Practice on Leadership Programmes
§ Whole-person growth
§ Reflection
§ Relevance
§ Stress and coping
§ Network development
2. Research on South African Training Needs Analysis: our need and our focus
3. Critical Pedagogy and Social Justice
4. Contextualized learner and situated facilitator: Learner-centred pedagogy
5. Africa: local and global
The programme was launched on 23.10.2025 and attracted 47 participants from 17 HEIs across SA. This offers enormous opportunity for developing national networks for Student Affairs advancement. According to Prof Birgit Schreiber, the programme leader, “this is the unique strength of this programme: so many participants from different institutions enable rich exchanges and our participants develop a strong and wide network of colleagues”.
The University of the Free State is certifying this national development and training as a Short Learning Programme and the participants take this with them to advance their careers in higher education.
Core objectives and vision
The primary goal of SASS is to significantly embolden the impact of Student Affairs at the institutional level, making a difference in the contextual factors that impact student success. The key objectives include:
• Developing professional capacity in higher education
• Improving student and institutional success
• Emboldening staff in student support and development domains
• Strengthening both theory and practice around student success
• Fostering a network and community for national and international collaboration
The SASS program embraces Critical Pedagogy and Professionalisation Best Practices that aim to empower participants to become active agents of development for both students and institutions. This is achieved by moving beyond competencies and focusing on critical engagement with the broader social context of higher education, thereby empowering professionals to transform the status quo for social justice.
Who should participate and what they will learn
SASS is tailored for all staff who contribute to student support and development, in the broadest sense. This includes management, leadership, practitioners, administrators, academics, and research staff at middle and senior levels from a wide array of university departments, such as:
• Student Affairs
• Orientation and First Year Experiences
• Counselling, Health, and Wellness
• Transformation and Community Engagement
• Housing and Student Community
The curriculum is structured around four main themes:
1. Leadership in Higher Education: Focusing on leadership, change, institutional culture, and diversity
2. Higher Education Context: Exploring contextual factors and functional areas, including HR, finance, Sustainable Development Goals, and the global-local context
3. Student Support and Development: Exploring student development praxis and theory, theories of support, and student learning and transformation
4. Transformation: Critical Pedagogy and de-colonisation
5. Evaluation and Research: Practical research projects and case studies
