Bridging the gap: Academic literacy among first-year students in rural South African universities

Bridging the gap: Academic literacy among first-year students in rural South African universities

Nkarhi E. Mathebula , Ronnie R. Maceke , Mohammed X. Ntshangase & Sibonangaye D. Nkalanga

Issue: Vol. 7 No.7 2026 Article 13 pp. 1938 – 1948
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267713 Published online 21st September 2026

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ABSTRACT

This qualitative study investigated the role of academic literacy in shaping first-year students’ academic engagement and success at three rural South African universities. Guided by the interpretivist paradigm and informed by the Academic Literacies Framework and social constructivist theory, the study employed a multiple case study design. Data were generated through semi-structured interviews with academic literacy practitioners and disciplinary lecturers, focus group discussions with first-year students, and analysis of institutional documents. Thematic analysis revealed that academic literacy plays a critical role in facilitating epistemic access by enabling students to engage with academic texts, disciplinary discourses, and assessment practices more effectively. The findings further demonstrated that academic literacy contributes significantly to the academic identity formation, confidence, sense of belonging, and participation in disciplinary knowledge communities of students. However, the transformative potential of academic literacy was constrained by the weak integration of literacy programmes into disciplinary curricula, institutional marginalisation of literacy support, limited resources, and dominant monolingual academic practices that disadvantage multilingual students. The study concludes that academic literacy should be repositioned as an institution-wide pedagogical and transformative project rather than a peripheral remedial intervention. The study recommends the integration of discipline-specific literacy practices into curricula, stronger collaboration between literacy practitioners and disciplinary lecturers, and the adoption of inclusive multilingual pedagogies that advance epistemic justice. The study contributes to scholarship on academic literacy by foregrounding the experiences of first-year students in rural South African universities, a context that remains underexplored in higher education research.

Keywords: Academic Literacy, First-year Students, Rural Universities, Epistemic Access, South Africa.

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ABOUT AUTHOR(S)

Dr. Nkarhi Mathebula is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Limpopo. He is currently offering Adult Education in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Limpopo (South Africa). He holds a PhD from the University of Limpopo. Dr Mathebula has published 37 papers. He has presented papers in both national and international conferences and chaired various conference sessions. Dr Mathebula’s key areas of research interest include Adult Education; Higher Education; Teaching Practice; and Public Administration.

Dr. Ronnie Risimati Maceke is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education Studies at the University of Limpopo, South Africa. He holds a PhD in Adult Education from the University of South Africa (UNISA). He is a reviewer for several local and international academic journals. His research interests include Adult and Community Education and Training (ACET), Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), curriculum, and school management and leadership.

Mohammed Xolile Ntshangase holds a PhD (Philosophy) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. As he always believed that sharing his knowledge and perspectives with others brings more pleasure, Mohammed enjoys sharing his views with fellow academics from different fields. He is currently affiliated with the University of Limpopo in the Department of Education Studies, wherein he serves as a senior lecturer of Philosophy & Psychology of Education. His areas of research interest are: African philosophy, philosophy of education, psychology of education, and gender studies. He has attended and presented papers in 14 academic conferences, including national and international ones, and he has more than 80 publications in DHET-accredited journals. Among his ambitions, Mohammed wishes and works towards being a global scholar renowned in different areas/ disciplines with his polymathic approach to research, which has attracted researchers to collaborate with him nationally and abroad. Mohammed believes that the interconnectedness of knowledge and the cry for interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinary in research nowadays cannot be ignored. His scholarly awards include the VC’s 2023 best teacher award and 2024 best researcher award in the SoE (UL).

Sibonangaye Dick Nkalanga is a lecturer in Geography Education at the University of Limpopo, South Africa. He is in the final year of his PhD in Geography and Environmental Studies, with doctoral research examining environmental law enforcement and compliance governance in the rural municipal context of Mpumalanga Province. His research interests span environmental governance, legal pluralism, rural municipal capacity, and environmental education and awareness. He maintains a keen scholarly interest in the role of community participation and traditional authority structures in strengthening environmental compliance within resource-constrained municipal settings in southern Africa.

TO CITE ARTICLE

Mathebula, Nkarhi E., Ronnie R. Maceke, Mohammed X. Ntshangase and Sibonangaye D. Nkalanga. “Bridging the gap: Academic literacy among first-year students in rural South African universities.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 7, no.7 (2026): 1938 – 1948. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267713