Abstract
In this study, authors explored major factors that undergraduate students in Botswana consider vital in influencing their higher education institution choice decisions. It was based on a survey of 300 admitted students at the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, to which 91.33 % (274/300) of the sample responded. Data was collected using a questionnaire and analysed by coding and using Microsoft Excel package. Results show that the choice decision is based on a number of factors, with the main factors being location of the institution, availability of relevant study programmes, institutional reputation and how the institution marketing and advertise itself to potential students. The findings may have important implications for an institution’s positioning in the competitive student recruitment market, and for re-evaluating marketing and advertising strategies. Recommendations are made on the basis of the main findings. Keywords: higher education, higher education institution, undergraduate, choice decision, BUAN. DOI : 10.7176/JEP/10-18-07 Publication date :June 30 th 2019
Highlights
Botswana is a developing country which has seen a huge growth in the number of higher education institutions in recent years
Undergraduate programmes available at BUAN are in broad fields of Crop Science and Production (CSP), Economics, Education and Extension (AEE), Agricultural Engineering and Land planning (AEL), Animal Science and Production (ASP), Food Science and Technology (FST) and General Agriculture The largest share of participants was from AEL with 26.28 % while the lowest was FST with 6.20 %
South Central is leading with 50.73 % of participants and the least was North with 5.11 % of participants coming from this region according to Table 1, a typical undergraduate student at BUAN is a male of 19 to 25 years, who came straight from a senior secondary school in the South central region of Botswana to pursue a study programme from the Agricultural Engineering and Land Planning domain
Summary
Botswana is a developing country which has seen a huge growth in the number of higher education institutions in recent years. This has led to a reduction in numbers of students who are sent abroad to pursue higher education training. This rise in the number of local institutions has created a greater menu for students to pick institutions of their own choices considering their needs and conveniences, more especially since students consider higher education institutions as service providers where they can purchase education (Boke, 2003). In recent years the enrolment of the university has been inconsistent, as shown in Table 1 and Figure 1, raising eyebrows as to why there is no consistency in enrolment patterns
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