Generation Z students' voices on the role of universities in developing socially responsible graduates : a case study of South Africa and China

Abstract

This article reports and reflects on an empirical investigation of the views of selected Generation Z students from South Africa and China on the role of universities in developing socially responsible graduates. In 2020, an online questionnaire was developed and distributed to three university students enrolled in engineering, built environment, and information technology degree programs. There were 417 responses from students in these three fields at the University of Pretoria, South Africa; thirty- one from students at Sichuan University, China; and twenty-three from engineering students at the Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The majority of the students from all three universities strongly agreed that participation in community development projects linked to their field of study should be a required component of their degree programs. The research findings indicate that students in these fields who participated in the study consider themselves among the university’s main stakeholders and believe they should be included in curriculum development. Most of these students were positive about embedding socially responsible service-learning in their curricula to prepare them for future roles in a local and global society. The limitations of the study were the following. These students from university campuses in China and South Africa are not representative of all Generation Z individuals in these countries. The validity of the research may be limited as the University of Pretoria’s cohort was much larger than the other two universities. Only those students who had enrolled in courses in engineering, the built environment, and information technology were involved in this study.