2010 Annual Report

Over the past six years, the NWU’s student complement has grown from just over 38 000 to almost 55 800, representing growth of almost 31%. This sizeable increase
in student numbers has inspired the university to explore new ways of thinking and working so that we can achieve even better results than before by working smarter rather than harder.

The results achieved in 2010 confirm that the NWU is indeed thinking and working smarter. Even though we had the highest number of students ever, the undergraduate pass rate rose yet again and so did the graduation rate and
the total number of degrees and diplomas awarded. In 2010, a total of 83,5% of our undergraduate students passed their courses, compared to only 78,8% in 2005.

There has also been a striking improvement in throughput (the graduation rate), rising from just 20% six years ago to 27% in 2010. In an important boost for the economy, which is suffering severe skills shortages, the NWU conferred 15 083 degrees in 2010 – almost double the number in 2005. Improvements were also achieved in the other areas of the university’s core business, meaning research and implementation of expertise, both commercially and for communities.

In research, the university and its staff did extremely well. We ended the year with 117 researchers with ratings from the National Research Foundation (NRF), compared to 85 in 2005, and produced a total of 1 318 research outputs, against 865 in 2005.