HRSC Longitudinal Studies for Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni
The Imprint of Education is a five-year longitudinal cohort study of Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni of African descent (from selected countries and cohorts) conducted by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC)
The study has a number of goals – one of which is to understand how Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni transition from secondary school and tertiary educational institutions to develop fulfilling lives and livelihoods. Below are summaries from seven areas spotlighted by the study.
The findings presented should be interpreted as indicative of what has been found so far and are a work in progress.
It is important to interpret these findings not as representative of the whole Mastercard Foundation Scholar population but rather of the study population. The study population and methodology are described at the end of each reports brief.
Discover the Imprint of Education Studies Below
Scholar Alumni Identities and African Realities
In relation to demographics, the Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni participating in the study differed from the general demographics of the African continent, mainly in terms of their greater educational access and higher levels of educational attainment. This, in turn, led to higher socio-economic status and higher employment rates among them.
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Maximising Graduate Digital Capacities: Addressing the Gender Divide and Improving Access
There is a great appetite for consuming advanced digital technologies on the Continent, particularly among tertiary Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni. However, in education, at work and as they transitioned from one to the other, these Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni reported experiencing a range of vulnerabilities in relation to their capacity to access digital resources.
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Discrimination, Representation, Employment, Expectations and Leadership
Although there was a significant increase in internet access between 2020 and 20224, such access remained partial, particularly among female secondary school Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni. In 2022, 85 percent of the secondary school Alumni who could not access the internet were female.
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Determination, Distraction, Friends, Family, and Faith but Not Enough Help-Seeking
Individual agency is crucial in determining the benefits Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni may derive from available networks and systems of support. In this regard, extended family networks provided a primary source of support for them. At the same time, friends, especially those made through the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, represented a significant source of material, intellectual and psychosocial support. The importance of friendship networks was heightened by the material limits of the support available from family and a lack of access to reliable and trustworthy professional mental health care.
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Quality Education: Meeting Career Goals, Economic Advancement and Equipping for Leadership
Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni perspectives on what comprises quality education developed over time, and were linked to their individual and personal aspirations. In particular, their perceptions of quality were related to the economic returns that they expected to derive from their education; the enhanced benefits that were anticipated because of additional studies; and the ways in which their education had equipped and obliged them to adopt a larger social role as leaders and agents of development.
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Alumni Practices and Perspectives on Give Back and Transformative Leadership
Efforts to promote giving back and transformative leadership should focus on practical ways of making a difference by developing agency; mentoring others; raising awareness; and collaborating to foster community development programmes. The give back, transformative leadership and entrepreneurship parts of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program should be linked and framed as aspects of a broader effort to foster social consciousness.
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Multidimensional Livelihood Pathways: Complex, Non-Linear, Journeys
It was found that most Mastercard Foundation Scholar Alumni’s lived experiences of transitions were non-linear; were regularly disrupted; and were quite fragmentary in nature as education, work, and multiple other socio-economic and cultural determinants (including family and other responsibilities) intersected in a variety of ways.
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