Thus far, our programme has produced 592 graduates
Over the past 22 years, we have produced 592 graduates, 231 of which are Doctors. Further, 51% of our Doctors are female, whilst 54% of all our graduates are female!
This year we are supporting 211 students studying the following health science disciplines:
Audiology, Dentistry, Dental Therapy, Dietetics, Medicine, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Optometry, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, Radiography, Speech Therapy.
Some of our graduates serve as mentors to students and often participate in school outreach programmes.
The success of our programme is the provision of academic and social mentoring support at the start of the academic year, to all our students, which holds them accountable to address their challenges early in the academic year. The top-up financial support, to supplement their NSFAS bursary, ensures they have no financial stress and can concentrate on their studies. The impact of our mentoring support can be seen in the amazing university progression rates that our students are achieving - 90% of our students will graduate, compared to the national average of 65% for health science students!
UYDF has been cited as one of the few sustainable solutions for improving shortages of qualified healthcare staff at rural hospitals in South Africa. The number of graduates has had a positive impact on the delivery of healthcare services at participating hospitals and in many cases, new services have been established, or existing services improved at participating hospitals by our graduates.
The graph below shows the student and graduate numbers over the period 1999 to 2020, annual pass rates and number of Doctors:
