Empowering the next generation: A descriptive socio-educational analysis of the “A Faculty Who Cares” community engagement initiative
Universities increasingly use community engagement to support young people at key educational transition points, yet programme descriptions can overstate impact when implementation processes and evaluation limits are not made explicit. This article presents a descriptive socio-educational analysis of the North-West University Faculty of Theology initiative “A Faculty Who Cares”, established in 2020 to support secondary-school learners in Potchefstroom through study-method guidance, motivational and resilience support, career guidance, and engagement with psychosocial barriers such as alcohol misuse and violence. The article combines a focused narrative review with secondary analysis of publicly available, aggregated school-level National Senior Certificate performance data and North-West University institutional reports. The literature is used to contextualise educational resilience, community engagement, adolescent alcohol use, school violence, career decision-making and interdisciplinary collaboration. Official school-performance data show marked year-to-year variation. Promosa Secondary School increased from 40.0% in 2022 to 71.6% in 2023, followed by 64.3% in 2024 and 66.3% in 2025. Potchefstroom Secondary School increased from 72.1% in 2022 to 78.6% in 2023 and 95.9% in 2024, followed by 91.8% in 2025. These trends are descriptive and cannot establish that the initiative caused the changes. The analysis nevertheless demonstrates the relevance of a structured, relational and multi-component community-engagement approach while identifying the need for prospective evaluation using learner-level psychosocial and educational outcomes.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Prof Fazel Freeks, Dr Willem Nel
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