Abstract
This article uses data gathered during monitoring and evaluation work at two higher education institutions (HEIs), policy documents, published articles, correspondence with key role-players at South African HEIs and other documents in the public domain in order to present a critique of the existing foundation provision and policy. The authors argue that foundation provision focuses on a narrow band of students, over a limited time period, and that it separates the educational thinking and planning for foundation students from mainstream students. This is to the detriment of either group of students and lecturers. The authors suggest questions for further investigation regarding foundation provision, based on the throughput trends across the country and institutional reports, which would shed light on the effectiveness of the present approach. They share two approaches which they believe offer productive alternative ways of thinking about the curriculum and arrangements for learning, for the benefit of all students and lecturers, namely, the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the Capabilities Approach (CA).
