| Summary: | A significant proportion of Open University Malaysia’s student population is made up of the “inservice
teachers” sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The intake of the “in-service
teachers” had stopped since 2013 and the present day students hail from various organizations
whereby a majority of these students are self-sponsored. It is crucial for the university to take
note of the changes that ought to be implemented to better serve the non-teacher students. This
paper reports on the results of a 2015 tracer study (centrally administered by the Ministry of
Higher Education) by looking at programme completion rates of the undergraduate “Teacher”
and “Non-Teacher” group of students who attended their convocation in September and
November 2015. The evaluation of the programmes and services by the two groups of graduates
were compared, and areas that differ significantly were highlighted and discussed in the context
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of improving completion rates. It is important to note that institutions need to be aware that
there are tangible and intangible factors related to students’ persistence when it comes to
finances, as in the sponsored and non-sponsored students.
Keywords: in-service teachers, non-teacher group, completion rates, evaluation of programmes
and services
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