Hestie Byles

Hestie Byles obtained her Doctorate, focusing on finding ways of enrolling students based on resilience, agency, and structure in higher education. After a career as a lecturer, she went on to launch and establish the FLY@UP student success programme, encouraging students to graduate in the minimum time.

The vision of the FLY@UP programme is to determine the needs of the students and then empowering them to address these needs by making the relevant resources more accessible to them. Hestie is currently the Manager Academic Advising where she oversees the advising practice, the peer mentoring programme and the first-year orientation at the University of Pretoria. She remains involved in the FLY@UP programme.