Abstract
D. Phil.
Presently, in the context of South African higher education, many black students who had previously studied at historically disadvantaged institutions, enter the post-graduate academic context without the necessary language and academic literacy skills required by institutions where the language of learning and teaching is English or Afrikaans. Consequently they do not access their discourse communities optimally and also do not develop into scholars who are able to participate in the conversations of their discipline competently and confidently. In this context, this inquiry focused on the impact of the M. Ed. Community Education programme on students' academic writing proficiency. This programme is presented as a distance education programme in the Department of Curriculum Studies at the Rand Afrikaans University.