This study investigated the personal, career and learning skill needs of first-year university students, their preferred counselling sources, and compared South African and international students. Respondents completed a structured questionnaire (N = 567) with more than half reporting a moderate to high need for assistance with their concerns. Women had a significantly greater need for assistance with the bulk of listed concerns than men. International students had a significantly greater need for assistance than South African students and were particularly concerned about xenophobia. These results may assist administrators and counsellors to develop strategies to address identified student needs.

Evidence suggests that the effect of fasting on performance is notuniform, but it is dependent on the basal nutritional status of thesubject. Breakfast consumption has a short-term effect in improvingselected learning skills, especially work memory. School breakfastprogrammes have a positive effect on the nutritional status ofchildren, on school attendance and probably on dropout rates. Theeffect of breakfast consumption on school performance depends on theinteraction between the programme, student characteristics(malnutrition) and school organisation. Unless the school settingguarantees a minimum quality standard, the benefits of breakfastconsumption will not be evident in performance in complex areas likelanguage or maths.