Skills development and structural change: Possibilities for and limitations of redressing structural racial inequalities in South Africa

Groener, Zelda

doi:10.1007/s11159-014-9399-z

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The aim of the learnership system is to serve the implementation of the Skills Development Act (Geminiani & Van Wyk, 2002). This includes providing workplace training to create skills, getting youth into jobs more quickly, ensuring a link between structured and unstructured work experience, accumulating training in a nationally recognised qualification, targeting the employed and unemployed in South Africa and combating unemployment (Groener, 2014;Smith et al, 2005;Rankin et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A learnership should therefore aim to provide workplace training to create skills that would get youth into jobs more quickly and ensure a link between structured and unstructured work experience (Ebrahim & Pirttilä, 2019). Training should accrue to a nationally recognised qualification and should target both the employed and the unemployed in South Africa to combat unemployment (Smith et al, 2005;Groener, 2014, Rankin et al, 2014. The aim of learnership programmes was clarified in the NSDS and SAQA (2015-2020) with the objective and mission to equip South Africa with the skills necessary to succeed in the global market by addressing the gap between education, training and market needs and also to offer opportunities to individuals for advancement to assist them in playing a productive role in society (Republic of South Africa, 2001).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A short report of the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view

O’Neil

Davel

Holtzhausen

2023

SA Journal of Human Resource Management

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Orientation: Learnerships has been operationalised in South Africa as part of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS). The success of a learnership programme is influenced by stakeholder involvement.Research purpose: This study set out to explore the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view.Motivation for the study: The stakeholder theory perspective posits the importance of stakeholders buy-in and involvement in learnership implementation.Research approach/design and method: Semi-structured interviews with three key stakeholders in a specific learnership programme were conducted in 2020. Data were analysed by means of thematic analysis using Atlas.ti 8.1.Main findings: Although the primary objective of learnerships is to develop vocational skills, the organisation and even larger community also reap benefits from hosting a learnership. These benefits include lower recruitment costs, capacity building with employees that understands the culture of the organisation, simplified onboarding, and community involvement.Practical/managerial implications: Skills development in the learnerships is largely facilitated by means of social and informal learning. Although formal training opportunities are an important part of learnership, it should be designed to include interaction and collaboration with employees in the organisation.Contribution/value added: Skills development as operationalised in the NSDS is part of the learner benefit of the learnership programme in South Africa. This article highlights how external stakeholders can reap greater benefits in terms of capacity building if the learners are engaged in meaningful organisational contribution.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

A short report of the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view

O’Neil

Davel

Holtzhausen

2023

SA Journal of Human Resource Management

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“…Some documents tacitly assume that skills have already been acquired and just focus on social, systemic or institutional issues about them (Groener 2013). Others occasionally express a desire for theories of change in education but do not draw on learning research (UKFIET 2015, p. 17).…”

Section: Memory Biases and The 21st-century Skills Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Training 21st-century workers: Facts, fiction and memory illusions

Abadzi

2016

Int Rev Educ

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Technological achievements require complex skills for the workplace, along with creativity, communication, and critical thinking. To compete effectively in the global economy, governments must provide their citizens with relevant education and training. To help close the skills gap, international agencies often advise governments of developing countries to de-emphasise basic knowledge and focus instead on complex cognition and systemic improvements. However, the donors' advice may be due to memory biases of highly educated people. Such training strategies would fail most students, because complex skills are built by combining and automatising shorter chains of thoughts or behaviours. An effective training process requires much practice, feedback and rearrangement of subcomponents over time. Execution of various tasks must become automatic and effortless to avoid using up too much of the very limited capacity of what is termed the ''working memory''. Marketable skills are those skills which are fluently performed without excessive cognitive load. To provide complex skills for all, including noncognitive skills, curricula should therefore first ensure detailed instruction and practice of basic components which can then be strung together and applied to new tasks. Policy advisers seem unaware of these scientific insights, so they are not taken into account. The article reviews the essential neurocognitive functions involved in the acquisition and execution of skills chains. The author concludes that to improve the skills of economically disadvantaged populations, donors and governments must acquire expertise and offer advice on the basis of cognitive science.

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“…The purpose of such classification would serve differentiated and subordinated prospects in terms of education, employment, taxation (Posel, 2001), and human rights. Despite the arrival of democracy and the adoption of new economic policies, class inequities in education, housing, employment, and economic opportunities continue to exist in post-apartheid South Africa (Hammond et al, 2009;Groener, 2013). South African racial stereotypes have not changed considerably since 1994 (Talbot and Durrheim, 2012), and are still subconsciously incorporated into daily interactions in the workplace.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Graduate identity development in South Africa

Dunne

Bosch

2015

Journal of Managerial Psychology

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The purpose of this paper is to focus on the misunderstandings that hamper the graduate identity development process of black South African graduates in the first year of work. The authors introduce the role of an independent mediator in supporting identity development in a graduate development programme (GDP). The independent mediator mediates between graduate and manager when misunderstandings occur that inhibit the warranting process during professional identity development.Design/methodology/approach -In seeking to understand the graduate transition from student to professional, the authors used identity studies as the foundation from which to track a group of 21 graduates on a year-long GDP, in a financial institution in Johannesburg, South Africa. A model of emergent graduate identity was utilised to gain insight into the warranting process and associated behaviours that graduates employ in their interactions with others in the workplace. Findings -As warranting is based on people's own assumptions and beliefs about a particular situation or role, misunderstandings can occur during the warranting process when graduates are determining their professional identity, and managers are either affirming of disaffirming this identity. These misunderstandings were exacerbated by the fact that the graduates were often South African multi-cultural, first-generation professionals who lacked insight into and experience of corporate dynamics, this impacted on how they found their place in the organisation. Both graduates and managers were often not equipped to deal with cultural, racial, and other differences. When the graduate programme manager stepped in to play the additional role of independent mediator, helping to mediate misinterpretations during the identity formation process, the negative impact of misunderstandings was lessened, and graduates transitioned to a professional identity with greater ease. Managers also learned about managing multi-cultural individuals and their own, often limiting, experiences and worldviews. Practical implications -This highlights the value of a third-party intervention in graduate identity transitions, particularly in contexts where the ...

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Skills development and structural change: Possibilities for and limitations of redressing structural racial inequalities in South Africa

Cited by 6 publications

References 16 publications

A short report of the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view

A short report of the value of learnerships from an organisational stakeholder point of view

Training 21st-century workers: Facts, fiction and memory illusions

Graduate identity development in South Africa

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