Skills Development

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Jump Start Your Career with Stanley Hutcheson and Associates

June 18, 2010 in .Promotions and Specials, Skills Development | No comments

Dear grade 12 Life orientations adviser/teacher,

As part of the top 100 schools – rated by the University of Johannesburg – you will receive a package containing a letter and flyers with detailed information on the Jump-Start programme shortly.  Your grade 12 learners can only benefit from this programme – learners not enrolling for further studies during 2011 will need extra coaching to enter the world of work successfully, and learners going to Universities will need the same skills set once they have graduated and are ready to find employment!  The job shortage and scarcity situation in South Africa, even for graduates, is still a very alarming dilemma!

All you’ll need is that first step….take it, and Jumpstart your career today!

Back ground:

South Africa is confronted with the twin evils of high unemployment levels and skills shortages. One of the primary reasons for this is the fact that while schools, and Tertiary Education institutions provide learners with technical skills they do not actually prepare learners to enter into and excel in the world of work.

The Thusanani Work Readiness Programme (a FASSET sponsored programme) has proven to be an ideal way for unemployed PDI graduates to get employed.  In June 2010 SHA will hosted the 13th Thusanani intake, since 2005. At the end of this year approximately 1300 unemployed graduates will have benefitted from this training, and close to 90% have already been placed in gainful employment. More details of the Thusanani programme are available on our website.

A new focus for all:

Jump Start is a work readiness programme designed to guide all young new entrants into an appropriate career, give them the skills to succeed in the process of becoming employed and accelerate their entry into the world of work. Jump Start is based on the highly successful Thusanani work readiness programme that has been presented by Stanley Hutcheson & Associates for the past six years.

Stanley Hutcheson & Associates are specialists in the field of work readiness and have used our unique combination of skills to help hundreds of young South Africans enter into the world of work.

Our specialist areas as shown above provide you with a unique service which will guide you into the right career for you, prepare you to stand out in the selection process and put you in contact with hundreds of employers who are seeking new entrants.

As part of our team, Industrial Psychologists, who specialize in the field of career psychology and career guidance, will provide you with a comprehensive career assessment, and through this, guide you into a field and career for which you are ideally suited and would find stimulating and fulfilling.

Training:

The training programme will take place over a period of 2 weeks full time / 9 weeks part time and will comprise a combination of self study, classroom based training and practical workshops.

Next courses:

1. Full time June 21st, 2010 or
2. Thursday Evening (part time) June 24th, 2010 or
3. Saturday morning (part time) June 26th, 2010

Thereafter, our placement specialists will accept you onto our database and will facilitate an action oriented approach to your job search process.  Working with you, we will assist you to prepare your application, secure the interview and present yourself in the best possible way during the interview culminating in your employment.

Why Jump Start your career?

In the highly competitive recruitment market, employers, in their selection process, are looking for the best candidate for the job. Jump Start will help you to stand out from the crowd, and because you have the additional skills, you will be accelerated to the front of the employment queue… where you’ll be jumping with joy!

Training is conducted at our training centres in Northcliff (Johannesburg) and Musgrave (Durban).

Our courses are offered on a monthly basis and training is also conducted in the late afternoons to accommodate school, and university calendars. We have various payment options, all course materials and certification is offered at R5500.00 Vat inclusive.  (BOOK EARLY AND BENEFIT FROM OUR EARLY BIRD SPECIAL)

For further enquiries and to set up a meeting regarding your specific need with an in-house training programme within your work place environment please contact us.

Don’t waste time – Jump-Start your career today.


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THSBS School of Business

February 15, 2010 in .Promotions and Specials | No comments

THE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS (THSBS) has specialised in Education and Training for more than 20 years, and operates from campuses in Johannesburg, Centurion, Durban, Cape Town and Port Alfred.

THSBS offers qualification programmes for school leavers in Business, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport. It also offers skills programmes and short courses. Information about THSBS’s various courses may be viewed at our website at www.thsbs.com

BRIDGING PROGRAMMES FOR SCHOOL LEAVERS SEEKING CAREERS OR WISHING TO FURTHER THEIR EDUCATION

THSBS offers Bridging Programmes for school leavers and work seekers to build skills needed to succeed in finding employment.

These Bridging Programmes cover specially designed modules in

•    The work environment: what Employers expect from new staff
•    Office etiquette
•    Personal presentation
•    Office administration
•    Fundamental business skills
•    Customer service
•    Communication skills
•    Identifying careers and building your Resume’ / CV
•    Job interviews

THSBS encourages students who have completed the Bridging Programme to further their studies either by correspondence or through full-time studies.

THSBS also offers short Bridging Programmes in English Language Skills (writing, speaking); Maths Literacy; Computer skills and Business Administration.

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High returns from post-school education

January 12, 2010 in Education, South Africa | No comments

South Africans who obtain a degree earn on average between 2.5 and four times more than people who do not complete schooling, the first major study on the returns of post-school education has revealed. Degree-holders are also three times more likely to get a job – in a country where more than one in four people are unemployed.

The primary message from the research is for South Africa to improve post-secondary school education participation because there is a dramatic reduction in young people not in employment, education or training – 2.8 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 years – as the level of education improves.

“The ‘worst’ thing that can happen to a student is to drop out of school between grades 10 and 12,” the research found.

The study by Nicola Branson, Murray Leibrandt and Tia Linda Zuze of the South African Labour and Development Research Unit, show hugely positive returns from tertiary education that increased between 2000 and 2007.

The findings are outlined in a report, Responding to the Educational Needs of Post-School Youth, published by the Centre for Higher Education in Cape Town and edited by its Director Professor Nico Cloete.

Drawing on figures from sources including Statistics South Africa and the Department of Education, the study looked at level of education categorised as degree, certificate- diploma, school-leaving certificate (‘matric’) and incomplete schooling. It assessed the effect education level had on employment and on earnings, against having incomplete schooling.

The study found that people with a matric were between 30% and 60% more likely to have a job than those who had not finished school. In 2000, people with a tertiary education were twice as likely to be formally employed than individuals with less than matric. “By 2007 this had increased to around three times.”

The study found that people who successfully complete school earn on average between 40% and 70% more than those with less schooling. The return from obtaining a diploma or certificate is between 170% and 220%.

“The average individual with a degree is rewarded with between 250% and 400% higher earnings than counterparts who did not complete matric. There is thus an incremental increase in rate of return for higher education levels,” said the report. The two provinces with the highest returns were the Western Cape and Gauteng.

In 2007, for example, 25-year-old non-unionised African employees in the Western Cape who had a matric earned on average R1,900 (US$253) a month while those with a certificate or diploma earned R3,600 and those with a degree earned R6,300. There are substantial gender differences: in 2007, a woman in this group with a diploma earned R980 a month less than a male and a woman with a degree earned R1,700 less.

Further, while the return for a qualification remained fairly stable over time for a person with a matric, a diploma or certificate, it increased over time for a graduate. In 2000, a graduate earned a salary 320% higher than an individual with less than a matric – and by 2007 this difference had increased to more than 370%.

The report said that earlier research at the University of Cape Town had greatly overstated graduate unemployment at 100,000 people. This had led, among other things, to the National Treasury restricting the expansion of higher education.

In fact, the graduate unemployment statistics for 2007 were 15,745 people comprising just over 11,100 jobless people with degrees, nearly 2,500 with postgraduate diplomas, some 1,700 with honours degrees, and 420 with masters or PhDs.

“Of concern is that graduate unemployment doubled between 2001 and 2007,” the report stated. But a key finding was that obtaining a post-school qualification “dramatically improves a student’s opportunity to become employed or self-employed”.

Still, the study concluded, the increasing returns from post-school education in terms of finding a job and higher education showed the growing importance of studying further.

At a seminar on the Post-School Youth report, hosted by CHET in Johannesburg last month, participants pointed out there were significant racial discrepancies in educational returns. Many white and Indian graduates access jobs through social networks and environments, and so the returns from university are higher for some than for others; there is also a socio-economic bias against African graduates in terms of earnings and the ability to find work in the area in which they studied.

These factors are a missing element in the study. Nico Cloete described the ‘returns’ study “a first shot at this area”. There were discrepancies in information across databases, he added, and the next job was to clean up the data and probe the statistics further.

Source: universityworldnews.com, chet.org.za, jghs.edin.sch.uk, friends-of-modern-africa.org, internationaleducationmedia.com, powc.co.za

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Skills migration and the brain drain in South Africa

January 7, 2010 in Skills Development, South Africa | No comments

The loss of our highly skilled citizens to other countries through emigration has been a cause for concern in South Africa for many years. Contrary to popular perception, the brain drain in South Africa started long before the inception of the new government in 1994, and the figures suggest that the flow of professionals from this country continues to increase rapidly. At the same time, the number of highly skilled immigrants into South Africa ? a critical source for the replacement of skills lost through the brain drain ? is on the decrease.

Intuitively, a brain drain has a range of deleterious effects on a country’s economy. Amongst these are an adverse effect on economic growth and a reduction in a nation?s capacity to develop as a ‘knowledge society’ and therefore compete effectively in the global economy. A brain drain also constitutes a major loss of investment in terms of the education and training of its highly skilled professionals.

The fact of the matter, however, is that we do not have reliable data on the actual extent of emigration from South Africa. The figures reported in the annual migration reports produced by Statistics South Africa have been shown to represent a significant undercount of skilled emigration. Notwithstanding the current problems with the data, which are estimated to represent about only one third of real emigration, the official statistics do indicate some worrying trends.

For instance, over the past thirty years, the vast majority of skilled emigrants have been in the most productive age groups ? 25 to 45 years ? which means that the brain drain largely comprises South Africans who are already trained and established professionals. There has also been a steady increase in the number of professional women leaving South Africa, from about a quarter of all skilled emigrants in the 1970s, to just less than half in the 1990s. No doubt, this trend reflects the changing gender profile in the domestic labour market. The official statistics on emigration from South Africa do not provide a breakdown for the different ethnic groups in South Africa, but a recent survey indicates that white professionals are only slightly more likely to consider emigrating than are black professionals.

Of course, one of the critical questions in terms of the human resource base in South Africa is exactly which skills are we losing? The official statistics indicate that the greatest mobility of highly skilled people, both into and out of South Africa over the past decade or so, was amongst those in education and humanities occupations, followed by engineers and architects, and our top executive and managerial personnel. Emigration amongst those within the natural sciences and medical professions is also on the increase, while there has been a dramatic decline in the number of skilled immigrants in these occupational fields.

Perhaps not surprisingly, skilled South Africans who choose to emigrate head for some of the most advanced industrialised countries in the world ? the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, and more recently, to Australia and New Zealand.

What makes skilled South Africans emigrate? During the apartheid era, political upheavals ? the Soweto uprising in 1976 and the States of Emergency in the late 1980s ? were a major driving force behind the exodus of professionals. More recently, however, research shows that the highly skilled are leaving because of crime, perceptions of a high cost of living and levels of taxation, and the perceived decline in the standard of public services, notably health and education delivery. At the same time, professionals in South Africa are eager to take advantage of the attractive salary packages and career opportunities in the advanced industrialised countries of the world.

In a way, these motivating factors are common sense. What they do not take into account, however, is the increasingly pervasive influence of globalisation on skills migration around the world. In essence, the global village offers an open market for employment and career opportunities to the highly skilled and, in recent times, the term ?brain circulation? has been used to capture the increasing flow of professionals around the world. In fact, the ability of countries like the United States to attract and retain large numbers of highly skilled migrants in the globalised labour market has contributed significantly to these countries? advancement.

The biggest challenges to the South African government are to find ways of keeping skilled South Africans at home ? although this requires a long-term approach to the improvement of safety and security and improved delivery of services ? and to develop policy which attracts the highly skilled from other parts of the world to our shores.

Source: hsrc.ac.za, mediaclubsouthafrica.com

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South Africa Literacy Crisis

December 23, 2009 in Education, South Africa | No comments

The South African government has committed billions of rands to support initiatives to enable various government departments and SETAs to improve literacy levels. Despite this, it appears difficult to realise the goals of these initiatives.

Kha Ri Gude an initiative of the Department of Education launched in 2007, at a cost of R6 billion, aims to improve basic literacy in all of the 11 mother tongues. In 2006, the Department of Labour also launched a project aimed at improving literacy among unemployed and unskilled citizens. However, this programme is only conducted in English. Provincial education departments, municipalities, SETAs, the business sector and many non-government organisations, such as Project Literacy and the Stigting vir Bemagtiging deur Afrikaans are also involved in literacy promotion.

However, there seems to be something seriously wrong with the system. Despite billions of rands being spent, the percentage of people attending these literacy classes, persevering and, most importantly, passing the examinations is appallingly low, especially in Mathematics. Great fuss is made of the few successes and the news media is used skilfully to boast about these achievements. Sadly though, no mention is made of the majority who after some time, simply give up. This problem is aggravated by the high drop-out rate of learners from primary and high schools as well as the migration of illiterate citizens from other African countries.

We are therefore facing a problem that has taken on critical proportions. We do not only struggle with illiteracy and functional literacy, but also with high levels of dysfunctional semi-literacy. The illiterate and functionally illiterate are mostly older people with no literacy skills at all or with only minimal reading and writing skills. This has a negative effect on their dignity and their ability to live a self-sustained life and acquire higher-order skills.

Dysfunctional semi-literacy is the biggest social challenge of our time. Thousands of young people have low or virtually no literacy skills at all. They also lack career skills and sound values. These young people, aged between 12 and 28, find themselves on the streets, in youth centres, in places of safety and in prisons. They are caught in a spiral of unemployment, crime, gangsterism, drug abuse and drug trafficking, prostitution, teenage pregnancy and other societal ills. While billions of rands are spent in order to eradicate illiteracy and functional illiteracy, we fail to invest adequate resources and energy to eradicate dysfunctional semi-literacy. In the meantime, these young people resort to anti-social behaviour. They are frustrated, rebellious and discouraged because they do not have the skills needed for the challenges posed by the technologically advanced global environment. This situation is a time bomb waiting to explode.

Who or what is to blame? Those who formulate policy aimed at eradicating illiteracy? The bureaucrats in charge of government and SETA literacy initiatives? The drivers of NGO initiatives? Experts developing learning material? The companies supplying the stationery? Academic institutions researching adult literacy? The training facilitators? The facilitators responsible for preparing the lessons, teaching the learners and assessing their progress? The examination boards setting the papers for pre-assessment and examinations? Those who moderate the learners’ progress, the governing bodies, farm owners, municipalities, churches, the schools providing, equipping and maintaining the learning and teaching venues?  The adult learners themselves? The agencies who help to manage the social circumstances in our townships? The lack of or availability of state funding?

The list goes on …

I argue that each of these roleplayers is, to a certain extent, responsible for the crisis.  But as the saying goes, a fish rots from its head. The policy-makers and bureaucrats must take full responsibility for the crisis. Their fragmented approach to the implementation of the Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) process and inability to launch a uniform, strategic plan lies at the heart of the crisis. Each state department implements policy to suit the agenda of the particular political head.

Image It is a concern that prominent NGOs that are service providers for different state departments and SETAs who embark on ABET programmes do not question the fragmented approach and flawed pedagogical principles to ABET. Or is it the money that gags them? These service providers receive up to R5 000 per learner and often the temptation is bigger to stuff the coffers of the organisation rather than provide quality learning and teaching in the mother tongue.  NGOs who ask tricky questions and demand the right to teach in the mother tongue are marginalised and appointed as sub-contractors only, merely to supplement the learner numbers of the larger contractors. These sub-contractors usually do the work and receive only up to R1300 per person.

What we urgently need is a thorough review of the system. This requires the formulation of a uniform, tactical plan to address the crisis and the institutionalisation of the entire ABET programme. The next step would be the development of suitable programmes for illiteracy, functional literacy and dysfunctional semi-literacy. Experts should pool their resources to develop an integrated four-year programme in the mother tongue, equivalent to Grade 9, for each of the aforementioned areas in order to teach learners literacy, life skills and career skills. It should be followed up with a two-year programme in English communication after which learners qualify for a learnership. Concurrent to this, learners can also be given access to a wide variety of introductory skills courses such as au pair, day care, crafts, repairs, gardening, building and computer training.

Furthermore, it is necessary to set up a database of illiterate persons and early school-leavers so that we can determine the literacy level per municipal area in terms of illiteracy, functional literacy and dysfunctional semi-literacy and respond appropriately. Area offices of education departments should, in co-operation with municipalities, identify areas of responsibility, appoint personnel, and contract NGOs to implement an agreed-upon programme over a period of six years. The database should be linked to an electronic system to capture learner attendance, progress and all other relevant information, such as the facilitators’ outputs.

This data could be linked to a programme rewarding learners’ and facilitators’ achievement, rather than filling the coffers of service providers. For example:  Learners who pass the national ABET level 4 examination and the English communication programme qualify for a monetary grant, a choice of learnerships, salary increases and other incentives, while facilitators receive a bonus according to the number of learners who pass the examinations. Those who are not willing to participate in the programme or who drop out could be penalised by deducting the cost of the opportunities created for self-development from the state support grants or salaries they receive. This should also apply to local councillors who exploit the political ignorance of voters while being unable to deliver. It should be an offence to not want to attend these courses or to drop out willy-nilly. However no service providers should be allowed to exploit the system or embark on a moneymaking spree. Should this happen, it would be the most vulnerable in our society who will suffer once more.

The current literacy crisis is a thorny issue and a battlefield of self-interest. However we should challenge the self-serving agendas of the big ABET service providers and inept bureaucrats who simply ignore the fundamental pedagogical principle that the teaching of basic literacy and skills should be conducted in mother tongue. The billions we intend to spend will only bear fruit if we realise that any attempt to eradicate illiteracy and build skills is a long term process which requires dedicated and unselfish educators, a well resourced infrastructure and an incentive scheme for both educator/facilitator and learners.

Source: ngopulse.org, stanford.edu, operationhope.org, imaginationwins.com, rd.com, unesco.org

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