Economic Opportunities
Whether his Department has any measures in place to monitor the activities of former participants in or graduates of the Work and Skills Programme; if not, why not; if so, what are the updates on all former participants from 2014 to date?
One of the biggest challenges of skills development programmes is to measure the achievement of employment over time as this requires an ability to track beneficiaries after they have left these programmes.
Tracking these beneficiaries proves difficult as they often migrate, do not retain their contact details and in instances where some are tracked, they have achieved full employment after being rotated amongst more than one organisation. This is a bit easier when in a singular system such as the education system where they are tracked, through for example, the EMIS at schools FETMIS, at college, etc.
The Work and Skills Programme has been able to place unemployed youth with host companies across the Province’s economic sectors with the objective of promoting employability in labour-absorbing industries of the Western Cape. Beneficiaries are placed with companies for periods ranging between 4 and 18 months.
These work placements are effected with the hope that companies improve the future employment prospects of the beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are supported with a stipend contribution from the Department during the placement period while at the companies. In most instances, the host companies provide a co-funded stipend, payment towards extra training, payment for tools and protective wear and even access to staff transport.
This has been done in support of research findings, that first time/discouraged work seekers who gain work experience, have greater chances of finding temporary or permanent employment opportunities.
What we are trying to achieve
Through the Work and Skills and the Artisan Development Programmes, the Department aims to increase access to occupationally directed programmes for unemployed youth, leading to entry, intermediate and higher-level learning and facilitating the employability of the targeted beneficiaries.
These beneficiaries have various educational backgrounds namely complete or incomplete secondary schooling; completed Technical Vocational Education and Training qualification; Higher Education or university qualifications.
One of the systemic challenges is to improve the work readiness of the beneficiaries entering employment. Work readiness skills broadly refers to both foundational cognitive skills such as reading for information, applied mathematics, locating information, problem solving, and critical thinking and non-cognitive skills, or soft skills, which are defined as personal characteristics and behavioural skills that enhance an individual’s interactions, job performance, and career prospects such as adaptability, integrity, cooperation, teamwork and workplace discipline.
Despite the challenges raised above, the Department on engagement with companies, requests that companies after the experiential learning period, commit to provide contract or permanent employment to the beneficiaries at their own cost.
Tracer studies
There are advantages to track past beneficiaries of the Department’s Skills Development initiatives. A Tracer Study would be able to collect information on the whereabouts of the beneficiaries that participated on the Work and Skills Programme across all regions of the Western Cape.
Such a study would determine employment status of beneficiaries, i.e. employed, unemployed or self-employed, and provide an understanding of the different pathways that beneficiaries follow from the internship to the World of Work.
A Tracer Study utilises certain tools/ methods of gathering the required information which includes online surveys, telephonic surveys and data linkages to master databases of public institutions such as Department of Labour, SARS, Home Affairs and CSIR amongst others.
Cost of tracer studies
In considering the advantages of tracer studies, the Department previously pursued proposals from service providers and had obtained conservative cost estimates for tracer studies to track the pathway to employment followed by the beneficiaries of the Work and Skills programme.
The cost per once-off tracking ranges from R600 to R3000 per beneficiary. Considering that since 2014 beneficiaries to the programme (work placement and training) amounted to approximately 6000 beneficiaries, the cost is for once-off tracking only, could range from between R3.6 million and R15 million.
Should this be an ongoing process, the costs will outweigh the benefits, especially when considered in the context of a stipend payment of R2500 per beneficiary for the Work and Skills Programme and R3000 per month for the Artisan Development Programme.
Tracking beneficiaries is important as it is good to know the impact of projects and whether the beneficiaries found employment. The cost for tracer studies is however enormous, and the results could be variable, given the migratory challenges, the fact that beneficiaries could only find employment well after programmes have ended etc. The objective of the programme is to improve the employability of beneficiaries, which is a marginally different concept than only providing employment at a specific host company, and this is more difficult to track over the longer term.
