Community
Whether his Department has any measures in place to monitor the activities of former participants in or graduates of the Chrysalis Academy Programme; if not, why not; if so, what are the updates on all former participants from 2014 to date?
17. The Chrysalis Academy graduated a total of 2201 students from 2014 till 31 March 2018. This totals 12 cohorts.
Upon graduating, all students are tracked by the Chrysalis Academy for a period of one year. The graduates are contacted once a quarter to monitor their situation and activities. The collated data is then submitted to the Department of Community Safety for analysis.
In addition, all graduates are invited to a 1 – 2 days refresher programme six months after they have graduated. The purpose of the refresher programme is to ascertain how graduates are doing, provide further training and short courses and expose them to other work or study opportunities.
The Chrysalis Academy, where its capacity allows, does a number of visits to the organisations where the graduates are placed. The purpose is to discuss with them and their supervisors how they are doing and what the challenges are. Those graduates who require further psycho-social support are then referred to the Life Coach at the Academy or to other institutions.
In addition, the Department of Community Safety does its own placement visits through its Internal Control unit.
It is not possible to state what each graduate is doing since 2014. However from these interactions, it does appear that many are studying at Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, some are in internships, others in learnerships and some are employed. The Chrysalis Academy quarterly tracking, indicates that between 80-85% of Chrysalis graduates remain in their work placements for their 12 month period.
