Trends and issues in South African’s graduate labour market

1. Trends and issues in South African’s graduate labour market Gizelle Mc Intyre The Institute of People Development

2. Institute of People Development (IPD) The Institute of People Development (IPD) is committed to an ongoing process of achieving and maintaining its status as a "centre for learning excellence". • Primary Aim • To enhance the quality of workplace learning provision through the development of managers, supervisors and learning development practitioners. • The Institute strives to be a "change agent" by • Providing qualifications to managers, supervisors and learning & development practitioners • Offering recognition of prior learning (RPL) services to experienced learning & development practitioners • Conducting research projects designed to generate best practice products and processes through a continuous professional development (CPD) programme • Expanding the field of learning & development practices to the wider public through seminars, media releases, on-line resources and communities of practice workshops and consulting • Making available its learning facilities and resources in Midrand to its clients and stakeholders for the purposes of high quality learning provision

3. Topics • Is the higher education system producing too many graduates? • Examining the Government’s Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching to measure students experience and satisfaction and graduate employment outcomes • Analysing how well the higher education system is meeting labour market needs • Insights into innovative Employer Satisfaction Surveys designed to assess the technical skills, generic skills and work readiness of graduates

4. Acronyms are king! • ABET – Adult Basic Education and Training • AQP – Assessment Quality Partner • AIDS – Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome • BBBEE – Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment • CHE – Council on Higher Education • COGTA – Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs • DHET – Department of Higher Education and Training • DPSA – Department of Public Service and Administration • DQP – Development Quality Partner • DTI – Department of Trade and Industry • FABCOS – Foundation of African Business and Consumer Services • FET – Further Education and Training • GDP – Gross Domestic Product • HEI – Higher Education Institution • HESA – Higher Education South Africa • HIV – Human Immunodeficiency Virus • HRDSSA – Human Resource Development Strategy for South Africa • ICT – Information and Communication Technology • IPAP – Industrial Policy Action Plan • JIPSA – Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition • M&E – Monitoring and Evaluation • NAMB – National Artisan Moderating Body • NCV – National Certificate (Vocational) • NSA – National Skills Authority • NSDS – National Skills Development Strategy • NGO – Non-governmental Organisation • NQF – National Qualifications Framework • NSF – National Skills Fund • PIVOTAL – Professional, Vocational, Technical and Academic Learning • QCTO – Quality Council for Trades and Occupations • SEDA – Small Enterprise Development Agency • SETA – Sector Education and Training Authority • SLA – Service Level Agreement • SMME – Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises • SSP – Sector Skills Plan

5. The New Landscape • According to the Bill of Rights of South Africa's Constitution, all South Africans have the right to a basic education, including adult basic education and access to further education. The state has an obligation, through reasonable measures, to progressively make this education available and accessible. • South Africa has one of the highest rates of public investment in education in the world. At about 7% of gross domestic product (GDP) and 20% of total state expenditure, the government spends more on education than on any other sector. • Government spending on basic education during 2015/16 is estimated at R203 468 billion. Three bands of education • South Africa's National Qualifications Framework (NQF) recognises three broad bands of education: General Education and Training, Further Education and Training, and Higher Education and Training.

6. CHE UMALUSI QCTO

7. HET Framework (2013)

8. Is the higher education system producing too many graduates?

9. NQF & OFO Map - Source QCTO 2012

10. OQF Level descriptors: To determine level of tasks

11. Skills Development Process in Organisations

12. Examining the Government’s Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching to measure students experience and satisfaction and graduate employment outcomes

13. Quality Enhancement Project

14. The Reality for Employers • Why pay more for less? • Work Readiness is a real issue

15. Analysing how well the higher education system is meeting labour market needs • A recent study has revealed that only 0.07 percent of more than a million employees permanently employed in South Africa hold a PhD, despite universities reportedly producing 14 155 PhDs in the ten year period from 2002 to 2012. • The study, which looked at the employability of PhD graduates in South Africa, indicates that graduates are struggling to find employment in the country. • According to Dr.AmaleyaGoneos-Malka, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Pretoria, PhD graduates are often excluded from the recruitment space because they are seen as overqualified by human resource personnel. • Goneos-Malka says that the first part of the study looked at recent PhD graduates from 14 leading South African universities and considered graduates’ perspectives and perceptions of the employment space. • She says that 50 percent of PhD graduates had either experienced, or had peers who had experienced difficulties finding employment.

16. What is the real Picture? Approx. 600 000 university graduates are languishing at home, unable to put into practice what they have learned. (Labour market analyst LoaneSharp) • University qualifications, are not the only qualities employers look for when recruiting. • Employment consultancy Adcorp’s December Employment Index, shows that South Africa’s tertiary institutions are failing to produce enough graduates in business-related fields, despite the demand for such skills. • Professionals such as accountants, lawyers, medical doctors and engineers enjoy the lowest unemployment rates, at 0.4%. • Holders of degrees including BCom (commerce), BSc (science) and BCompt (accounting science) also have a very low unemployment rate, at 3.1%. • Graduates with degrees in the arts – including music and social sciences – are far more likely to battle to find jobs. • A lack of work experience, however, is another significant drawback.

17. What is the real Picture? • Most graduates in search of jobs either lack work experience, practical “on-the-job knowledge”, and the supervisory skills they need – or their degrees are irrelevant to the job market. • The South African Graduates Development Association (Sagda) blames a number of factors for the country’s growing graduate unemployment crisis. One of them is successfully matching those with skills to the jobs which require them. • Sagda states that among the country’s 600 000 unemployed graduates were qualified accountants, despite the fact that this is one of the country’s scarcest skills. • Engineers, make up the largest number of qualified graduates on their database with more than 150 of them looking for work. • Sagda was recently appointed by the Department of Trade and Industry to implement and monitor its Unemployed Graduate Work Experience Placement Programme, which aims to make graduates more employable by placing them in internship programmes.

18. What is the real Picture? • A study by the SA Qualifications Authority and Higher Education SA found that there was a huge gap between what employers expected and what they got after hiring a graduate straight from tertiary studies - Employers regarded competence in “English, ICT skills and an understanding of the world of work” as the most important attributes. (2009) • A study by Dr Haroon Bhorat from the Development Policy Research Unit of the University of Cape Town found that those who have a tertiary qualification but not a degree have a 50% chance of finding a job, while those with a degree have a 17% chance of being unemployed. Early school leavers make up the bulk of the jobless. • The highest increase was among the unemployed with tertiary qualifications. • Inappropriate fields of study mean that a university degree is not a sound condition for employment.” Bhorat says this is further aggravated by a “malfunctioning” labour market information system which means young people find it difficult to access information about jobs and careers. “There is very little communication between client and consumer,” Bhorat says. “A broad dialogue is needed between employers and learning institutions.”

19. StatsSA

20. Workplace Integrated Learning Constructive workplace learning is directed at shifting the individual from being merely competent to becoming proficient or expert (Dreyfus and Dreyfus).

21. Learnerships A learnership is the funding of a vocational education and training programme that facilitates the linkage between structured learning and work experience (WiL) in order to obtain a qualification. It combines theory and workplace practice into a qualification that is registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).Jul 30, 2004

22. PIVOTAL Grants and Workplace Learning

23. PIVOTAL Programmes PIVOTAL programmes definition • Professional, vocational, technical and academic learning programmes that result in qualifications or part qualifications registered on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) that address critical and scarce skills needs.

24. PIVOTAL Programmes • Professional learning programmes shall mean programmes that lead to designations that are registered by professional bodies. • Vocational learning programmes shall mean programmes that lead to a trade and/or the National Certificate Vocational (NCV). • Technical learning programmes shall mean programmes that are occupationally-directed and registered by the SETA; such programmes include apprenticeships, Learnerships and skills programmes. • Academic learning programmes shall mean programmes that lead to academic qualifications such as certificates, Higher Certificates, Diplomas and Degrees.

25. Scarce and Critical Skills • “Scarce and critical skills refer to an absolute or relative demand, current or future, for skilled, qualified and experienced people to fill particular • roles/professions/occupations or specializations in the labour market.” • Scarce skill: • an absolute or relative demand for skilled people to fill a particular role, profession or occupation for example doctors • Absolute demand: • means that suitable skilled people are not available • Relative demand: • means that there are suitable skilled people available, but they do not meet other employment criteria • Critical skills: • refers to the demand for an element of practical or fundamental competence which allows for specialization – in essence it refers to “top-up” skills for example the doctor needs to understand invoicing/time management/communication skills

26. What is Workplace Learning? • Workplace learning is the highly individual foundation-stone of life-long learning. It results from engagement in practice. Both experienced practitioners and novices engage in workplace learning. They receive, process and incorporate information (sensory, factual and codified or abstract) related to: • The work environment, the stimuli and the conditions which affect work performance • Social intercourse, e.g. conversations, role modelling and guidance involving co-practitioners, seniors and juniors, customers and clients, and those who are incidentally part of the work process • An underlying, conscious or unconscious feeling or perception of gaps, lacks, difficulties and challenges (70:20:10 Learning Framework) • Incidental, accidental and serendipitous events, interactions and readings • Participation in meetings, programmes, interventions and actions related to problem-solving, change or improvement • Testing out new activities, procedures (in the sense of a medical intervention, not as a work instruction), processes and systems

27. What is Workplace Learning? • Work also needs to be understood as a range of real-time activities in social, community and organisational settings. • All of the above may include formal education and training processes. The notion that accidental or incidental learning is restricted to informal learning arises from a misperception about how people acquire their personal knowledge, skills and attitudes. Even in formal learning situations people may acquire accidental and incidental learning which lies outside the scope of the formal learning objectives.

28. Workplace Learning: 70-20-10 model

29. Workplace Readiness • Work readiness is the transitional process from education or unemployment to effective engagement in work processes • A “work ready” individual possesses the foundational skills needed in order to be able to engage in work processes. • After this they are then able to develop the specific skills to become job fit. • Work readiness is built into organisational process by providing the tools, methods, processes to attract, select and support the new entrant through this transition. • Work readiness includes an understanding of how organisations function

31. Our Future Reflexive Practical Foundational

32. Thank you! “Man often becomes what he believes himself to be. If I keep on saying to myself that I cannot do a certain thing, it is possible that I may end by really becoming incapable of doing it. On the contrary, if I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.” ― Mahatma Gandhi

33. Contact Details Institute of People Development 011 315 2913 www.peopledev.co.za gizellem@peopledev.co.za