Education, training and skills development : solving the conundrum – a South African perspective

11 million jobs by 2030? One of the aims of South Africa’s National Development Plan: Vision for 2030 is to reduce the current unemployment rate from 27 percent in 2011 to 6 percent by 2030. The paper will explore the South African education and skills development legislation though the lens of work integrated learning as a viable consideration in the skills debate. The Work-Integrated Learning: Good Practice Guide (2011) published by the Council for Higher Education introduces new models for implementation of work integrated learning in South Africa

Creating future-fit leaders : towards formalising service learning in university programmes

Service learning as a form of experiential learning has become a more common component in higher education in South Africa. The aims of service learning (SL) may be briefly stated as engendering a sense of civic responsibility in students prior to their entering the world of employment. SL is, by definition, a mutually beneficial arrangement, during which both parties derive benefit and contribute to the exchange of learning. SL is a formal component of qualifications and, as such requires that suitable SL placements in community settings are identified. This necessitates that partnering agreements are concluded, that both the student and community hosts are prepared for the SL and that assessment and feedback occurs. The Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa prides itself on educating future-fit leaders. This is accomplished by excellent academic programme offerings, many of which have work integrated learning components that allow students to complement the classroom theory learnt with authentic supervised and assessed workplace experience. The focus of SL, however, is to ensure that students understand the society that they will be working in and entrenching a sense of civic mindedness. As SL sites are not always readily available and as the universities need to ensure placement opportunities for all students in a programme with a formal SL component, this paper will propose that a phased-in approach to SL in the Faculty is pursued, exploring the notion of working via the international association ENACTUS (the acronym derived from Entrepreneurial, Action and US) to establish linkages that would lead to formalisation of partnership arrangements. ENACTUS describes itself as ‘a community of student, academic and business leaders committed to using the power of entrepreneurial action to transform lives and shape a better more sustainable world.’ Participation in ENACTUS is voluntary and is not linked to any formal academic programme credit. It is anticipated that such an approach will result in a win-win situation both for the ENACTUS students at the University of Johannesburg and then the Faculty of Management specifically as it builds a potential SL partner base. The Faculty offers a wide range of programmes, including Hospitality Management, Tourism, Information Technology, Human Resource Management, various Management programmes, as well as Entrepreneurship. These programmes are well-suited to support the ENACTUS project as it enables students from across disciplines to work and learn together - and make a difference to the lives of others. An ENACTUS-UJ and Faculty of Management partnership will thus be mutually beneficial, serving as a springboard for the introduction of SL in the various academic programmes, thus making this a formal and credit-bearing study component in the Faculty. Communities that benefit from ENACTUS programmes will then have sustained support and move from being recipients of service to partners in the learning process of student. The paper will explain the concepts community engagement and community service, contrasting these with an overview of the theory of experiential education of which SL is a form. Taking the approach of community engagement, specifically via ENACTUS is proposed as a springboard to more sustained SL in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg, with mutual reciprocity and benefit to the university, its students and the community

Education and training for the workplace : workplace-readiness skills

50 million people in South Africa, of whom nearly 70% are under the age of 35, a 25.2% official unemployment rate (May 2012) and a national Vision 2030 (2011a) to reduce unemployment in SA to 6% by 2030 send a strong message that education, training and skills development are important. Reflections on the piloted Human Resource Management work experience project initiated by the University of Johannesburg’s Faculty of Management and the outcomes from the 18th World Association of Cooperative Education’s World Conference round table session on workplace-readiness are the impetus for this paper contribution. A brief background to cooperative education and work integrated learning will set the scene, with legislative aspects providing a backdrop to the opportunity that the South African post-school education and training sector has to make a difference in the lives of students, to empower them to enter the world of work with confidence. 11 million jobs by 2030? Reduction of the current unemployment rate to 6 percent by 2030? Workplace-readiness skills are proposed as one solution

Student reflections on the pilot WIL partnership capacity building model in a human resource management qualification

South Africa (SA) has a population of 50 million people. Nearly 70% are under 35 years old. The national vision aims to reduce youth unemployment using education, training and skills development initiatives. A work integrated learning (WIL) partnership model was developed to build an industry partner base. The model was piloted in a South African university in 2013 to provide work-ready, qualified and skilled graduates entering the SA economy. Research conducted focused on whether the WIL model was a viable, cost-effective and practical solution for capacity building of potential entry-level staff. This paper presents an analysis of the self-administered questionnaire completed by the students subsequent to their WIL experience. The background to SA cooperative education and WIL provides the backdrop. The aim of the paper is to reflect on whether the model contributed to economic and social capacity building and industry partnership development. This paper adds value on a strategic, theoretical and practical level by contributing to national imperatives for human resource development, adding to the body of knowledge on WIL initiatives in SA and outlining a user friendly WIL partnership model to allow students to enter the world of work with confidence

Academic temporalities: Apprehending micro-worlds of academic work through a photo-serial methodology

This article focuses on academic temporalities to consider the rhythms, repetitions and discontinuities of academic work. Using a photo-serial methodology which generated an archive of images taken at the same time of day for a fortnight, we take up material and affective theories to rethink academic work as assemblages or micro-worlds that emerge through happenstance at particular moments. Our nonrepresentational, new materialist approach shifts away from discursive analyses of accounts of academic labour, and from assumptions of visual methods as ‘documentary’ representations of the world. We adopt an emergent, processual and experimental mode of inquiry that works against linearity, and an analytical approach that attends to the ‘punctum’ of images through glimpses, tangents and elusive details. The contributions of this paper lie in its mobilisation of images to think differently about the ubiquity and ‘throwntogetherness’ of academic labour, and its theoretical reframing of academic temporalities as composed of affective and material entanglements of events, relations, doings, objects, and spaces of all kinds

A work integrated learning (WIL) partnership model for higher education graduates to gain employment

Abstract: South Africa has embarked on a National Development Plan and Vision for 2030 to promote a triple helix partnership with education, government and industry to reduce the unemployment rate from 27% in 2011 to 6% by 2030. In support of this national imperative the Human Resources Management (HRM) Programme at the University of Johannesburg pioneered a Work Integrated Learning (WIL) Partnership Model to promote the employability of graduates. The WIL model allows students to gain workplace knowledge, skills and experience while industry partners observe the newly emerging talent in the form of future-fit leaders entering the world of work. Research was conducted to elicit the responses of key stakeholders on the proposed implementation of the WIL partnership model. Qualitative focus group sessions were facilitated with industry, academic and student groups to highlight common and profound perspectives on participant support, concerns and questions on the implementation process. Major findings reveal that all three groups of participants supported the implementation of the WIL model. Industry welcomed the model as it provided opportunities for recruitment and meeting national skills imperatives. Academics supported the model as it bridged the theory-practice gap while meeting compliance standards. Students supported the model as they gained workplace exposure and put theory into practice. All three participant groups expressed concerns and raised questions on placement, indemnity, confidentiality, work preparedness, time span, tracking processes and practice-theory alignment

Identification of the proteins, including MAGEG1, that make up the human SMC5-6 protein complex

The SMC protein complexes play important roles in chromosome dynamics. The function of the SMC5-6 complex remains unclear, though it is involved in resolution of different DNA structures by recombination. We have now identified and characterized the four non-SMC components of the human complex and in particular demonstrated that the MAGEG1 protein is part of this complex. MAGE proteins play important but as yet undefined roles in carcinogenesis, apoptosis, and brain development. We show that, with the exception of the SUMO ligase hMMS21/hNSE2, depletion of any of the components results in degradation of all the other components. Depletion also confers sensitivity to methyl methanesulfonate. Several of the components are modified by sumoylation and ubiquitination

The dilemma of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) in South African higher education – the case of Town and Regional Planning at the University of Johannesburg

The South African Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF) gazetted in 2007 sets a revised qualifications framework that necessitates the re-evaluation and redesign of programmes to align with the new framework. For the first time the HEQF introduced the term ‘Work-Integrated Learning’ (WIL) into a Department of Education document with possible legal consequences for institutions of higher education, as the framework document provides that higher education institutions offering qualifications with a WIL component must place the students. This has led to a dilemma as placements are not always readily available. In addition, there is ‘pressure’ within institutions and from certain faculty members to eliminate the WIL component from curricula. This article aims to answer the following questions: Is it worth retaining WIL in the Town and Regional Planning academic programme? If it is found that WIL should remain part of the qualification, when should the students engage with this component? If it is found that WIL should remain part of the qualification, for how long should this component be offered? This article presents the findings of the qualitative study aimed at finding a solution to the dilemma relating to WIL, with students and partners from industry being surveyed for their input. It, therefore, forms part of what is an ongoing dialogue concerning all aspects relating to appropriate education