While learnerships are a great way to prepare unemployed learners for income-generating jobs, they should be regarded as a means to an end, and not an end in themselves, says Sivarajan Naidoo, who heads up the skills development academy EduPower.
He goes on to explain what he means by this: "The whole idea behind sending unemployed people on learnerships is that it will ultimately enable them to generate an income. However, in order for this to be successful, I believe that we need to do more to empower the learner with the skills that will enable him or her to do that."
Naidoo says learnerships should include more elements that would improve the individual's chances of employability or ability to generate an income once they've completed their course. He says: "We can't focus solely on finding a job, we need to assist people to generate an income on their own, to become entrepreneurs, and not simply to find employment. Unfortunately, too many learners expect to be offered a job at the end of their learnership; they need to amend their expectations."
He explains that in order to improve their B-BBEE status, companies sponsor certain categories of individuals, namely the unemployed or people living with disabilities, to be put onto learnerships. The hope is that the learnership process will enable that person to learn skills so that they can generate an income at the end of the period. The question that Naidoo poses is whether this is in fact happening. "Are people brought onto learnerships ending up back in the unemployment queue and never really going onto a career of any sort. Or are they simply going from learnership to learnership?"
Companies that go this route often acquire a training provider to recruit qualifying people and put them on learnerships. Naidoo explains: "There are three basic elements to any learnership: there's a classroom component, which constitutes about 30% of the learnership; there's a workplace experience component, which is the remaining 70% of the qualification, and there's a stipend that must be paid to the learner for the period that they're on the learnership."
While the stipend really is a nominal amount, Naidoo says some of the bigger companies are starting to move closer to the minimum wage with the amount they pay learners. "While most of the training providers are providing good classroom training and the stipend portion is improving, the element that I feel could improve is the workplace experience component of the learnership."
When training providers are unable to find workplace experience positions for learners, they put them in a simulated environment. This may be acceptable to the SETA (Sector Education and Training Authority) from a qualification point of view, but does it really prepare the individual for the everyday realities of the workplace, or even to generate their own income? The answer to this question, according to Naidoo, is a resounding 'no'.
"A small component of workplace experience can include simulation, but it's no substitute for actual live production in a workplace that offers real workplace experience."
His main criticism of a simulated workplace is that the individual doesn't experience performance management. "It's a very controlled and predictable environment that doesn't expose the learner to the unpredictable and unknown factors that characterise the everyday workplace."
Over and above this, if the learner is never placed in an actual workplace during hi/her learnership, there is zero likelihood that he or she will be retained/employed there. "The learner is almost set up for failure," says Naidoo. "There's no chance of attaining long-term employment if the learner is set up in a simulated workplace. In fact, the entire learnership almost becomes theoretical, as it fails at providing proper workplace experience."
Sponsoring companies must ask training providers whether they will be providing high-quality, proper workplace experience that will truly prepare the learners for the workplace. Naidoo points out that he's not saying a simulated workplace offers no value, he's just saying it's never a good substitute for a practical, real-world situation.
He elaborates: "When you consider qualifications in the legal, medical and accounting fields, they all require individuals to spend time in a real-world scenario once they've completed their studies and before they're considered qualified. The reason for that is the workplace is the best environment in which to practice your theoretical knowledge. The same applies to learnerships: the learners must serve at the coalface. Yes, it's a much shorter and less intensive qualification, but the same principle applies."
Then there's the matter of mentorship. "Many of the learnership qualifications incorporate a life skills component in some of the modules. But this doesn't go far enough in terms of addressing the person. When you have learners on learnerships who didn't qualify for college or university, these people may lack the social conditioning to succeed. Learnerships need to address this gap. It's all about the way that the person thinks about their future."
Naidoo is referring to access to skills such as neurolinguistic programming, affirmations and counselling that can help learners change their way of thinking and the way in which they see themselves in the world. "This is a very important consideration when it comes to people being able to generate an income. They need to feel empowered to generate an income. We see too many learners going from learnership to learnership because they don't feel able to break out of that cycle, and either get a job or start their own business. They become professional learners."
While learnerships can fulfil a very important function, and can be used to build up the individual to understand that, with their newly acquired skills, they can generate an income after the learnership. It's also essential to include elements of human psychology to help the individual understand their exit strategy from the learnership. This can be to find a job, to be absorbed by the workplace experience employer, or create their own opportunity. "They need to be confident, understand how to create a good CV and how to tap into the digital world. They need to acquire all of those skills to make themselves more marketable entities."
He continues: "South Africans often have amazing entrepreneurial potential, but learners definitely have a tendency to expect the government to do everything for them. They need to see government as an enabler; they must do the hard work themselves. To that end, we can also assist them to create business plans, express their ideas, engage crowdfunding, banks and people that may be sources for grants. They need to attract the help they need to implement their ideas. Training providers need to show potential entrepreneurs who the enablers are and put them in touch with the right platforms."
This train of thought leads Naidoo to his next point: "One of the lessons we can learn from the developed world is that the pooling of skills and resources into a co-operative results in strength in numbers. Ubuntu is a practical expression of how that would work. It's all about helping people organise themselves with a common aim. A group might attract better funding or even a grant compared to an individual."
Naidoo refers to the NGO/NPO/community-based organisation space. He says: "There are three options here: a new entity can rely on donor funding, operating like a normal business trading in goods or services, but the revenue is distributed to the community. Legislation allows a certain amount of that income to be used for costs, including salaries. Then there's social entrepreneurship, where the business is owned by the entrepreneur, while servicing a need within the community. Or people can identify a need within their own community and see whether, by working with others, they can be part of the solution. There's a huge social need in South Africa, which translates into huge opportunity. It's all about changing the mindset of individuals to grasp that opportunity and make the most of it and become self-reliant."
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