Radical rethink of post-secondary school training needed
A radical rethink of education and training post-secondary school is needed if the career aspirations of young people in the region are to be met,” says Raphael da Silva, a director at the locally-based non-profit organisation, CareerPathFind-ers.org (CPF).
According to CPF, the results from the career testing they have conducted are indicating that the majority of young people in the Overstrand will not be able to realise their career dreams, given that at least 40% of them will drop out of school before matric.
“At the moment, financially affordable courses that young people will need to build their skills and competencies, whether they have their matric or not, are not being offered in the region. Instead, many young people need to either travel long distances or live away from home, an expense that many families simply can’t afford,” says Raphael.
“So far, results indicate that the top 5 careers, which represent 35% of all respondents, are in beauty, sales, marketing, counselling and the food and beverage industry.Interestingly being an entrepreneur is the second most preferred career at 15%, just above the national South African average.
tingly being an entrepreneur is the second most preferred career at 15%, just above the national South African average.
“Unfortunately, with the exception of some courses in the food and beverage industry, there aren’t a lot of options for young people who aspire to careers in these industries except perhaps in distance learning.”
Raphael says everyone is focused on the matric pass rate, but that this is actually the wrong indicator.”We should rather be asking what percentage of young people in Grade 10 will write matric three years later.The answer will disappoint you. Over the past 5 years, in South Africa, between 40 – 50% of Grade 10s have dropped out and don’t write matric. We have schools in the Overstrand with even higher drop-out rates. On top of this, only about 15% of matric students will do well enough to qualify to attend university.”
The crucial question that CPF is addressing, is what are these young people who have dropped out going to do with their lives? Stay at home because of lack of opportunities and training? Or do low-paying, manual or low-skilled jobs for the rest of their lives?”Like everyone, they also have hopes, dreams and aspirations,” says Raphael.
“The answer has to be in offering specialised short courses using existing colleges and schools in areas where there is sufficient demonstrated demand,” says Donald Mos, who is also a director at CPF. “But the first step lies in identifying what our children need and giving them the hope and aspiration that they can do something positive with their lives.”
Ronald Mos, who is also a director at CPF. “But the first step lies in identifying what our children need and giving them the hope and aspiration that they can do something positive with their lives.”
Over the past months, CPF has been conducting career testing with selected grades in the region. More than 1 000 learners have completed the page questionnaire.The results are processed through a proprietary software programme specifically developed for South African use, and each person is given a 6-page report with 15 possible careers choices. Five of them require matric and further education while ten of them can be achieved through self-study, on-the-job training, apprenticeship or specialised short courses.
CPF’s mission is to test every Grade 9,11 and 12 student in South Africa in the public education system and as many unemployed people as possible with the aim of identifying the role that each of them can play in society, in order to make a living, regardless of the level of education or training they have.
“So far, we have been financing the work ourselves while continuing with our day jobs. But the demand is so great that we are now looking to raise R100 000 in the next months in order to test more students in the Overstrand area,” says Graeme Lahoud, the third director at CPF.
CPF is offering donors a number of different sponsorship packages starting from R 1,000 up to R20 000.
“We don’t believe in just asking for money”, says Lahoud. “Every sponsorship package offers the donor the opportunity to test their employees as well. Some of the packages also offer in-company training, so sponsors will receive double the value of their donation back in services performed by CPF.”
Next year, CPF would like to raise R5 million. This will be enough to test at least 50 000 Grade 9,11 and 12 students in the Western Cape outside of the Cape Town metropolis.
“As we continue to consolidate the results of all the assessments, we will engage with existing and potential education authorities, companies and institutions to make the case for offering specialised short courses in the region where we can show there will be sufficient demand to justify the investment,” says Raphael.
For further information and to sponsor CPF, please contact Raphael da Silva at raphael@careerpath-finders.org.