IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bjz/ajisjr/2288.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Post-University Training for Jobless Market: The Experiences of Graduates in a Work Experience Programme

Author

Listed:
  • Zethembe Mseleku

Abstract

South Africa reportedly has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the world. Graduate unemployment parallels the country’s overall unemployment rate, with the youth being the most vulnerable group. Hence, work experience programmes are offered to prepare fresh graduates for the labour market. The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of graduates in a work experience programme. This paper adopted a qualitative approach to elicit the experiences of graduates regarding the graduate work experience programme. A total of 30 face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with graduates sampled from the eThekwini municipality’s work experience programme. The results indicate that while graduates participate in a work experience programme to gain skills and work experience needed to secure jobs and for professional registration purposes, they experience numerous challenges in the programme. These challenges include ill-treatment from senior staff members, lack of work resources, and unreasonable workload. It was also evident that graduates were unsatisfied about the work experience programme owing to the poor or lack of mentorship and the irrelevancy of the programme itself. This paper offers important evidence which suggests the need to develop work experience programme policy and monitoring and evaluation systems in order to improve the experiences of graduates in the programme.

Suggested Citation

  • Zethembe Mseleku, 2022. "Post-University Training for Jobless Market: The Experiences of Graduates in a Work Experience Programme," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 11, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bjz:ajisjr:2288
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2022-0127
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/ajis/article/view/13046
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/ajis/article/view/13046/12638
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.36941/ajis-2022-0127?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ayllón, Sara & Ferreira-Batista, Natalia N., 2018. "Unemployment, drugs and attitudes among European youth," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 236-248.
    2. Derek Yu, 2013. "Youth unemployment in South Africa since 2000 revisited," Working Papers 04/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    3. Brian Tavonga Mazorodze & Christian Nsiah, 2020. "Youth unemployment and murder crimes in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1799480-179, January.
    4. Grönqvist, Hans, 2011. "Youth Unemployment and Crime: New Lessons Exploring Longitudinal Register Data," Working Paper Series 7/2011, Stockholm University, Swedish Institute for Social Research.
    5. Derek Yu, 2013. "Youth unemployment in South Africa revisited," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(4-5), pages 545-563, December.
    6. Geoff Mason & Gareth Williams & Sue Cranmer, 2009. "Employability skills initiatives in higher education: what effects do they have on graduate labour market outcomes?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 1-30.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zethembe Mseleku & Sibusisiwe Nyawo, 2024. "Local Government Internship: Opportunity or Exploitation?," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Richtmann Publishing Ltd, vol. 13, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bhorat, Haroon & Goga, Sumayya & Stanwix, Benjamin, 2014. "Skills-biased labour demand and the pursuit of inclusive growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Neil Rankin & Gareth Roberts & Volker Schöer, 2014. "The Success of Learnerships?: Lessons from South Africa's Training and Education Programme," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-068, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Wendy Geza & Mjabuliseni Simon Cloapas Ngidi & Rob Slotow & Tafadzwanashe Mabhaudhi, 2022. "The Dynamics of Youth Employment and Empowerment in Agriculture and Rural Development in South Africa: A Scoping Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-20, April.
    4. Haroon Bhorat & Sumayya Goga & Benjamin Stanwix, 2014. "Skills-Biased Labour Demand and the Pursuit of Inclusive Growth in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-130, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Mbulaheni Albert Dagume, 2021. "Determinants of the Job Search Method among Rural Youth: The Case of Vhembe District in South Africa," International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, Econjournals, vol. 11(5), pages 28-36.
    6. Grönqvist, Hans & Niknami, Susan, 2014. "Alcohol availability and crime: Lessons from liberalized weekend sales restrictions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 77-84.
    7. Ana Sofia R. Tavares & Elisabete Carolino & António Rosado & Luís Calmeiro & Sidónio Serpa, 2022. "Characteristics of Gym-Goers Performance-Enhancing Substance Use," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-15, March.
    8. Martin Nordin & Daniel Almén, 2017. "Long-term unemployment and violent crime," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 1-29, February.
    9. Meghir, Costas & Palme, Mårten & Schnabel, Marieke, 2011. "The Effect of Education Policy on Crime: An Intergenerational Perspective," IZA Discussion Papers 6142, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Geoff Mason, 2014. "Skills and training for a more innovation-intensive economy," National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) Discussion Papers 431, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
    11. Humburg, M. & van der Velden, R.K.W., 2014. "Skills and the graduate recruitment process: Evidence from two discrete choice experiments," ROA Research Memorandum 002, Maastricht University, Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA).
    12. Randi Hjalmarsson & Helena Holmlund & Matthew J. Lindquist, 2015. "The Effect of Education on Criminal Convictions and Incarceration: Causal Evidence from Micro‐data," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(587), pages 1290-1326, September.
    13. Claudia Villosio, 2010. "What makes a good candidate? The preferences of HR Managers about new graduated job-seekers," Giornale degli Economisti, GDE (Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia), Bocconi University, vol. 69(3), pages 97-118, December.
    14. Amelie L. Chico, DM, FRIM, 2021. "Tracer Study of STAs and Scholars of UM Panabo College," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 5(11), pages 413-421, November.
    15. Koda, Yoshiko & Yuki, Takako, 2013. "The labor market outcomes of two forms of cross-border higher education degree programs between Malaysia and Japan," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 367-379.
    16. Antra Singh & Seema Singh, 2021. "Do Employability Skills Matter in Placement: An Exploratory Study of Private Engineering Institutions and IT Firms in Delhi NCR," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 64(4), pages 1093-1113, December.
    17. Balbo, Nicoletta & Carapella, Piergiorgio & Toffolutti, Veronica, 2020. "Trends in the use of mind-altering drugs among European adolescents during the Great Recession," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(5), pages 568-574.
    18. Boslett, Andrew & Hill, Elaine, 2022. "Mortality during resource booms and busts," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    19. Néboa Zozaya & Laura Vallejo, 2020. "The Effect of the Economic Crisis on Adolescents’ Perceived Health and Risk Behaviors: A Multilevel Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-14, January.
    20. Siwach, Garima, 2018. "Unemployment shocks for individuals on the margin: Exploring recidivism effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 231-244.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bjz:ajisjr:2288. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Richtmann Publishing Ltd (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.richtmann.org/journal/index.php/ajis .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.