There is a national skills shortage in critical areas. There are many graduates who are unemployed. About these two facts there is little dispute. Task groups and commissions have been put together to find out why this is the case and to find ways of bringing the graduates back into the formal economy in a productive manner. Lists of registered unemployed graduates are available and sector education and training authorities are awarding large contracts to people running learnerships to provide these people with, hopefully, employable skills.
Who are these graduates? Where did they graduate? What did they study? Why have they not found work or become self-employed? These are national questions, but they are also questions that should be keeping the management and leadership of tertiary education providers awake at night. Most institutions expend resources on tracking graduates from flagship programmes only or recruiting financially successful graduates into alumni associations. Very few track graduates systematically and rigorously to ensure that they are employable and, if not, that remedial action is taken immediately. Even fewer ask employers why they do or do not employ their graduates.
What would happen if each institution took direct responsibility for understanding where its graduates are, whether they find work and if they don’t, why not? Having accessed this information, what would happen if the leadership went back to the senates and said, ‘Our curricula do not result in employment; our students are viewed as unable to manage in the workplace and levels of literacy and ability to communicate effectively in the workplace are judged as low and declining”? How many heads of school and deans would resign as a matter of principle? How many lecturers would immediately introduce changes to their curricula and how these are presented and assessed?
I do know that there would be a robust debate about the vagaries of the economy, the need to lead the market and not be dictated to by it, and a general critique on the narrow-mindedness of the business sector specifically and employers in general. There would even be much written and said about the differences between education and training. There would, undoubtedly, be commentary on old boys’ employment networks, legacy-driven prejudices towards some providers and perhaps even references to apartheid and affirmative action. What there is less likely to be is a mea culpa by the institutions and a commitment to doing something about it — from within. That is a pity.
It may well make a world of difference if institutions had to report annually on the number of graduates taken up into employment (or self-employed or studying at a postgraduate level) within six months of graduating. Imagine if, as part of the reporting on the National Student Financial Aid Scheme system, there was an annual public report on the number of financial aid recipients who were able to begin paying off their debt the year after graduation. Such figures are accessible because of the sophistication of the NSFAS repayment system and its link to the South African Revenue Service. It would be interesting to know what these figures revealed about the relative employability of graduates from particular institutions.
More importantly, it is an ethical question. Institutions accept students on to their programmes and assist them in incurring significant debt while studying. Implicit in this process is the assumption on the part of the student that success and economic advantage will follow. Is it possible to know that this is not happening without doing anything other than continuing to accept more students, who will incur more debt, yet realise none of the personal and economic advantages a ssociated with becoming a graduate?
Dr Felicity Coughlan is director of the Independent Institute of Education, the academic body for Varsity College, Rosebank College, College Campus and Vega The Brand Communications School