About 30 000 learners from grades nine to 12 will benefit from an initiative to help them make informed choices about a future career.
The project is a collaboration between the department of basic education, Primestars, Nedbank and tertiary institutions. Called My Future, My Career, it aims to highlight the importance of mainstreaming career guidance into the school curriculum.
Currently, the subject is part of life orientation and does not give teachers enough time to work on it. Nedbank’s Shirley Zinn said: “It would be ideal to see a bigger focus on [the subject] for grade-12 learners, giving them opportunities for exposure to the scarce careers.”
Zinn said that, although teachers played a key role in educating, they often did not spend enough time guiding learners on how to develop their career prospects. She said the My Future, My Career project would help learners to make the subject choices that would ultimately lead to their preferred careers.
She said that, in the past, it was common for parents to influence their children in pursuing some careers. But today, she said, what determined the choice was financial aid and gaps in a particular industry. “I suspect that, if there is a shortage of engineers and the mining sector offers a host of bursaries to engineering students, then more learners will follow that career,” said Zinn.
The programme, which started at the end of last month, targets 58 top-performing learners from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. It is a “cinema-style concept” though which 3000 learners view videos at 14 Ster-Kinekor cinema complexes nationally per week.
To inspire the young people, the videos include interviews with industry leaders and high-profile academics. The programme is flexible and allows learners to choose the weeks in which they would like to attend. Schools that would like to participate must register early.
Zinn said that, in future, the videos could be played at community centres.
Martin Sweet of Primestars said the initiative aimed to educate learners about the personal attributes that were needed to succeed in a particular field.
“We hope to inspire learners while providing them with the tools to assist in making the right career choices,” Sweet said.
He said learners would also receive, at the end of each session, information booklets with relevant details on career information, bursary information and education outlet contact information.
Speaking on behalf of the education department, Babalwa Ntabeni-Matutu hailed the initiative as a product of public-private partnership.