May 2013.pdf - SABPP

learning and quality assurance
THE POWER OF LEARNERSHIPS - GETTING YOUNG PEOPLE WORKING
JANESSA LEITA – CEO SIYANQOBA PRIVATE FET COLLEGE
For many young people desperate to
get their foot on the first rung of the
career ladder the biggest obstacles
they face include not having the
means to study and improve their
academic and social skills and having
no way to build essential experience
because no one will hire “green”
recruits.
Many of these young people are
eager to prove their worth but don’t
get an opportunity to realise their
full potential and all too quickly they
are past the critical 35-year old
barrier and it then becomes virtually
impossible to escape the ranks of the
unemployed.
It is estimated that there are more
than 4.5 million unemployed people
in South Africa with over 500 000 of
these unemployed graduates and
more than 500 000 unemployed
matriculants. The hard reality is that
Government alone cannot solve the
unemployment problem.
They can create a foundation and
put in place the right policies and
legislation but it is ultimately up to
South African Businesses to step into
the void and help get South Africans
working through initiatives like the
EOH Job Creation Initiative.
EOH CEO, Asher Bohbot, who
masterminded this initiative says:
“A year ago we started with the
job-creation initiative which aimed
to encourage businesses to take
unemployed youth into their
organisations on learnerships and
internships.
We took placed 620 young people
into a year-long programme which
finished at the end of February. We
have given over 400 of the original
intake permanent jobs, and the other
200 that we can’t keep will be put on
new programmes or placed with our
clients.
This programme will be rerun in our
own organisation and more and more
of our business partners are also
taking on the challenge.”
The main areas of the EOH Job
Creation Initiative are the promotion
of internship and learnership
programmes; the repatriation of
jobs offshored to other countries
and working with Government to
mobilise business to take advantage
of incentive schemes for job creation.
Finally the initiative also aims to
encourage business to invest more
in South Africa which will result in job
creation.
The project hopes to repatriate
5000 offshored jobs and create 3000
jobs through provision of offshoring
services abroad and ultimately it
hopes to create 10 000 internships
and 10 000 learnerships.
Learnerships are a critical component
of the initiative. They offer a
structured learning environment and
the formal assessment process that
offers new entrants to the worldof-work
the chance to demonstrate
their commitment to learning and
their insatiable hunger to succeed
and contribute to their employer’s
success.
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