Evaluation of the Monyetla Work Readiness ... - Business Trust

4.3.7 Placement RatesA key requirement of the Monyetla programme stemming from objective 3 of the RFP was:• To ensure the placement of 70% of learners in employment on completion of the skills programme.Consultations with employers confirmed the need for entry-level talent and a willingness to absorbproperly trained entrants into the workplace. The Monyetla programme is designed to support arapidly expanding sector which, among other things, will benefit from enhanced governmentassistance and an expanded international marketing drive.Placement rates for consortia that had completed the project and closed out ranged from 70% to100%, well within the placement target with only one consortia not being able to achieve the 70%and managing to place 60.5% of its learners. At the time of writing the overall employment figurestands at 89.99%, which is 19.99% above the minimum percentage required.Table 11 shows that 41% of consortia managed to post a 100% placement rate. It also reveals that allthese consortia were led by employers, 71% were led by host employers and the remaining 29% bylead employers. From this we can conclude that employer-led consortia enjoyed the highestplacement rates with consortia that had host employers performing better than those with leademployers.One consortium that also managed to place 100% of its learners was led by a project manager.What Table 11 also shows is the important role that training providers play as lead members,particularly from a project management and administration perspective, whereby all the consortiathat achieved more than 80% placement rates had training providers assuming a project managementand administration role:• One hundred percent of consortia that placed over 80% of learners had training providersplaying a project management and administrative role.The significance of training providers playing a lead role from an administrative and projectmanagement perspective was raised by 56% of training providers and 27% of the employers invarious statements:i. “Training providers have the most to lose (financially) if the learnership is not a success”ii. “Training providers should be playing an administrative and project management role as thisis their core competence and not of employers, whose main worry is to find good workersto enhance business productivity”.It was found that in most instances, training providers initiated the consortium’s approach to otherparties, mainly because of the attractive training fee/grant/subsidy. In a number of instances, thetraining providers were instrumental in convincing employers to participate in the project based onthree value propositions;• “Participation in the programme as a social responsibility initiative”• “A fresh, passionate and motivated labour pool , comprised of people who have been putthrough an accredited skills programme and exposed to the company’s way of doingbusiness”• “To meet the expanding demand for trained call centre agents.”While the Monyetla programme was designed to be employer led and formulated to ensure thatemployers were in the driver’s seat and that placement objectives were met, evidence points totraining providers managing and administrating consortia internally to achieve programme objectives.Training providers were also the prime recipients of the learnership grant and would have had aprimary interest in ensuring placement to guarantee the payout of second tranches.42