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Skills? What Skills? Jobs? What Jobs? An Overview of Studies Examining Relationships Between Education and Training and Labour Markets
Abstract
This paper provides a discussion of South African and international literature concerning transitions (pathways) studies as well as of theory and analysis used in understanding the evolving relationship between education and work. Much of the South African and international research makes use of longitudinal or panel survey research designs which trace the school-to-work pathways of a youth cohorts over a period of a few years, examining individual decision-making in educational choices. While in this literature, broader socio-economic structures are considered as possible obstacles to successful transitions, structural constraints are underexamined, and mechanisms to explain the role of education in labour markets are not explored. We therefore explore some theories that attempt to explain relationships between education and the labour market, including human capital theory, education as a positional good, education as a proxy for trainability, education as legitimized means for social inclusion and exclusion, and more recently, the idea of the global auction, as well as the idea of the educational transformation of work. This is followed by an overview of some of the international literature which points to the structure of the labour market as a major determinant of the quality of vocational and professional education, as well as literature which examines the relationship between broader social policy and levels of general and specific skills, and finally, literature which suggests that the expansion of education has very little to do with the requirements of work. These are all areas which are not well researched in South Africa, and we suggest key areas for research interventions.
... Again, the student's response legitimised the National Treasury report (2011) which stated that over 30% of 18-24-year olds with tertiary education, which include university degrees, university of technology diplomas and college certificates were unemployed. Educational pundits such as Allais and Nathan (2014) argue that the South African economy has experienced what has been commonly referred to as jobless growth with capital, rather than labour-intensive forms of economic growth being the order of the day (Allais & Nathan 2014). However, employers do not seem to agree with a view that unemployment is because of job scarcity; instead, they argue to the contrary and say there is a mismatch of skills. ...
... Again, the student's response legitimised the National Treasury report (2011) which stated that over 30% of 18-24-year olds with tertiary education, which include university degrees, university of technology diplomas and college certificates were unemployed. Educational pundits such as Allais and Nathan (2014) argue that the South African economy has experienced what has been commonly referred to as jobless growth with capital, rather than labour-intensive forms of economic growth being the order of the day (Allais & Nathan 2014). However, employers do not seem to agree with a view that unemployment is because of job scarcity; instead, they argue to the contrary and say there is a mismatch of skills. ...
Background: This article seeks to examine factors that shape Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) engineering students’ understanding of their future career choices. Moreover, given the promising and ambitious vision for growth in both TVET and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), as envisaged by the policy framework, White Paper on Post School Education and Training (PSET) aimed at addressing the challenges, amongst others, of youth unemployment.
Objectives: The objective of this article is to ascertain factors that inform students’ understanding of their future career prospects.
Methods: In this research, qualitative self-administered, open-ended questionnaires were employed as a data collection tool to gather facts about students’ beliefs, feelings and experiences regarding certain engineering programmes and services offered at TVET colleges. Consequently, purposive sampling was utilised to sample 113 engineering participants who voluntarily completed the questionnaires, which were organised to gather the required data.
Results: The findings of the study point to divergent views, where some students felt very strongly that TVET engineering qualification leads to full employment because of the demand for this skill, while other students argued that the high rate of unemployment in South Africa is so deep such that even graduates irrespective of qualification are not guaranteed employment in South Africa.
Conclusion: Consequently, the researchers believe that the TVET’s learning programmes should be repositioned to articulate as a poor response to poor schooling in relation to labour market, amongst others, to ease school leavers into jobs or self-employment under conditions of widespread youth unemployment.
... In the remainder of the paper, we elaborate our argument that transformative research methodology is required, and explore what this might mean for research processes, planning and design, and curriculum for educational research capacity development. To do so we draw on the comments received at SAERA 2015, our experience as educational researchers, the studies reviewed in the NRF and SAQA projects, the development critiques outlined above, and on critiques of the links between economy, development, employment and skills (Allais and Nathan, 2012;Hugo, 2015). ...
... An example is the issue of graduate unemployment observed in the same field that skills shortages are experienced. Scholars like Hugo (2015) and Allais and Nathan (2012) argue that we need to rethink the conventional coupling of education and employment, and re-think the role of the economy in these. ...
Education has contributed to a society-wide awareness of environmental issues, and we are
increasingly confronted with the need for new ways to generate energy, save water and
reduce pollution. Thus new forms of work are emerging and government, employers and
educators need to know what ‘green’ skills South Africa needs and has. This creates a new
demand for ‘green skills’ research. We propose that this new knowledge field – like some
other educational fields – requires a transformative approach to research methodology. In
conducting reviews of existing research, we found that a transformative approach requires a
reframing of key concepts commonly used in researching work and learning; multi-layered,
mixed method studies; researching within and across diverse knowledge fields including
non-traditional fields; and both newly configured national platforms and new conceptual
frameworks to help us integrate coherently across these. Critical realism is presented as a
helpful underpinning for such conceptual frameworks, and implications for how universities
prepare educational researchers are flagged.
... Keywords: occupation, apprenticeship, qualification frameworks, modularisation, occupational ideology Introduction The nexus between qualification pathways provided by vocational education (VET) and labour market destinations to which they potentially lead holds a promise of access to work and career possibilities in both economic and social justice terms. Conversely, critiques such as the one by Brown, Lauder and Ashton that the 'neoliberal opportunity bargain fails to deliver on the promise of education, jobs, and rewards' (2011, p. 5), remind us that assumptions of continuity between VET and meaningful paid work often serve to mask the 'gap' between 'global' labour market rhetoric and labour market realities experienced in many countries (Allais & Nathan, 2014;Hodge, 2016). An increase in the provision of lower-level vocational qualifications that ostensibly o er access to job and career pathways are often described as 'dead-ends' that lead many young people in advanced industrialized countries to 'churn' or 'swirl' between education and short-term or casual jobs in an attempt to find educational opportunities that o er real chances of academic progress or of a stable, paid job -often finding neither (Grubb, 2006;Wolf, 2011). ...
Universities have put in place various policies and punishments to manage plagiarism and it is an issue of significant interest. This article looks at how plagiarism is discussed in the 55 Higher Education articles between 1982 and June 2022 that make some reference to the term. Many of the articles focused on a police-catch-punish approach and imbued a strong moral charge to the issue. In contrast to such articles were those that presented citation as a complex academic practice that needs to be engaged with educationally. Our understandings of and responses to plagiarism emerge from a number of causal mechanisms but I argue that a key mechanism is the commodification of knowledge. Where knowledge is a product to be packaged, bought, and sold, then ownership and attribution become more important than engagement and personal meaning making. Instead of our obsession with a police-catch-punish approach to plagiarism, at a more micro-level, we should be inducting students into the many roles citations serve, and at a macro-level, we should be engaging in considerations of the purposes of a higher education and how we might better enable students to enjoy a transformative relationship to knowledge.
The concept of scarce skills features prominently in South Africas national development discourse. Over the past decade, the scarce skills concept has been used to frame debate about the relationship between post-school education and training and the economy. In this article, we compare education policy documents articulating scarce skills perspectives with plans from four occupational sectors and general labour market data and analysis. In our analysis, we identify ideological, theoretical, conceptual and methodological limitations to the scarce skills discourse. Each limitation contributes to a reduced and myopic understanding of the complex and dynamic relationship between post-school education and the economy. We conclude by sharing three arguments which post-school institutions could draw on to respond to the skills discourse.
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