Enabling labour market entry for adults through non-formal education and training for employment in South Africa

Abstract

Adult non-formal education and training (NFET) in South Africa was adopted in 1990 to address the problem of unemployment of non-educated and unskilled adults. Public and private NFET centres aim to meet the training needs of adults who were deprived of formal education that would foster access to opportunities for employment. The paper reports on a study conducted to investigate what constitutes NFET enabling environments for employment. The paper focuses on the approach of training delivery fostering labour market entry of graduates. The findings show that individual trainees who participated in private centres had a higher probability of being employed because of the creation of internal enabling environments for skills acquisition and focus on income-generating activities. The authors conclude that an integration of technical skills with business skills and ‘learning by earning’ is a potential training delivery approach enabling graduates to participate in economic activities.

Keywords:

• Adult non-formal education
• training delivery
• enabling environments
• labour market
• South Africa

Notes

1. The term ‘para-formal education’ forms of adult education and training are those programmes in the formal educational systems that are implemented by non-formal means (Hoppers, 2006, 23). These are NFET programmes that operate closely or alongside the formal school system.

2. In this paper, private centre means non-profit training centres managed by non-profit organisations, community-based organisations (CBOs) and church or other faith-based organisations.

3. In the South African formal education system, primary school encompasses Foundation Phase (Grades R-3) and Intermediate Phase (Grades 4–6). The secondary school involves Senior Phase (Grades 7–9) and FET Phase (Grades 10–12).