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It is recommended that further research should be conducted over a period of time in order to establish the benefits of learnership qualifications and to establish whether the learnership experience has had an impact on learners‟

propensity for improved employability and consequent improved living standards. Further research should also focus on administrative deficiencies and limitations.

Research in the following areas with regard to learnership programmes may improve the system:

 Return on investment for employers who implement learnerships.

 A framework for employers to implement learnership applications.

 Benefits for employees on acquiring learnership qualifications, particularly publications where case studies that have documented positive results are reported.

6.11 Conclusion

It is common knowledge to assume that market forces and several other macro issues within the economic and political environment of a society will dictate, to or larger and lesser degree, the demand for labour, as well as the prosperity of the labour force. It is assumed that this situation, in turn, may impact, either positively or negatively, the living standards of the workforce.

The skills development strategy and its consequential learnership programme and process in South Africa have experienced a huge amount of criticism and sceptical reviews. Skills development is and will remain a dynamic and evolving process. Legislative amendments to the Skills Development Act (No. 93 of 1997), which impact on the management, administration and execution of

learnership programmes have, since the completion of this report, been implemented (Department of Labour, NSDS 2006/7) and its authority and responsibility has been shifted to a new ministerial department within government. The official opposition however, within South Africa‟s government constantly calls for the complete „scrapping‟ of the skills development initiative, arguing that it has not yielded any meaningful transformation in the state of skills in South Africa, but has cost the country, and its tax payers billions of rands (SAFM News report 1, Nov 2007).

The dilemma in South Africa with regard to a lack of skilled workers in the labour market and an over supply of under skilled workers stems, to a certain degree, from insufficient or sometimes incorrect labour market statistics. Where policy makers are fully and more accurately informed with regard to labour market demands, specific occupational shortfalls can be identified and prioritised, while partnerships can be established to focus on developing curricula and implementing programmes to combat these deficits.

One of its major challenges remains a need to obtain commitment and to coordinate inputs of all the role players and stakeholders who, by their nature, hold a dichotomy of goals and objectives. Seeking alignment in divergent roles will inevitably cause conflict in a purported free market and could lead to a misunderstanding of responsibilities and be further challenged by political and personal agendas. Therefore, there is a need to continuously obtain information and to conduct research, which will inform policy formulation of challenges and problems, and enable adjustments to legislation and processes, which will evidently evolve into best practice.

Learnership programmes have been implemented as part of a national strategy to overcome the urgent need to skill South Africa‟s poorly equipped workforce.

To this end, learnership programmes have been regarded as an ideal solution as it includes learning programmes for all occupational types and levels, which makes a distinctive effort to include previously disadvantaged learners, giving them a route to an education and training environment.

Education and training programmes, in the form of learnerships, cannot hope to succeed without an efficient and effective structure, which offers clear guidelines in terms of roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders.

Of primary importance to learnership success is an ability of recruiters to match learners‟ potential to learn; learning capacity of individuals; their motivation to learn; and personal interests and characteristics, which will ensure that a proper match is made between the learner and the specific learnership programme. The actual experiences of learners in the classroom and workplace should be well planned and executed. Learners should have full knowledge of the programme that they enter and meaningful orientation and induction should be offered during their initiation into the programme, even before they commit themselves to the contract. If this is not done, poor retention rates of learners will continue. If structured and meaningful recruitment, selection and orientation is not conducted, learners will attend learnership programmes as tokens and no real acquisition of knowledge, skills and experience will be imparted to learners. A real need exists for learners to be fully competent to enter the workplace, as the need for skilled and qualified workers is ever increasing and has become a real demand in the current labour market.

Resources, which could have been applied in more meaningful ways could be redirected into programmes that work. The skills development regime in South Africa should take full cognizance of problems, challenges and success factors in order to build best practice guidelines for vocational training and development. The skills development regime, however, since 2009 have been legislated under a new framework under the decree of the NQF and even though still in transition have established quality councils and will operate under the custodianship of the Department of Higher Education and Training (Isaacs, 2009:2)

Even though South Africa has adapted much of the framework for its dual system of vocational training as part of its human resource development strategy from German, UK and Australian systems, amongst others, the context

in which it operates with regards to its economic situation and its concomitant labour market profile, is too generic an approach to skills development policy which would not be a sensible or prudent option. Karlsson and Berger (2006:53) believe that the developed and largely uniform social conditions prevalent in these industrialised economies should not be imitated and that the model for South Africa warrants much more of a specific tailor made representation for the South African labour market.

In order to improve service delivery of learnership programmes, stakeholders should be held accountable for their contribution to the process. Learners should be recruited into programmes that are meaningful to them as individuals and which are able to enhance their personal skills and interests.

By including opinions and perspectives of learners, learnership success will go a long way towards meeting its strategic imperatives. A body of empirical research should be conducted and assembled in order to build knowledge of vocational skills training and development in South Africa.

Furthermore, the dynamic nature of the global market, coupled with ever increasing changes in technological advancement; continuous transformation of work methods; and demands that constant research should be conducted to explore best methods to skill workers and to equip them with necessary skills, will enable them to meet challenges of this dynamic market.