Description:
The data set consists of information on persons who registered for a learnership qualification and who enrolled in the first year of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) Phase II.
A total number of 6 815 valid surveys were returned. This represents a total return rate of 85.2%.
Abstract:
In 2006 the Department of Labour (DoL) requested that the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) undertake a study that evaluated the effectiveness of learnerships in terms of internal efficiency and the labour market outcomes of learnership participants. Because the brief given to the HSRC by the DoL was very broad and after considerable amounts of desktop research in the fields of effectiveness and efficiency, it was decided that the focus of this HSRC research would be on investigating the extent and ways in which learnerships are equipping the employed to advance through the formal labour market with enhanced skills and capacities, or equipping the young unemployed to find jobs, or create self-employment, or to advance to further education and training. Such empirical research requires a clear focus on the experience of individual participants in learnership programmes, rather than on the programmes themselves or on the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) that host them.
A sample of Learnership participants under National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) Phase II were selected and a telephonic survey was conducted using a Computer Aided Telephonic Interview (CATI) tool developed by the HSRC using Microsoft Access.
Telephone interview
The sampling frame consisted of all learners registered for learnerships across all SETAâs registered within the first financial year (1 April 2005 to 31 March 2006) of the NSDS Phase II.
The aim was to use this sample frame to obtain 8 000 responses, proportionately spread across the 22 SETAs according to the size of each SETA. PSETA provided no information on their learners registered in the NSDS Phase II and was the only SETA excluded from the sampling frame.
Each data record within each SETA database was allocated a random number. Each data set was then sorted in ascending order according to the random number. The call centre operators proceeded by telephoning the learners from the top to the bottom of the list for each SETA separately.
