Partnership and Cooperation of Technical Vocational Education and Training College Internship Programme for Mainstreaming Youth Transition into Employment

Description

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18194807

Notsi P. Y. and Loraine Boitumelo (LB) Mzini (Public Administration, School of Government Studies, Faculty of Humanities, North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa)

This article analyses how partnerships between Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges, Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and employers contribute to effective internship that support the transition of young people into employment, using Ekurhuleni as a case study. A combination of the Theory of Change, the Transactional Partnership Model and the logic model was used to make sense of how inputs, activities and institutional arrangements mediate internship outcomes. A qualitative design was used with nine semi-structured interviews conducted with key informants. A thematic analysis was used to interpret the data. The findings suggest that partnerships are foundational for internships as they provide a structure for the other elements of effective internships and for interns’ placement opportunities. Partnerships also help align curricula with workplace practices, mobilise resources, and support employability. But these benefits are diluted by the absence of formalised frameworks. We located the limitations of partnerships in the context of unproblematised market-led and human-capital approaches to TVET, which often reduce the purpose of education to employability. This has the potential to undermine holistic development and to entrench neoliberal and colonial legacies. To counter this, a capability approach, which advocates for holistic human development, emerges as a better alternative. Using the findings, a six-pillar internship model, with partnership development as a key pillar, was proposed to improve internship effectiveness. The model is aimed at guiding colleges and partners to design effective internship programmes that can support skills development and the social justice agenda in South Africa.