Assessing the effectiveness of sector education and training authority learnerships in promoting entrepreneurial growth: a case study of AgriSETA, Eastern Cape province, South Africa.

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of AgriSETA-accredited learnerships in developing technical and entrepreneurial capabilities among trainees in the Eastern Cape Province. It further investigated the extent to which these competencies were translated into sustainable post-training employment or enterprise activity. Guided by Institutional Theory, the Resource-Based View, the Functional Theory of Value, and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, the study adopted an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design. A survey of 230 former learners identified patterns in competence development and early post-training outcomes, followed by semi-structured interviews with facilitators, host employers, and AgriSETA officials that explored how competencies were interpreted and applied within real-world agricultural production and training environments. The findings indicate that the learnerships consistently strengthened technical agricultural skills, which emerged as the most stable and reliably achieved outcome. Entrepreneurial and digital competencies were less consistently developed and more difficult for trainees to apply independently. Structural constraints, including limited access to finance, insecure production space, weak market linkages, and the absence of structured post-training support, significantly restricted the transition from competence to sustainable economic participation. These conditions help explain the limited predictive strength of competence variables in the regression analysis. The study contributes theoretically by integrating Institutional Theory, the Resource-Based View, the Functional Theory of Value, and UTAUT to explain how capability, opportunity and support interact within vocational training systems. Methodologically, it demonstrates the value of mixedmethods designs for identifying how structural conditions shape learner trajectories in rural and resource-constrained settings. Empirically, it provides rare, context-specific evidence on the outcomes of agricultural learnerships in the Eastern Cape Province. Practically, it offers recommendations for strengthening curriculum integration, facilitator preparation, institutional coordination, and post-training support mechanisms. A framework is proposed to illustrate how technical competence must align with opportunity structures and ongoing support for skills development programs to yield meaningful and sustained post-training progression.