The internship policy gap: a case study of uMgungundlovu District Municipality.

Abstract

The focus of this research investigation is to examine the Internship Policy Programme, its implementation and effectiveness in addressing graduate unemployment in the uMgungundlovu District Municipality in particular, and more broadly within South Africa. The literature study began by examining the political and economic transition post 1994, its influence on unemployment of youth within different races, and positioned the relevance of the Internship Policy Programme in a post-apartheid South Africa. The core objective has been to start by examining the current policy context concerning graduate unemployment in the uMgungundlovu District, and within South Africa. Secondly, the study explored the role and purpose of the Internship Policy Programme, which was established to be aimed at addressing the issue of graduate and youth unemployment through providing graduates with practical job experience relevant to the labour market in South Africa as stipulated under the Skill Development Act. This enabled the researcher to identify the success and challenges of the Internship Policy Programme, however, the focus was specifically on the implementation process. This allowed the researcher to focus on other factors influencing the growth of graduate unemployment including race, high education institution, and types ofqualifications. Thirdly, the effectiveness of internship was examined from an international perspective, which allowed the researcher to narrow the study to those issues relevant for understanding the implementation of Internship Policy Programme within the South African perspective. In the international arena, the literature showed that internships are limited in terms of addressing graduate unemployment. The literature study lent emphasises for the idea that skills development initiatives should be supported by Higher education institutions commitment to respond to the labour demand trends. The researcher advanced the study by focusing the investigation to the uMgungundlovu District Municipality. The study adopted a mixed methods approach which included the use of interviews as part of the qualitative component, and self-administered questionnaires as part of the quantitative approach. The findings from the field study from both the interviews and questionnaires were gathered into pre-defined variables. The variables were inserted into IMBS, where the researcher tested the relationship between the variables through a correlation test. Several significant correlations between variable resulted from the test. The correlation test reflected a very strong negative correlation between the age of respondents and gender of respondents. A significant positive correlation between education qualification obtained and the adequateness of the working equipment and relevant support given to the interns and a significant negative correlation between the ethnicity of participants and a direct link between the tertiary qualification of the interns and the task allocated to them in the job place. The main conclusion based from the findings lent emphasis of the “good government” character in implementation of the Internship Policy Programme, considering policy gap dues to a lack of good government characters in several labour policies including the Skills Development Act.