Graduate unemployment, higher education access and success, and teacher production in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the context of South Africa's socio-economic challenges, Higher Education (HE) has a key role to play, notjust in terms of producing su cient numbers of graduates and the scarce skills that are required for economicdevelopment and growth, but also in terms of providing opportunities for social mobility and restitution. Thisdissertation examines the extent to which the public HE system ful ls these roles by investigating three topicswithin the nexus between the secondary schooling system, HE, and the labour market in South Africa.Chapter 2 of the dissertation investigates graduate unemployment by focussing on the associations betweenHE institutions and the expected employment and unemployment outcomes for graduates from di erent racegroups. Using a probabilistic approach to link labour force and HE data, the chapter estimates the associationsbetween the probability of having graduated from a particular type of HE institution and the likelihood ofbeing unemployed or employed. The results indicate that graduate unemployment in South Africa is neitherhigh, nor rising rapidly over time and that much of the observed inter-racial variation in graduate unemploymentrates may be explained by di erences in the types of HE institutions that di erent race groups havehistorically been likely to attend.Chapter 3 investigates HE access and success in the Western Cape, with speci c emphasis on the roles thatdemographics, academic performance, and school-level factors play in explaining the extent of, and the differentialsin, HE participation and throughput among matric learners in the province. By explicitly linkinglearner records from matric examination data with student records from HE data, the chapter estimates themarginal contributions and relative importance of various pre-entry correlates and HE-level factors for observedHE outcomes among learners in the Western Cape and illustrates the respective roles that HE accessrate and HE throughput rate di erentials play in explaining observed racial di erentials in HE graduations.Thendings reveal that HE access, throughput, and dropout rates are strongly correlated with matric performanceand that much of the observed racial di erentials in HE access and dropout in theWestern Cape canbe explained by di erences in matric performance levels between race groups. It is argued that the persistentHE completion rate premiums for White students may partly be driven by di erential conditional selectioninto HE.Lastly, Chapter 4 focusses on the production of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) graduates by the public HEsystem between 2004 and 2013 and its implications for teacher supply in South Africa. Using aggregate HigherEducation Management Information System (HEMIS) data, the chapter provides a comprehensive descriptiveanalysis of the trends and underlying correlates ofrst-time enrolments and graduations in ITE programmes.Despite the fact that enrolments and graduations in ITE programmes have risen signi cantly since 2004,thendings suggest that South Africa is currently not producing su cient numbers of teacher graduates.Projections indicate that the system could begin to produce su cient numbers of graduates to satisfy projectedteacher demand within the next decade, conditional on current enrolment growth and programme throughputrates. The chapter concludes that, in order to address South Africa's teacher supply shortfall, greater emphasisis needed on ensuring that ITE students complete their programmes, specialise in high-demand subject areasand phases, and transition into the teaching profession with minimal delay.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University