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Revolutionary new learning programme to add 1% to GDP

Recognising the intimidation experienced by first-time exposure to the workplace, Media Works, the Johannesburg-based accelerated learning programme specialist, has launched a revolutionary range of courses designed to prepare work-seekers for this daunting hurdle.

Dennis Lamberti, a Media Works director, maintains that the courses are a first for South Africa – one that is poised to transform the nation’s labour profile.

“I have no doubt that such transformation would add a minimum of one percentage point to the economy’s growth rate,” Lamberti insists.

The Media Works Work Readiness programme covers three main categories:

• Personal skills;
• Business skills; and
• Career-specific skills.

The subjects are based on NQF Level 1 unit standards and are prepared for delivery to entry level learners. “Significantly and uniquely, the ability to read is not a pre-requisite,” says Lamberti, who maintains that a crucial training gap exists because the government has set training standards way beyond that of which illiterate people are capable.

Explaining the nature of each of the three training modules, he says that the personal skills courses  include time management and  students’ personal finances.

”For most it will be the first time they will be paid a salary. Accordingly, they require the skills needed to manage that salary; to understand all the pitfalls involved in borrowing money, and related issues.”

The business skills course contains subjects like values and ethics in the workplace, the nature of the employer/employee relationship and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

Career-specific skills tackle opportunities in various industries. Lamberti says that for the present, this module is confined to tourism and mining and minerals. “However, we will soon expand our offerings to encompass other career opportunities.”

Presentation of the material is done in groups, assisted by a multimedia PowerPoint programme. Facilitators are also given a comprehensive plan to guide each lesson. The PowerPoint presentations are designed to lead the facilitator and create an environment for discussion.

Lamberti points out that the resultant benefits for the economy – and for millions of South Africans – are potentially immense.

“It is common knowledge that as much as a quarter of our workforce is unemployed. Virtually all the unemployed cannot find jobs because they are without the requisite literacy skills. Our course on “How to become an entrepreneur” is aimed at these people. Imagine the impact of reducing our unemployed from a quarter of the workforce to, say, 10%.

“Consider the additional disposable income that will emanate from a meaningful reduction in nation’s jobless people – not to mention heightened productivity, with entry-level workers freeing up more senior people to contribute more meaningfully to the organisation in which they are employed.”
Lamberti identifies other significant benefits as a feeling of better self-worth and a reduction in crime, given that the current high unemployment situation is a primary reason for South Africa’s pervasive lawlessness.

“Our biggest bottleneck is likely to be a shortage of facilitators, provided the programme is as widely adopted as it should be. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Media Works is accustomed to meeting and solving challenges of similar ilk.”

He points out that the prospective areas of application of the programme are extensive, encompassing as they do:

• Further education colleges, which could apply the Work Readiness programme to supplement the work they are teaching, thereby better preparing young adults for their initial entry into the workplace;
• Secondary schools, universities and technikons; and
• Existing employees in corporations that are large employers.   
• Community projects in the rural areas

The length of the individual courses can vary one day to a week, depending on the course and the extent to which the employer frees up employees to attend the sessions. In effect, the courses are designed to be presented in a day but can be broken up into convenient segments. And they can be tailored to the requirements of individual organisations.

Lamberti emphasises that the courses are all designed as workshops rather than as formal training sessions, thereby making them more stimulating for the participants.
And they can be presented in any of the official languages. The facilitators’ guide books are in English but the facilitators may present the content in the language with which the learners are most familiar.