Saarbruecken (GER), December 2016 - At 26.6% (Q2/2016), unemployment levels in South Africa are extremely high. Youth unemployment in particular is often a supply-side problem because many young South Africans lack the appropriate skills and higher education qualifications, required for a high-skills economy. Many students are leaving the secondary school system underprepared. South Africa still has a post-school education-and-training system that does not offer sufficient places to the many youth and adults seeking education and training. Also, those students entering a college are usually not on the same knowledge level, and therefore many of them struggle to keep up in class.
The overall target of IMC’s project "Cost Effective, Quality, Skills Education for South African Youth" is to increase access to and capacity of higher and further education and training in South Africa. The DEG-funded project has developed diagnostic tests and bridging courses in numeracy and English literacy to increase the admission rate as well as the graduation rate in TVET colleges. It also provides accessible, high-quality online training material at no cost to those who don’t have the opportunity to attend college. The diagnostic-testing component identifies possible knowledge gaps and unlocks suitable bridging courses to target them.
IMC also supports TVET colleges in digitizing their learning material and in the development of their own institutional future technology plans. The project runs until February 2017.
