DOES AN INTERNSHIP PREPARE STUDENTS TO BECOME EMPLOYABLE? A STUDY OF EMPLOYERS’ EXPERIENCE OF INTERNSHIPS IN SOUTH AFRICA

It is 2009. South Africa has had 15 years of building a new democratic country with equal opportunity for all. Yet newspapers are still full of articles about the critical skills shortage in South Africa.

Universities are criticized for producing unemployable graduates.

Today there are 1000’s of job vacancies in the government and hundreds more in the City administrations of South Africa’s economic engines of Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town alone. Nationally, in hi-tech jobs alone, there were over 30,000 job vacancies listed in September 2008. This despite unemployment levels soaring above 40%.

The TSiBA Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree differentiates itself from other BBA degrees as it offers pockets of credit bearing, experiential learning from its first (foundation) year through to its fourth (final) year. These pockets consist of a 5 working day internship during the foundation year, a 10 day internship in the first year of the degree, a 3 week internship in the second year of the degree, culminating in a final internship of 3 months offered as a core requirement for students wishing to graduate from the programme.

Students are placed for their final internship or Individual Practical Industry Project, with a company that operates in an industry where the student wishes to pursue a career in. Students are required to work full time for the company. In addition, they have to plan, execute and complete a useful project for the company in parallel with conducting thorough macro and micro research on the industry within which the company operates. Practical and interpersonal skills need to be honed. Full credits are obtained upon the successful completion of the fully integrated course consisting of the completion of the working component, the practical project, the industry research report, sitting of a “knowledge exam”, presentation of a Portfolio of Learning covering their personal journey, as well as a presentation of the research and project.

A study is being conducted with companies who have hosted final year students, to determine whether the final internship, the Individual Practical Industry Project has provided these students with the desired employable skills and attributes, required of graduates when they enter the world of work.

Students who have completed the module have in most cases been offered and have accepted employment with the companies, resulting in a 71% placement rate before graduation and 100% after graduation.

Every employer survey noted that the TSiBA graduate exceeded expectations after employment.

We can assert that the Individual Practical Industry Project have provided students with the opportunity to be knowledgeable about their industry of choice and to round off the skills, attributes and traits which employers are looking for when hiring new graduates.