Abstract:
Non-formal adult education and training (NFET) in South Africa is instrumental in breaking
the high level of poverty and decreasing the social inequality the country continues to face as
a post-apartheid democracy. Public and private NFET centres in South Africa aim to meet the
training needs of adults who have been deprived of formal education with courses which
foster access to opportunities for skills acquisition and employment and bring about social
and economic inclusion. However, many adults who were facing long-term unemployment
due to a lack of marketable skills remain unemployed after completing NFET programmes.
This paper reports on a study which investigated what constitutes favourable conditions
(“internal enabling environments”) for skills acquisition inside NFET centres leading to
employment and how they can be improved to contribute to coordinated efforts of increasing
NFET graduates’ paid and/or self-employment capacities. The authors found that centres
focusing on activities suitable for self-employment during training were more likely to create
internal enabling environments for skills acquisition and income generation than centres
offering courses designed for entering paid employment. The authors conclude that there
appears to be a significant correlation between NFET centres’ training programme objectives,
financial resources, trainee selection criteria, the process of training needs assessment, and
skills acquisition for successful employment outcomes of NFET graduates. Without these
internal enabling factors, adult trainees are likely to continue finding it difficult to integrate
into the labour market or participate in economic activities and hence break the cycle of
poverty and social exclusion.
