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Five participants in a 2006 tracer study of Grade 12 learners who were in Matric in 2005 have won notebook computers in a competition to encourage participation in the study. The notebooks will be handed over to the winners at a ceremony in Pretoria at 11:00 on Wednesday, 28 March (venue: HSRC Building, Video-conferencing Room, Library, 1st floor, 134 Pretorius Street, Pretoria).
A computerised random draw of prize-winners spewed out the following winners of notebook computers: Mcondisi Molosha (Mpumalanga), Sibongile Xaba (Free State), Hlayisani Mgiba and Lekoleng Kgohloane (both of Limpopo Province), and Thabang Ramoncha (Gauteng). Another 10 participants in the study have won cellphones and will receive their prizes through the mail. The background to the study is a 2005 survey by the Education, Science and Skills Development (ESSD) research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council, which surveyed a sample of Grade 12 learners in schools across the country to gauge their aspirations for the future. A total of 20 659 learners participated in the 2005 study. Of these, 17 641 provided contact details, allowing the research team to trace them in 2006 to find out where they had ended up a year later and why. In response to the 2006 Grade 12 learner destination tracer study, 4 150 learners – or 23.5% – submitted valid returns. These studies investigate the factors that influence the pathways of students as they progress from school along various pathways – into the labour market (either finding or not finding employment); into economic inactivity; into further learning (either further education and training or higher education); or into a “gap year”, often abroad. An understanding of these factors will assist policy-makers and planners to devise interventions to monitor and, where possible, promote the flow-through of learners into further and higher education institutions and into the labour market in critical- and scarce-skill areas.
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