An assessment of the effectiveness of learnership programmes in the South Africa construction industry

The objective of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of learnership programmes in the South African construction industry. This will be achieved by first establishing whether the Learnership System introduced under the Skills Development Act No. 97 of 1998 is an appropriate system for training construction professionals and by investigating the quality of the learnership outcome. The paper is also aimed at investigating the major obstacles faced in delivering effective learnerships in the construction industry. The methodology for the research was solely a literature review. The literature review was based on literature focused on the legislation governing the learnership programmes, stakeholders involved in the delivery of learnership programmes, the outcomes of learnership programmes and major obstacles hindering the effectiveness of learnership programmes. The literature survey revealed that there is a considerable confusion and ignorance amongst training providers. This factor was found to have a negative impact on the delivery of efficient and effective learnership programmes in the construction industry. Further findings also revealed that other factors contributing to the ineffectiveness of construction learnership programmes are poor administration and bureaucracy within the Construction and Education Training Authority, poor outcome of learnerships, dissatisfaction with the system amongst learners and employers for different reasons and technical incompetence amongst trainers. Learnerships in the construction industry have not been effective and efficient in terms of skills development as predicted. This is attributed to many factors such as ignorance and confusion amongst stakeholders, bureaucracy and poor administration within Construction Education and Training Authority, lack of support from various relevant stakeholders and low levels of employer participation in the delivery of learnership programmes