THE job market is demanding and most of the time it can be difficult for new graduates to penetrate it. South African graduates, with almost impossible expectations, are faced with the difficult exercise of trying to get employment and the requisite job experience.
This is usual for graduates with common qualifications, and unlike those with scarce skills such as qualified doctors and engineers, their chances of getting employed straight after completing their qualifications are unlikely. TVET colleges couple their higher qualifications with on-the-job practical training which is counted as a job experience of some sort when they look for employment after graduation. Universities do not have this sort of arrangement and this makes it difficult for their graduates to get a job without the experience.
The good work of government in opening opportunities to train unemployed graduates as interns needs to be commended. Recently, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development’s Provincial Shared Service Centre in Gauteng employed 98 assistant agricultural practitioners who will gain work experience as agricultural advisers. This is a national programme and a recruitment drive to recruit more participants, on a national scale, is on the cards.
The training will include equipping candidates with the skills to render agricultural extension and advisory services to subsistence and smallholder farmers who have benefited from the department’s land reform and agricultural programmes.
The aim of the programme is to offer candidates work experience training and a chance to further their studies in order to gain an NQF level 8 qualification, which will qualify them to become agricultural advisers. This programme will go a long way in denting the serious unemployment in the country.
The department wants to recruit more graduates, however, its drive to recruit more participants is hampered by the fact that many graduates who have shown interest to be part in the programme have not registered with authorities like the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professionals.
For agricultural graduates out there, an opportunity to qualify as an agricultural adviser is waiting for you. Get ready – please register with the relevant authorities to qualify as a candidate.
SINAZO ALUNGILE NOVUKELA | Mount Frere
Daily News