Ambitions Revised

Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpress.ac.za First published 2009 ISBN (soft cover) 978-0-7969-2289-2 ISBN (pdf) 978-0-7969-2290-8 ISBN (e-pub) 978-0-7969-2298-4 © 2009 Human Sciences Research Council Copyedited by Laurie Rose-Innes Typeset by Robin Taylor Cover by Fuel Design Printed by Name of printer, Cape Town, South Africa Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Tel: +27 (0) 21 701 4477; Fax: +27 (0) 21 701 7302 www.oneworldbooks.com Distributed in Europe and the United Kingdom by Eurospan Distribution Services (EDS) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7240 0856; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7379 0609 www.eurospanbookstore.com Distributed in North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG) Call toll-free: (800) 888 4741; Fax: +1 (312) 337 5985 www.ipgbook.com contents Tables and figures v Series preface viii Project preface ix Acknowledgements x Acronyms and abbreviations xi Executive summary xii 1 Introduction 1 Organisation of the report 2 2 Review of the literature 3 Student choice behaviour, learner aspirations and learner pathways 3 Teacher recruitment and retention 5 3 The research problem 9 Research questions 9 Research hypotheses 9 4 The research design 13 Questionnaire design 13 Sampling 14 Response rates 15 Data analysis 15 5 Learners’ destinations 19 Present study and work situation 19 6 Students in higher education 23 Students enrolled in a higher education institution 23 Factors affecting student enrolment in a specified higher education institution 27 Programmes in which students are enrolled 32 7 Students in further education and training 45 Students enrolled in an FET college 45 Students enrolled in a private FET institution 46 Factors affecting enrolment in an FET institution 49 8 Learners still at school 51 9 Professional aspiration 53 Factors affecting preference for a specified profession 55 10 Enrolment in education programmes in higher education 59 11 Learners not studying 63 12 Employment 65 Profile of the employed 65 Profile of the unemployed 71 13 Experiences of 2006 77 First-year students’ experiences of 2006 77 All learners’ experiences of 2006 81 14 Interpretation of key findings 83 Translation of aspiration into enrolment 83 The school-to-labour market transition 89 Testing the hypotheses 90 15 Conclusion 93 Assessing the aspirations gap 94 Enhancing teacher recruitment 96 Appendix 101 Grade 12 learner destination questionnaire 101 References 123 tables and figures Tables Table 4.1 Provincial and learner inclusion in the Tracer Study 1 sample frame 14 Table 4.2 Response profile for Tracer Study 1 survey 15 Table 5.1 Study and work status of Learner Destination survey learners, by race group (percentage) 19 Table 5.2 Study destinations of 2006 Grade 12 Learner Destination survey learners in 2006, by race group 20 Table 6.1 Unweighted count of student enrolments in HE institutions in 2006, by province 23 Table 6.2 Unweighted headcount enrolments in public HE institutions in 2006 of students who were in Grade 12 in 2005 25 Table 6.3 Grade 12 Learner Aspiration survey institutional preferences, Tracer Study 1 institutional enrolments, and preference-enrolment matches, in descending order according to preference-enrolment matches 27 Table 6.4 Student perceptions of variables affecting their enrolment in HE institutions in 2006, in descending order of effect 30 Table 6.5 Influence of student perceptions of the reputation of the institution and of their school/faculty/department and of the relative academic standards of their institution amongst students in the Tracer Study 1 response profile, in descending order according to enrolment numbers 31 Table 6.6 Programme area headcount enrolment profile for learners who were in Grade 12 in 2005 and who enrolled in HE institutions in 2006, by gender and race group 34 Table 6.7 Programme area percentage enrolment profile for learners who were in Grade 12 in 2005 and who enrolled in HE institutions in 2006, by gender and race group 34 Table 6.8 Student enrolments per broad fields of study, 2006 35 Table 6.9 Translation of aspiration into enrolment – DoE programme areas 35 Table 6.10 Grade 12 study preference in 2005 and first-year programme enrolment in 2006, by gender 36 Table 6.11 Grade 12 study preference in 2005 and first-year programme enrolment in 2006, by race group 37 Table 6.12 Student perceptions of variables affecting their enrolment in a field of study, in descending order of effect 39 Table 7.1 FET college enrolments, by field of study 45 Table 7.2 Total enrolments in FET colleges, 2000, and first-time-entering enrolments in FET colleges, 2006, by field of study 46 Table 7.3 Tracer Study 1 enrolments in private FET institutions, 2006, by SAQA field and sub-field 46 Table 7.4 Main reason provided by students for enrolling in an FET institution, in descending order of frequency 49 Table 8.1 Main reason provided by learners for enrolling in a school, in descending order of frequency 51 v ... - --nqh--