Significant stakeholder engagements in the first half of 2023 sparked numerous project considerations in Universities South Africa’s World of Work Strategy Group (WSG) if the university sector is to improve graduates’ employability in the changing and rapidly digitizing world of work.
With the approval of the USAf Board of Directors now secured for a selection of these focus areas, the WSG has been putting processes in place to roll out the identified projects for sector-wide value creation. Projects approved at the USAf Board’s ordinary sitting in June include:
Initiatives to improve the effectiveness of Work-integrated Learning (WIL)
- Participation in the development of a draft national WIL Policy facilitated by SAQA
The need for a national policy on Work-integrated Learning (WIL) was identified some years ago, primarily as a mechanism to address formal subsidy for this programme and to standardise and give effect to the implementation of WIL across the variety of contexts in which it is applied in South Africa.
The USAf Board endorsed the WSG’s participation in the development of a draft national WIL Policy – a project already run by the Technological Higher Education Network South Africa (THENSA) through the Higher Education Reform Experts South Africa (HERESA) project, with funding from an Erasmus+ grant. SAQA, a member of the HERESA project, is taking the lead in this regard. The Policy draft will include a comprehensive Framework for National WIL Guidelines, which should inspire institutional policies and strategies, and curriculum uniformity.