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JOHANNESBURG – Don’t feel anxious if you hear someone say, ‘what is the use of getting a degree if you can’t get a job?’ Such talk is damaging and is not based on facts, says Kerry Damons of Boston City Campus & Business College.
“Your future depends on your education as well as on you and your attitude. So be positive and give all you’ve got to your studies, exams, and your job,” she says, “look at the real facts and don’t hesitate to enrol for a degree.”
The real fact, she points out, is that people with degrees find jobs, as the Centre for Development & Enterprise (CDE) revealed in a report released in April this year. The CDE commissioned Professor Servaas van der Berg and Hendrik van Broekhuizen of the Department of Economics of the University of Stellenbosch to analyse the data on graduate unemployment. They found that though South Africa has exceptionally high levels of unemployment, the public perception of the extent of unemployment among graduates is exaggerated. The popular view that the possession of a university degree no longer guarantees success in the job market is simply not true, they wrote in the report. In the face of the data, the myth that graduates in general, and black graduates in particular, are struggling to find work needs to be put to bed. South Africa’s employers are clearly desperate for skills. The data also suggest that the claim that business is reluctant to hire black graduates needs to be re-examined. The CDE report states with certainty that unemployment increases progressively as one goes down the educational scale.
“We at Boston City Campus & Business College firmly believe that a degree continues to be a good study option and leads to employment,” says Damons. “So much so that we launched two new degrees at the beginning of this year in areas of study where we identified a gap, namely the BCom Management Marketing and the BBA in Media Operations.”
As a Unisa licensee Boston City Campus & Business College also offers tuition towards Unisa degrees such as BCom, BBA, LLB, BAdmin and BCompt undergraduate degrees, as well as the postgraduate degrees of Hons BCompt and Hons BA (Psych). If you and/or your child are considering tertiary studies, you can go the Boston campus nearest to you [Voortrekker Road, Alberton, opposite McDonald’s] to get advice regarding degrees as well as other options in further and higher education and training. The college offers career and study advice free of charge as part of the college’s corporate social responsibility. Anyone is welcome to make use of the service; phone a career advisor to make an appointment. Visit www.boston.co.za for more information.
Graduate unemployment in SA: a much-exaggerated problem
Centre for Development & Enterprise DE Insight, April 2013 reported the following key findings:
· The number of degree holders in the labour market grew from 463 000 in 1995 to 1.1 million in 2011.
· Few people with university degrees are unemployed – just under 5 per cent in 2011. Levels of unemployment this low can generally be ascribed to individuals moving between jobs.
· Any post-school qualification increases one’s job prospects: for people with non-degree tertiary education, unemployment is 16 per cent; for matriculants it is 29 per cent; and for those with fewer than 12 years of schooling, 42 per cent.
· Most of the growth in graduate employment has been in the private sector, with the proportion of graduates working in the public sector falling from 50 per cent in 1995 to about 35 per cent in 2011.
· Black graduates account for half of all graduates in the work force, their number tripling from 200 000 in 1995 to 600 000 in 2011.