Comparative study : profile of technikon personnel management diplomate and Western Cape industry requirements

Abstract

The worsening unemployment problem and lack of skilled manpower in South Africa, is not confined only to the lower levels of the organisation hierarchy. Effective managerial skills are in short supply, and training and educational programmes therefore need to be geared to the provision of these skills. This type of training and education is the domain of tertiary educational institutions, such as technikons. It is pertinent then, to consider whether the current syllabi of management educational programmes at the technikons in fact reflect in their content, the skills required by the workplace. This line of thinking may be taken further, in that one must reason that even if the syllahi content are rele";.ant to industry needs, the relevance of the weighting or focus areas in the syllabi content, need to be consistent with the requirements of industry. This study was undertaken to examine the relevance of the skills acquired by diplomates - through the tuition received and experience gained - while studying towards the National Diploma: Personnel Management In order to achieve the goal of the study, a semi-structured questionnaire and interview approach was utilised, to ascertain the human resource management skills needs of a sample of industries in the Western Cape. A comparison of these two sets of data was then made, and the relationship between them established. The comparison was intended to serve as a guide, in order that any syllabi adjustments which might be indicated, could be targeted to meet specific industry needs.