Contribution of co-operative education in the growing of talent in South Africa : a qualitative phenomenological exploration

Abstract

Organisational talent is internationally regarded a key success factor in a competitive world and is continuously challenged. In South Africa, the Apartheid heritage further presents major challenges regarding developmental opportunities of talented people. Co-operative education presents, as structured educational strategy that progressively integrates academic study with learning through productive work experiences, itself as a means to grow the talent of the South African people. As result of the inadequate practice of co-operative education and a fair amount of associated resistance, ‘classical’ literature is reviewed. The literature review further identifies the core properties of co-operative education and the study has attempted to distil the core principles of a phenomenological research design. The specific ‘phenomena’ which the research focused on are existing joint ventures between Higher Education institutions and business enterprises aimed at educating people and growing talent. Selections of the voices of the research participants are presented in this article. Although the present study identifies several shortcomings regarding the practice of co-operative education, it pioneers the notion that the growing of talent can be enhanced through a co-operative education strategy.