School-to-work transition and labour market intermediation in a developing context: career guidance and employment services

Abstract

School-to-work transition in a broader sense is seen today as a comprehensive approach to educational program development consisting of an alignment of student goals with educational experiences and services. In a narrower sense it is described as the process where young people move from fulltime schooling activities to postschool activities, including post-secondary education, vocational training, potential employment ? this might take the form of casual work, fixed-term employment, or labour market programmes, and community participation. Labour market intermediation in this regard refers to the process of matching the supply of skills with the demand and involves youths and adults. For the purposes of this paper the question is: what is the role of agents such as career guidance and employment services in facilitating these processes through public policies, and what is the context in a developing country in which these services must be delivered? This paper falls under the theme search and access of the Labour Market Project and investigates the role of career guidance and employment services in the process of transition and intermediation, describes the subject area, scopes the context of a developing country like South Africa in which the services need to be delivered, looks at some policy challenges in this regard, and identifies to some extent the research questions in the field.