Letters from technical college graduates

Abstract

The contents of this postscript are an unintended consequence of the tracer study, representing as they do the unsolicited letters from tracer study respondents addressed to the HSRC. The objective of this account is, through presenting the human face of some of the difficulties facing technical college graduates in South Africa as articulated in these letters, to reassert the challenges confronting the FET college sector outlined in previous chapters, without undermining the achievements of these colleges. The number of survey respondents who submitted letters to the HSRC along with their completed questionnaires attests to the seriousness with which many in the sample took the survey. A total of 70 graduates addressed letters to the project manager, only one of them anonymously. While some of the letters simply express gratitude at the HSRC's concern with the situations of technical college graduates and others express a sense of anticipation at the prospect of their writers' being entered into the draw to win the computer prize, many amplify upon information provided in the quantitative survey. Such amplification warrants separate treatment; hence the analysis of the correspondence presented below.