Centre for Researching Education and Labour
About the REAL Centre
The REAL Centre is an interdisciplinary research centre based in the School of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. The REAL Centre conducts cutting-edge research on education and work, offers graduate teaching programmes, and provides support to policymakers and regulatory institutions.
The REAL Centre has developed a strong reputation as a leading academic entity, and national and international resource. Our research encompasses South Africa, Africa, and cross-country international studies.
The REAL Centre is unique internationally in its focus on understanding the relationship between education and work as part of the broader ecosystem of a country’s social and economic development trajectory, in the context of the global climate crisis and a changing world of work. There is currently a massive gap in understanding the relationship between skill formation, labour markets, and industrialization trajectories in the developing world in the context of efforts to create a just transition. Solutions from the developed world continue to fail.
We aim to provide insights for policymakers to help solve some of the developing world’s greatest challenges of youth unemployment and the need for a just transition.
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The problem we seek to solve
Africa faces a youth unemployment crisis, with 50% of the world’s youth unemployed, as well as broader economic crises. This crisis is compounded by the existential threats of the climate crisis, a changing world of work, and growing inequality, in a continent in which few people are employed formally. Yet, youth unemployment is typically seen as a problem to be solved through skills and education interventions.
Our cutting-edge research shows that this overly simplified view and the plethora of interventions based on it will continue to fail. We argue that skill formation, including all education, training, and skills development in preparation for work, should not be treated as a standalone system but as part of a country's social and economic institutions, including its industrialisation trajectory, and labour markets, and broader socio-economic and cultural factors.
Key to the common misidentification of the core problems associated with youth unemployment and the transition from education to work is a massive gap in research in the developing world on this complex set of moving parts. Our research shows that policies that treat skills as exogenous to the economy end up producing layers of complex and expensive regulatory institutions, often formulated in the developed world. Further, they are trapped in the analysis of existing jobs and existing labour markets and notions of skills demand. Many institutions have been implemented in the developing world to solve the ‘education problem’ but have created additional sets of problems. We currently do not know enough about the levers of change that will improve skills formation ecosystems for work for the common good. Policymakers in the developing world are making policy in the dark.
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The importance of our work
In the context of these challenges, The REAL Centre conducts comprehensive research to develop in-sights relevant to Africa and the developing world to close this massive gap in an evidence base for policymakers. Our insights are informed by the need to see skills as located within the economy and not separate from the economy.
We combine strong analysis of knowledge, curriculum, and work with analysis of the political economy, political ecology, industrialisation, labour markets, and society, and seek to understand how they relate to each other. Our research has shown that the skills formation system and youth unemployment need to be improved in the context of, and as part of, changes to this entire ecosystem.
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Our research strategy
Our research has made critical gains in understanding skill formation systems and the complex relationships in the ecosystem. There is, however, still important work to expand our research and thus the evidence base that policymakers in the developing world so urgently need. Our focus areas for expansion include:
Skill formation systems for social and economic development and ecological wellbeing
It is well known that no country has successfully developed without industrialisation. However, industrialisation is a contested and uneven process, particularly in the developed world. A further challenge is that developing countries now need to industrialise in the face of the climate crisis, and green industrialisation adds complexity. The nature of industrialisation shapes the way skills are produced, but there is not enough literature on Africa’s industrialisation trajectory from a skills perspective.
We thus seek to understand the following:
• What is taking place in Africa regarding industrialisation, the ways in which industrialization trajectories can create a sustainable and just future, and how skills formation interacts with these trajectories. This includes an analysis of whether or not the education system is changing and meeting the challenges of the urgently required changes in various aspects of society.
• How technology and the environmental crisis are and could be changing work and how can Africa and the developing world can ensure a just transition in the face of these changes.
• How skills planning and education players are embedded into economic planning and development processes.
Learning and work transitioning in difficult times and complex contexts
The knowledge and skills required to access labour markets are developed through a complex mix of formal education, on-the-job training, and simply learning through experience. In the developing world, there is an extreme lack of data on the relationships between education and work.
We seek to build on our work which aims to understand the following:
• How education is affected by labour market inequalities, in particular how educational achievement levels are affected by poverty levels.
• The relationships between disciplinary knowledge, expertise, and on-the-job learning.
• How knowledge develops through work and how ways of knowing can be transferred from one workplace to another.
• What does it mean for formal education systems to prepare people for work in the informal sector?
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Our impact
The REAL Centre is engaged in a wide range of cutting-edge international and local research projects and has developed a strong reputation for practical research grounded in empirical evidence. This has resulted in a high-quality publication record and an international network both in Africa and globally. The REAL Centre has participated in an extensive number of high-level policy processes in postschool and skills development systems, and our work has made, and continues to make, a significant impact on the policy environment, both in South Africa and internationally.
Key highlights of our recent achievements include:
• A strong trajectory in developing young researchers in a key research field
• Our Masters in Education and Work is a global leading programme, strongly rated by national and international reviewers, which has trained young researchers and mid-career policymakers.
• We have a strong cohort of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, with excellent representation from the continent as well as black South Africans.
• An impressive contribution to knowledge, as seen in a publication trajectory including books and important journal articles (available on request) that intervene in key debates and provide leadership and direction in the field.
Key contributions to policy and real-world solutions:
• We supported the Department of Higher Education and Training to develop the national COVID Skills Strategy, to support the Presidency’s Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Programme. This already has made major changes in many aspects of South Africa’s skills system.
• In 2021, on behalf of various South African ministries, we organised the ‘Skills Dialogues’ engagement, resulting in a framework to improve engagement on skills nationally, already being implemented in industrial sectors.
• Our research on qualifications and skill recognition feeds into interventions made by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and is contributing to ongoing learning through a regional community of practice on the recognition of skills and migration.
• Tools developed through our Green Skills research have been adopted by UNESCO-UNEVOC and the South African Department of Environmental Affairs for use in their training programmes.
• Our research into qualifications frameworks and learning outcomes has fed into policy debates and processes around the world.
• Our work on occupations and qualifications has allowed us to develop many policy, electronic and mapping tools which have been adopted by several national organisations in South Africa.
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REAL partner organisations
The organisations that trust The REAL Centre to provide research and insights into some of their most challenging problems and research questions include:
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Contact us
Dr Presha Ramsarup (Director)
Tel: +27 (0)11 717 3074
Email: presha.ramsarup@wits.ac.za
Physical address:
Wits School of Education
Thembalethu building
27 St Andrews Road
Parktown, 2193
Johannesburg, South Africa
Postal address:
Centre for Researching Education and Labour, Wits School of Education (Faculty of Humanities)
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Private Bag X3
Wits 2050, South Africa
www.wits.ac.za/real/
@Wits_REALCentre Wits Real centre
