We are an independent, owner managed organization established in 1999 based in Johannesburg but with a national footprint. We specialize in the management of bursary, scholarship, work experience
and internship programmes. Our client base includes corporate organizations as well as
private trusts and foundations.
Our mission is to provide our clients with a range of expert services in recruitment, development and administration. Our objective is to maximize the graduation and employment rates of all our students.
Career Wise Empowerment Ventures (Pty) Ltd is wholly owned by staff who are employed by the business and are directly responsible for the management and operation thereof.
The shareholding profile is currently 80% Black and 15% Black Female.
We are a QSE (Qualifying Small Enterprise)
and hold a Level 2 B-BBEE rating as a
result of our 80% Black shareholding
Our offices are situated in Milpark, Johannesburg but we have a national footprint and
work in all the provinces to recruit new students and visit current bursars. We currently
have a staff complement of 24 consisting of 8 professional staff responsible for client
accounts and student contact, 4 staff who manage all the finances and the remaining
complement consisting of administrative and general support staff. Post the Covid-19
pandemic we have adopted a hybrid working model.
We are a QSE (Qualifying Small Enterprise) and hold a Level 2 B-BBEE rating as a result of our 80% Black shareholding.
• Identifying and maintaining relationships with schools/tertiary institutions on a national basis.
• A complete online applications platform
capable of generating analytics.
• Marketing and Advertising of careers/clients.
• Screening of applications and holding of
preliminary interviews.
• Short listing of candidates according to client criteria.
• Psychometric testing.
• Arrangement of all final interviews.
Monitoring of academic progress
and provision of academic
support (Tutoring)
Collection and interpretation of
results
Student visits at their place of study
Placement of students for vacation
work and practical training
Liaison with university departments
and staff.
• Full bursar profiles (i.e. CV’s) from our Application Tracking System database and supporting file records e.g. ID copy, Proof of Registration, Official Academic Record, etc.
• Collection of results and analysis of academic results.
• Budgets, reconciliations,
variances
• All payments of fees,
allowances etc.
• Contracting (drawing up and signing of contracts etc.
• Enforcement of contractual obligations.
• Bursary Policy formulation;
• Developing guidelines for bursary recruitment and administration;
• Training of Bursary administrators;
• Career Guidance;
• Setting up Systems for bursary administration;
• The overall participation
rate for people in the
20-24 year age group
is 16%. This is well below
international norms even
for developing countries.
However, when this is
broken down by race, the
picture worsens. Whilst
participation rates for the
White population stands
at a very healthy 64%,
the rate for Black youth
is a dismal 11%.
• The overall cohort graduation or throughput rate currently
stands at over 75% but again there is a very uneven distribution
here with the completion rate of Black students only half that
of White students. The reasons for this can be attributed to
the inequalities of the past but are also dueto the continuing
poor results emanating from the secondary school sector.
Other factors contributing to the poor participation and
success rates include lack of financial support, career
guidance and a general lack of support systems. It is
well known that poverty levels have deepened in South
Africa and the effect of this on families, households and
communities exacerbate the situation.
As stated previously, all our work ranging from recruitment to liaison and administrationis aimed at maximizing these participation and graduation rates and whilst it would be expected that students recruited for scholarship and bursary programs are above average in terms of their abilities, most of our students whilst very able, come from disadvantaged backgrounds and would generally be considered ‘high risk’ students. The majority of our students are also registered in scarce skills programmes such as Engineering and Commerce where failure rates are even higher than the average. Within this context we consistently achieve ‘year on year’ pass rates of 80% and overall cohort throughput or graduation rates in excess of 75%.
