Careers and Career Choices

Term 1

Week 7: Career Applications

• Research and apply for jobs, courses, and funding opportunities based on your interests, strengths, and goals.
• Check entry requirements for degrees, diplomas, and higher certificates.
• Explore funding options like bursaries, student loans, and scholarships.

Week 8: Career Portfolios and Benchmarking

• Develop a career portfolio that showcases your skills, achievements, and qualifications.
• Understand the National Benchmark Tests (NBTs) used by universities to assess readiness.
• Apply to write the NBT if your intended institution requires it.

Week 9: Unemployment and Entrepreneurship

• Unemployment: The inability to find a job despite being qualified and actively looking.
• Impacts include financial strain, low self-esteem, and family/community challenges.
• Strategies to counter unemployment:
  • Volunteering and part-time jobs
  • Community work and informal jobs
  • Entrepreneurship (starting your own business)

Week 10: Entrepreneurship

• Explore opportunities in:
  • Small businesses
  • Social, e-business, innovative, and cultural entrepreneurship
• Understand SARS obligations like tax registration and compliance.

Week 11: Fraud and Corruption

• Fraud: Dishonest acts to gain something of value (e.g. forging documents).
• Corruption: Misusing power or influence for personal gain.
• Embezzlement: Stealing or misusing money that one has been trusted to manage.
• Nepotism: Giving jobs or advantages to relatives or friends unfairly.
• Bribery: Offering or receiving something of value to influence decisions unfairly.
• Examples of corruption:
  • Paying a bribe to pass a driving test without taking it.
  • Hiring a friend who is unqualified because of personal connection.
  • Stealing money from a school budget for personal use.
• Impacts of fraud and corruption:
  • Individuals: Increases service costs and creates inequality and frustration.
  • Companies: Damages reputation, trust, and increases operational risks.
  • Communities: Normalises bribery, makes people feel hopeless, weakens trust in authorities.
  • Nation: Causes poor service delivery, poverty, reduced investment, and economic decline.
• Key terms:
  • Fraud: Dishonest conduct for financial gain
  • Corruption: Misuse of power for personal benefit
  • Embezzlement, nepotism, bribery
• Impacts individuals, companies, and society.
• Prevention: Transparency, ethics training, and reporting mechanisms.

Term 3

Week 3: Job Contracts

• Understand core elements of a job contract, including:
  • Job role, salary, hours, leave, notice period
• Know your worker rights and obligations and conditions of service.

Week 4: Labour Laws

• LRA: Labour Relations Act – ensures fair working relationships
• EEA: Employment Equity Act – promotes equality in the workplace
• BCEA: Basic Conditions of Employment Act – outlines rights like leave, hours, overtime

Week 5: Equity and Trade Unions

• Equity: Treating everyone fairly based on needs and circumstances
• Redress: Correcting past inequalities
• Trade unions protect worker rights and negotiate with employers

Week 6: Work Ethics

• Work ethics: Values like honesty, responsibility, and reliability
• Society expects people to contribute meaningfully and ethically in their careers
• The value of work: Gives people purpose, income, and dignity

Term 4

Week 3: Life Planning and CVs

• Refine your career goals and update your CV
• Apply for employment or bursary opportunities

Week 4: Managing Responses

• Follow up on job and study applications
• Respond professionally to feedback and next steps