GWF and UJ partner to unlock the potential of rural youth through impactful research

Good Work Foundation and the University of Johannesburg (UJ) have signed a research partnership agreement aimed at improving students’ well-being, educational outcomes and employment prospects in South Africa’s rural areas.

The new memorandum of understanding marks the start of a three-year strategic research collaboration, says Kathy Knott, GWF’s Bridging Year Academy (BYA) programme manager. 

The BYA adult learning academy operates across GWF’s six campuses, equipping school-leavers with digital, entrepreneurship and work-readiness skills. 

The landmark partnership was initiated following discussions with Professor Nicola Taylor from UJ’s Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, located within the university’s College of Business and Economics.

“GWF and UJ have a shared interest in advancing evidence-based innovation in rural skills development, employability and human capital growth,” explains Knott, herself a counselling psychologist. 

“It’s a win-win situation. By combining GWF’s on-the-ground experience in rural communities with UJ’s academic and research excellence, this collaboration will generate high-quality research, track long-term learner outcomes and translate data into insights that strengthen our programmes and inspire investment in our education model,” she says. 

“It will also help us better understand our students’ work-readiness status and track their career progression.”

Prof. Taylor adds, “This mutually beneficial partnership will see GWF incorporating a scientific approach to analysing its student well-being data, aligning with UJ’s strategic goals of research and innovation, global partnerships and social impact. 

“It provides our Industrial Psychology master’s students with work-integrated learning opportunities, such as consulting on real-life organisational issues at GWF’s campuses. UJ will also conduct research into GWF’s dedicated digital skills and work readiness programmes, with the aim of creating real social impact.”

Prof. Taylor emphasises that the real-life immersive fieldwork experience in a rural setting, away from typical corporate examples used in teaching, will be invaluable for UJ postgraduate students. “The exposure will help students understand the impact they can have as professionals outside the urban ‘corporate jungle’ environment, encouraging them to think creatively about adding value to rural communities.”

The partnership has already begun yielding fruit, with a batch of UJ postgraduate students analysing GWF’s before-and-after well-being data to statistically assess its impact on students.

The demand for BYA places is extremely high – about 1 600 applicants for only 350 spots every year. GWF hopes that UJ’s research insights will bolster BYA’s sustainability by showing concrete proof of its impact. 

“Already, our graduates are strongly placed to enter university and employment, or start their own businesses,” says Knott. 

“Armed with the data produced by our UJ partnership, we will be able to show that we’re not just doing good work, but great work – that we are making a difference in our students’ lives. This, in turn, will lead to us scaling our operations, meaning that we can deepen our impact on the communities we serve and widen our reach to other areas.”

The key areas of the GWF-UJ collaboration include co-authored research outputs such as journal articles, case studies and thought leadership pieces.

UJ postgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers will also conduct fieldwork at GWF campuses in Hazyview and Bushbuckridge, track students’ journeys from training into employment and contribute to solving real-world social development challenges.