The aim of this research was to assess the impact of DAC Language Studies Bursaries on the students who received DAC Bursaries during the period 2015 to 2018. The Department of Arts and Culture is responsible for protection, preservations and support of t
The aim of this research was to assess the impact of DAC Language Studies Bursaries on the students who received DAC Bursaries during the period 2015 to 2018. The Department of Arts and Culture is responsible for protection, preservations and support of the South African Arts, culture and heritage. To this end, bursaries were allocated made available to a number of student during the previously mentioned period in order to help the students complete their studies during the period under review. A structured questionnaire was used as a method of data collection. Two methods of data collection were applied, namely, emails and telephonic surveys. No sampling framework was formulated. The idea was to capture all students listed in the database. One hundred and ninety four (194) students were listed and only 94 could be reached and interviewed successfully.
The findings show that a large majority of the recipients were females. The results further show that a large number of the recipients were in their mid-40s at the time of taking up the bursary. The mean age of the respondents is 42 years. A large number of recipients were black compared to other races. More than half of the recipients were registered for higher degrees, namely, Honours and Masters’ Degrees with less than 10% registered for undergraduate degrees. Approximately one-third of the respondents had not yet completed their studies at the time of conducting this research. This is due to a number of reasons, namely, supervisors related problems, insufficient funding, personal reasons including sicknesses. Only three (3) out of 29 students had cancelled their studies.
An overwhelming majority of the students were fully employed and just about 20% indicated that they were unemployed. Ninety three (93%) percent of them are employed in the language sector. Their occupations ranges from being a language teacher to being an interpreter in court. There are various community engagement projects in which the bursary recipients are involved. This is a way in which the respondents are ploughing back to their communities. Some of these activities including voluntary work, reading for the partially sighted, training court interpreters and helping young people to read and write stories in IsiXhosa. Regarding self-employment, none of the students but one, who is self-employing. However, this respondent does not employ any staff in the business. With respect to geographical location of the respondents, there is a noticeable change of locations from either the villages to the townships or from the townships to the suburbs.
Nonetheless there is no strong evidence to suggest that these movements were due to accessing bursaries for their studies. There is also no strong evidence to suggest that the employment of these students is a direct consequence of access to bursary. Notwithstanding, it can be concluded that access to DAC Bursary has provided good opportunities to the students to qualify themselves in Higher Degrees and also to positively affect their communities; a situation which would not have been realised had it not been for the bursary. A much more holistic support programme to students is recommended.
