Definitions

This report deals specifically with the uneducated or the ill-educated population cohort, (roughly) between the ages of 14 and 24, which is either unemployed or underemployed. The terminology 'disadvantaged youth', refers to young men and women who suffer from the consequences of an unassisted childhood, have had little or no exposure to education and training opportunities and whose weak social and family connections do not facilitate access to formal or informal business networks.

'Training', in this study, acquires the broad meaning of: “any transfer of knowledge, skills or attitudes which is organized to prepare people for productive activities, or to change their working behaviour. Training may therefore concern first-time learners, and people who have worked all their lives (...). It encompasses vocational, technical, managerial, entrepreneurial, societal and other useful skills.” (Fluitman, 1989:p.35).

'Non-formal training' refers to any programme or provision that does not comply with the formal or structured organization usually encountered in formal training institutions and in the formal schooling system. Non-formal training programmes may take many forms, one of them being the flexible non-formal structure of business advisory services (Fluitman, 1989).