The application of marketing practices for competetiveness in public further education and training colleges in Gauteng

Abstract

It is the desire of every government to widen participation in education. Widening participation refers to increasing access to learning opportunities for success to a wider cross section of the population than presently (Farr, 2003:315-316). South Africa is not an exception, since 1994 the government has worked to transform all facets of the education system (OECD 2008). Marketing is now regarded as an essential set of principles and practices, which are necessary to attract and retain customers. Colleges and other service providers are faced with competitive situations where it is necessary to satisfactorily meet the needs of customers and to have a competitive advantage that will ensure long term survival. The problem statement in the current research is that there is inadequate knowledge on the application of marketing practices for competitiveness in public further education and training (FET} colleges in South Africa. It is necessary to look into the marketing practices that are being used for competitiveness by public FET colleges in Gauteng. In order to carry out this research, a survey was undertaken to describe the current state of affairs in the selected colleges in Gauteng with respect to the marketing practices being used to ensure competitiveness. The survey was conducted making use of a questionnaire, using both open and closed questions. The questionnaires were sent out to the participants and the researcher had a response rate of 44% of the total sample of 250. The questionnaire consists of three parts. Part one seeks to ask for permission to use the participants' responses for research purposes; part two relates to the demographics of the participants and part three comprises questions about marketing practices. Due to limitations of the study, the research has not been able to wholly achieve the research objectives, but in a way it has contributed to the body of research on the application of marketing practices for competitiveness in public FET colleges. The relevant findings about the respondents indicated that they were positive about marketing practices used by their colleges for competitiveness. The literature review and empirical research have also established the following correlations: - The correlation between alignments of offerings and driving down cost is 1, a positive and very strong correlation between two variables. - The correlation between soliciting feedback and improving responsiveness is 0.75, a positive and strong correlation between two variables. - The correlation between employees' compensation and effectiveness is 0.64, a positive correlation between the two variables. - The correlation between soliciting feedback and improving overall performance is 1, a positive and very strong correlation between two variables. - It was also established that age is not the determinant of whether respondents are positive or negative about the impact of marketing practices for competitiveness. Given that the scope of the research is limited and coupled with other limitations associated with the study, certain recommendations for future research were given as follows: - Further surveys could include specific marketing activities that were not included in the current survey that could be a pioneer of competitiveness. - Further research may be conducted to ascertain how institutions define factors and variables that are relating to marketing practices. - Only employees of the colleges were selected in the current study in order to determine the marketing practices used for competitiveness; further research should be conducted to seek feedback, not only from restricted internal stakeholders, i.e. employees, but also from current students and other external stakeholders, such as prospective students, alumni, affiliate colleges and parents, to see if differences will be reported in current practices and to better understand the practices of marketing for competitiveness in these colleges.