The impact of the emerging management development programme on the knowledge of learners

Abstract

The South African Management Development Institute (SAMDI) is a Schedule 1 department with the mandate for capacity building in the public service. One of its core programmes is the Integrated Management Development Programme, which consists of the following programmes: <ul><li> Foundation Management Development Programme (FMDP) for first level supervisors;</li> <li>Emerging Management Development Programme (EMDP) for junior managers;</li> <li>Advanced Management Development Programme (AMDP) for middle managers; and the<li> <li>Presidential Strategic Leadership Development Programme (PSLDP) for senior executives.</li></ul> All these programmes have been based on solid training needs analyses, competency frameworks and cutting edge research. However, these programmes will only have an impact on service delivery if it succeeds in transferring knowledge to delegates attending it. This study will focus specifically on the EMDP, and subsequently the research question for this project is: ”Is there an increase in the knowledge of delegates that attended the EMDP?” After the analysis of the statistics it became clear that the null-hypothesis (H0 = there is no increase in the knowledge of delegates that attended the EMDP) should be accepted, as no significant differences between the pre- and post-course results could be found.