Master’s Research Intern – Pretoria

Education and Skills Development (ESD) Research Programme seeks to appoint a Master’s Research Intern on a 24 months contract to be based in the Pretoria office.

The Intern will work on projects in the education domain. Current projects focus on language and literacy development in the early school years and assessing levels and factors related to school achievement.

In addition to working towards the completion of their university degrees, interns are required to participate in all aspects of the research process as they work with staff on research projects.

Successful candidates will develop their research expertise by working with experts and project specialists.

The research intern experience is intensive and seeks mature individuals who are able to work independently as well as in a team.

 

Key responsibilities:

The Research Intern will participate in the following activities under supervision:

• Reviewing research reports and journal articles and other literature;
• The execution and management of research projects;
• The collection and analysis of data;
• Administering relevant interview schedules, questionnaires, observation schedules and other tools for data collection;
• Capturing, coding and analysing data from various data-collection activities; and

• Writing up and preparing reports for publication and disseminating research findings through seminars, workshops, conferences and the media.

Key Requirements:

Applicants should:

• Be registered for a Master’s degree or in the process of registering;
• Be prepared to work as part of multi-year, multi-institutional partnership projects between the HSRC, government departments, universities and other partners;
• Be prepared to travel to undertake fieldwork;
• Be curious and enthusiastic about a research career that includes qualitative and quantitative data analysis;
• Have work experience in the field of school education and training;
• Possess data management / data analysis / statistical skills;
• Have knowledge of and demonstrable working experience in more than one of the following software packages: MS Excel, MS Access, SPSS or Stata;

• Be able to work independently as well as in a team.

The HSRC offers attractive, market-related packages depending on qualifications and experience.

In delivering ‘social science that makes a difference’, the Research Programmes of the Human Sciences Research Council initiate and undertake policy-oriented research projects and programmes from its offices in Cape Town, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria.

Its public-purpose mandate is set out in the Human Sciences Research Council Act of 2008.

Applications

In your application, please include a letter of motivation, your CV, and the names of three contactable referees (with telephone, fax and e-mail contact details), an example of recent academic work (not exceeding 8 000 words); and a one-page outline of your Master’s thesis topic (or the abstract of completed work).

The HSRC will only consider applications that satisfy the above requirements.

Applicants may be required to undertake a written exercise covering competencies required for the position.

Please submit your application to: The Head: Human Resources, HSRC, Private Bag X41, Pretoria, 0001, or hand-deliver it to HSRC Building, 134 Pretorius Street, marked for attention of the Head: HR. OR email [email protected] indicating the job reference number in the subject line.

Closing date: 29 May 2015. We encourage applicants to submit before that date.

Click Here to Apply