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This study examines how curriculum relevance and workplace-based mentorship influence apprenticeship outcomes in South Africa’s manufacturing industry, with a focus on persistent skills gaps between training provision and industry requirements. Guided by Objective 1, which seeks to examine the relevance and alignment of apprenticeship curricula with the skills, technologies, and competency demands of the manufacturing sector, and Objective 3, which explores the role of mentorship and workplace-based learning in supporting skills development, employability, and workplace readiness, the study investigates the extent to which current apprenticeship programs reflect contemporary manufacturing practices. A qualitative, multi-case research design was employed, drawing on in-depth interviews with stakeholders from public colleges, private training centres, and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The findings reveal a sustained misalignment between formal apprenticeship curricula and modern manufacturing technologies, including automation, robotics, and advanced production systems, largely resulting from centralised curriculum control and limited institutional autonomy. In contrast, mentorship and workplace learning emerged as critical mechanisms for translating theoretical knowledge into practical competence, strengthening professional identity, and developing both technical and soft skills. However, the effectiveness of mentorship practices varies across institutional contexts, with colleges facing greater structural and policy constraints than SMEs and training centres. The study concludes that bridging skills gaps in South Africa’s manufacturing sector requires an integrated approach that combines responsive curriculum reform with structured, industry-embedded mentorship and authentic workplace learning opportunities, offering practical and theoretical contributions to vocational education and training scholarship.

South Africa is in a competitive global economy, with enterprises, industries, and service sectors demanding world-class academic, technical, and professional skills and competence. To meet these expectations, the secondary school education system must deliver high-quality learning experiences that connect all secondary school students to the real world by building a strong foundation of academic, technical, and work-related skills. This study’s aim is to explore the corporate world's involvement in the advancement of secondary school learners in moulding learners to be assets for a future workforce. In this study, we borrowed the theory of Bourdieu’s (1995) Social Theory to analyse data and to answer our question: To what degree does the corporate world involvement in secondary school benefit learners? We choose the constructivist paradigm in order to use qualitative methodologies to investigate the reality of the participants. Semi-structured interviews and photovoice were employed to collect data for this study. The population sample comprised of two secondary schools from which the researchers sought to acquire learner perspectives’ and to draw conclusions about how much the corporate sector has been able to contribute to the secondary schools to benefit learners. The study discovered that corporate world businesses get involved in various ways such as offering bursaries to learners, motivational workshops, sports kits, and so forth. This type of involvement by the corporate world usually results in improved teaching and learning, workplace experience, and chances for future employability.