<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s 50 public technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges are, in the main, struggling institutions. In many, throughput rates \u2013 how many students qualify in the expected time \u2013 are low.<\/p>\n
Some lecturers are under-qualified and under-resourced.<\/p>\n
Relationships with employers, which are crucial for the type of training that these colleges offer, are uneven. Colleges are hard-pressed to provide training to young people with weak schooling behind them and no clear path to employment ahead.<\/p>\n
Over 30 years of democracy, South Africa has done all of these things, repeatedly. It has not worked.<\/p>\n
And now there\u2019s another round of changes being rolled out. There is little clearly documented explanation of what the new system is and how it will work in practice. But colleges have been instructed that most current qualification offerings will be phased out and replaced by new \u2018occupational\u2019 qualifications.<\/p>\n
In 2024 I wrote a paper tracing the history of the technical and vocational training sector, drawing on published literature, my research on skills development and my own involvement in South Africa\u2019s education and training policy processes. The paper sets out why the sector is not working and what it needs to succeed.<\/p>\n
In my view, based on the history of the sector, there is a serious risk that the latest reforms will make things worse.<\/p>\n
Thirty years of the same mistake<\/p>\n
South Africa\u2019s policy vision and funding model for TVET colleges has, like that of many other countries, been to base funding on student enrolment for programmes that are linked to employer demand. It assumes colleges will respond to what employers want, and channel young people into jobs.<\/p>\n
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However, it has a long and largely unsuccessful track record, with problems in many countries \u2013 most extensively documented in Australia and the UK, the originators of the broad policy model.<\/p>\n
The problem is structural.<\/p>\n
Funding institutions only through enrolments in specific programmes provides no institutional stability. It creates no incentive to invest in equipment, lecturers, or long-term relationships with employers.<\/p>\n
It treats colleges as if they were competing as private training providers.<\/p>\n
When the programmes that attract funded enrolments change \u2013 as they do, repeatedly \u2013 colleges are left with stranded staff, obsolete equipment, and no financial buffer. And when new funding is made available, for new programmes, they don\u2019t have lecturers who can teach them.<\/p>\n
Private institutions tend not to offer manufacturing-related programmes \u2013 those are expensive. They focus on business-related programmes, which are cheaper. Consider the National Technical Education Diploma (Nated) qualifications, the government-funded programmes that colleges have provided for decades.<\/p>\n
First, they were to be phased out. Then, when the National Development Plan created TVET enrolment targets, colleges were told to expand them. Colleges have built up staffing around them and enrolled students in them.<\/p>\n
Now, the Department of Higher Education and Training has instructed colleges to phase them out. What replaces them are \u2018occupational qualifications\u2019.<\/p>\n
The occupational qualifications problem<\/p>\n
The department defines an occupation as a set of jobs whose main tasks and duties are characterised by a high degree of similarity (skill specialisation).<\/p>\n
The theory behind occupational qualifications is sound: link qualifications to specific occupations, make workplace experience part of the qualification, and graduates will have credentials that employers recognise and value.<\/p>\n
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The framework has thousands of occupations.<\/p>\n
The problem \u2013 and here is where our new research (not yet published online) is indicating an uncomfortable finding \u2013 is that many of the \u2018occupations\u2019 to which these new qualifications are linked do not really exist in workplaces and labour markets. And there is little publicly available information about them.<\/p>\n
Some \u2018occupations\u2019 have special skills that need special training, and others are really just jobs. For example, in our research across 53 food and beverage manufacturing plants, we found that there are artisan trades like millwrighting, fitting and turning, and electrical work which fit the idea of an occupation. But machine operators don\u2019t fit that description.<\/p>\n
Yet machine operators are among the new qualifications to be offered. The employers we visited don\u2019t need those qualifications. They would rather hire someone they can train themselves, to use the equipment in their plant.<\/p>\n
Training in a \u2018knowledge module\u2019 like \u201cpersonal mastery and interpersonal relationships\u201d is not specific to the \u2018occupation\u2019 of operating a machine.<\/p>\n
You cannot create an occupation by developing a qualification for it. It works the other way: the occupation must exist before you create a qualification for it.<\/p>\n
This is not an abstract concern.<\/p>\n
Colleges are now being instructed to gain accreditation to offer these qualifications, to hire staff to teach them, to find workplace placements for students doing them \u2013 all on the assumption that there is a real occupational destination at the end.<\/p>\n
For artisans, this assumption holds: there are real occupations that translate to opportunities in the workplace. But for the majority of new occupational qualifications being developed, far more analysis is needed.<\/p>\n
What institutions actually need<\/p>\n
Colleges cannot become strong institutions through enrolment-driven funding alone, any more than a school can become strong by being paid per pupil with no base funding for teachers or classrooms.<\/p>\n
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And calling qualifications \u2018occupational\u2019 does not mean that they will lead to work where there is no meaningful occupation in labour markets or workplaces.<\/p>\n
Read: Talent crisis in hospitality: Why we need to rethink skills, not just fill jobs<\/p>\n
Institutions need a stable core \u2013 employed lecturers, maintained equipment, administrative capacity \u2013 that allows them to function as institutions rather than as collections of projects cobbled together from different funding streams.<\/p>\n
Some of them may be better off offering second-chance matric (secondary school leaving certificate) programmes instead of narrowly focused programmes where there are few real opportunities for employment in the surrounding areas, and no way colleges can find work placements for their learners.<\/p>\n
Pockets of genuine excellence exist in the current system: colleges with good employer relationships and real employment outcomes for graduates. What they have in common is principled management, experienced staff, and enough stability to build relationships over time.<\/p>\n
The system should be trying to replicate those conditions.<\/p>\n
In my view, what needs to happen is this:<\/p>\n
Colleges should be funded with a core institutional grant, and enabled to provide a mix of training that reflects their local economic contexts; and
\nOccupational qualifications should be rolled out only where employers need them.<\/p>\n
Otherwise the latest reforms risk repeating the errors of the past 30 years.<\/p>\n
Colleges and young people deserve better than that.<\/p>\n
Stephanie Allais is faculty member at the Centre for Researching Education and Labour, University of the Witwatersrand. <\/p>\n
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.\u00a0<\/p>\n
#reforms #SAs #technical #colleges #failing #students #employers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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