FET college lecturers: the ‘devolving’ link in the South African skills development equation

Abstract

National attention on the role of skills development has focused on the role of Further Education and Training (FET) colleges in providing intermediate‐level education and training necessary to meet the South African national development challenge. In particular, attention has been focused on reorganisation and rationalisation of college structures: through infrastructural development using recapitalisation funds; by curriculum renewal; and by proposing to boost learner enrolment to more than a million learners by 2014. The changes presuppose that college lecturers, as key strategic players, are a well‐motivated and an effective component of the college system ready to take on these challenges. This paper considers that this may not necessarily be the case. Some attention has been paid to them in passing in the South African literature on FET colleges, and a report on ‘staffing challenges’ commissioned by the national department provided important information as to their form and composition. Very little consideration has, however, been paid to the implications of the latest legislation on FET colleges. This paper examines the origins and impacts of these latest policy proposals on college lecturers. It examines the legislation in light of the international evidence and proposes that the latest devolution of employment responsibility to governing bodies, although in line with international trends, is less likely to be a positive development.

Keywords:

• South African education and training
• technical colleges
• Further Education and Training
• technical and vocational education and training
• education policy
• FET policy

Notes

1. Further Education and Training Colleges (FET) colleges are the equivalent of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector. The sector is referred to as Further Education (FE) college sector in the UK.

2. MEC (Member of Executive Council) represents the highest political authority for education at provincial level.

3. Chapter 2.29 (1) of the Constitution states the following with regard to further education: ‘Everyone has a right to … further education, which the state, through reasonable measures must make progressively available and accessible’ (RSA 1996).

4. This post level refers to those staff above the rank of ‘educator’. They may include departmental heads and other personnel holding particular specialised positions based at institutional head offices.

5. NATED refers to the National Technical Education courses offered as part of the official curriculum prescribed by the Department prior to the introduction of the National Curriculum (Vocational) (NCV), first introduced in 2007.

6. This programme, introduced in 2007, is currently delivered at levels 2–4 on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

7. Lecturer specialisation is, of course, reflective of the still‐genderised occupational patterns, with female staff represented in business‐related programmes, and considerably under‐staffed in typically male vocational areas, such as engineering.

8. A leading auditing multinational, KPMG, was tasked to provide extensive guidelines regarding the financial responsibility of college councils.

9. Colleges in the UK responded to devolution under a framework established by the Further and Higher Education Act of 1992. Under this legislation, colleges were granted full legal autonomy as corporations, with responsibility for staff, assets and financial management, with their core funding provided on a formula basis (Simkins 2000).