The emergence of marketing and communications strategy in South African further education and training colleges

Abstract

South African further education and training (FET) colleges have been enjoined to become more responsive to their external environment, in keeping with international trends in public vocational education and training (VET) reform. One mechanism for achieving this goal is to market colleges and communicate more effectively to future students, future employers and the communities in which colleges are located. This article reports on key findings of the first case studies of marketing practices in four colleges, noting very considerable variations in strategies and practices across their marketing functions. Nonetheless, we identify a common tendency to prioritise external over internal and interactive marketing. We argue that the limited understanding by marketing staff and college leaders about the state of the art of marketing practice is the product of the broader challenges of the unfinished college transformation process. We note the inevitability that the new South African colleges will gradually adopt marketing approaches as part of their wider process of evolution, but propose that there are unlikely to be simple solutions to a number of key tensions that are both internal and external to the marketing function.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• Further education and training
• Marketing
• Responsiveness
• Vocational education and training

Notes

For the sake of simplicity and brevity, we are taking VET to be synonymous with those programmes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Education and the nine provincial education departments. This excludes the major VET role of the Department of Labour and the smaller and more narrowly sectorally focused activities of other Departments such as Agriculture and Health. The nature of the Labour system can be explored through special issues of the Journal of Education and Work (18/1) and the Journal of Vocational Education and Training (57/4). We are also well aware that the FET band of the National Qualifications Framework is mainly comprised of secondary schools. However, colleges are subject to their own legislation and are significantly different from schools in their operation. Thus, we will not engage in this article with the growing literature on management of South African schools (e.g. Sayed, 1999; Bush & Heystek, 2003; Anderson & Lumby, 2005—the latter of which begins to develop an account of marketing of South African schooling).

The SESD Programme provided funding and support to 7 of the 50 FET colleges in South Africa. These 7 colleges were selected through agreement between the national and provincial departments of education and Danida.

The three SESD-supported colleges in a further province were excluded from this study, after discussions with the Department of Education and Danida, as the implementation of the new units had been delayed in that province.

These are not the colleges' real names but reflect their areas of location.