Chaos or Coherence? Further Education and Training College Governance in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This article frames the lived experiences of management and educators in further education and training (FET) colleges in South Africa, against the backdrop of the radical transformation in the governance of this sector over the past twenty years. The reforms are first described and analysed in terms of their integration and rationale for agency. Second, issues of disjuncture between the internationalized ideal of decentralisation and the emergent, problematic reality of deconcentration and delegation will be explored. Third, data from interviews with principals, council chairpersons and lecturers detail the lived experience of the reform. Governance reforms are perceived as incoherent and lacking a clearly discernible trajectory, and have resulted in highly stressful experiences of alienation, disillusionment and disempowerment by those at 'the chalkface'. As South Africa faces another cycle of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) reforms, this article suggests that policy makers must take into account the capacities of the people in the system to implement the proposed changes.

The Idealisation of Apprenticeship1

“…The NCV curriculum was developed in a matter of months by expert groupings appointed by the department, leaving virtually no time for consultation with industry or the existing teachers, and when the programme was implemented most college-based teachers had received little or no training (Wedekind 2010). While in its basic design it addressed many of the issues of concern and critique that had been levelled at the programmes offered by colleges, it came in for heavy criticism very soon after being implemented.…”

“…Thirdly, while the traditional view of technical education was that it should be aimed at those students who were not able to cope with an academic curriculum and might have aptitudes of a more applied or practical nature, the NCV was designed deliberately in order to raise the status of vocational education and ensure that there was parity with schooling qualifications. This meant that while many of the students were enrolling at colleges in order to avoid difficult school subjects, and were being actively advised to do this by school principals wanting to improve their results, they were then confronted by those same subjects at much the same or even higher levels of complexity (Allais, 2006;Wedekind 2010). Pass rates in the first few years were extremely low, further undermining the credibility of the qualification.…”

Whose fault is failure? Contested perspectives of academic support in tertiary educational institutions in South Africa

“…. from the lowest levels to the PhD, across the academic, occupational and vocational divides’ (Wedekind, 2010: 304). Instead of vocational education being a second-class alternative to academia, the NQF sought to conceptualise vocational institutions as intertwined with institutions of higher education.…”

“…However, within this framework there was persistent confusion as to whether students studying towards vocational qualifications were effectively ‘non-academic’ school children, or aspirant technicians and craftspeople (Wedekind, 2010). Wedekind (2010: 312) has described lecturers interpreting these reforms as lowering their professional status, lamenting that they ‘were now high schools, not colleges’. This is, at least in part, because they believed the student body to be younger than less motivated than before (Wedekind, 2010: 312).…”

“…Wedekind (2010: 312) has described lecturers interpreting these reforms as lowering their professional status, lamenting that they ‘were now high schools, not colleges’. This is, at least in part, because they believed the student body to be younger than less motivated than before (Wedekind, 2010: 312). In sum, despite efforts to increase the status of vocational education, the sector remains mired with the stigma that vocational learners are less mature than their academic counterparts.…”