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Executive Summary
In Vocational and Further Education and Training there is a great variety of learners, providers and learning programmes. It is a ′sector′ that has blurry boundaries and is hard to pin down. Given its focus on vocational training and intermediate-level skills development, V/FET has been high on the agenda in the drive towards more equitable socio-economic development in South Africa. Through the National Qualifications Framework, a South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) with associated National Standards Bodies and Standards Generating Bodies, Education and Training Quality Authorities, Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) and a national Skills Levy, a system has been put in place to achieve redress; to improve access to education, training and employment; to improve the quality of these provisions, and to mobilise the necessary funding. Ironically, however, providers and learners alike struggle to access available sources. There are a number of sticking points in the system. While the SETAs are meant to play an intermediary role between the sector of employment – in this case the environmental sector – and education and training providers, stakeholders on all sides have found it hard to establish effective working relationships with SETAs. Also ironically, measures to introduce equal standards and assure quality, such as accreditation of courses, providers and assessors, seem to be doing little to ensure quality, and could even detract from the quality of teaching and learning. In state FET schools and colleges, recapitalization efforts have not been matched with efforts to build a strong human resource base, and college staff struggle with limited curriculum knowledge and professional capacity; limited management capacity and ability to establish partnerships; limited teaching resources; and limited academic support for students who enter the system inadequately prepared by their earlier schooling. FET colleges are situated throughout the country, although mostly in urban areas, and in the face of high unemployment a renewed drive to increase the number of learners in this system is expected. However, without strong intermediaries, and effective quality assurance, there is not necessarily an uptake of the graduates of these institutions in the workplace. Numerous non-state V/FET providers operate in the environmental sector, providing vocational training for school leavers, unemployed persons and the staff of a variety of environmental agencies including government, which outsource much of their environmental training to such consultants, universities or NGOs. This training has flexibility and can be highly responsive to emerging needs in a dynamic sector. However, there are concerns about uneven quality, and the lack of measures of quality, in the absence of a well-functioning SAQA system.
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↑ https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Eureta_Rosenberg/publication/279952568_TVET_in_SA_Quality_Considerations_for_the_Environmental_Sector/links/559f7c7908ae02b96ae60356/TVET-in-SA-Quality-Considerations-for-the-Environmental-Sector.pdf