Abstracts

58 Current Vocational Education System in South Africa The public Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in South Africa provide education for learners who complete at least school grade 9. There were 50 public TVET colleges with 252 campuses in 2017. The full-time equivalent programs in TVET include two certificates. The National Certificate (Vocational) (NC[V]), with four levels in total, is an alternative vocational learning path for grades 9 to 12. Report 191 National Education programs, also known as National Accredited Technical Diploma (NATED) certificates, have six levels (N1–N6), focusing on engineering fields and business. Of the approximately 314,000 TVET students, 58% are studying in Report 191 programs, with the remaining 42% seeking NC(V) certificates. The TVET colleges emerged from the former technical colleges in 2001. The change was made because the technical colleges were identified as “not effective,” “too small,” and “output quality poor” by the National Development Plan (National Planning Commission, 2012) as well as having weak financial management, teacher ineffectiveness, poor administration and governance, inadequate infrastructure, poor labor market outcomes, and inadequate responsiveness to needs of students (Akoojee, 2012). The Department of Higher Education and Training created the new TVET institutions to make a difference. Despite these restructuring and funding enhancements, the sector still has not demonstrated much improvement in terms of quality, outcomes, program relevance, and governance and administration (Akoojee, 2010). The primary reason for this failure is that the main goals of TVET colleges, as set by the Department of Higher Education and Training, are focused on increasing student numbers and on expansion; thus, quality is not being addressed as a priority—the institutions simply do not have enough time and money to deal with governance, curriculum, teaching/ learning deficits, and resourcing. South Africa has the advantage of having a National Qualifications Framework (NQF) to make the TVET system more transparent. This framework is used to standardize, classify, register, and publicize the national qualifications, including both learning goals Table 1 South Africa National Qualifications Type of Institution Schooling Completed National Certificate Level National Accredited Technical Diploma (NATED) Level National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Level Secondary Grade 9 NC(V) 1 1 Grade 10 NC(V) 2 N1 2 Grade 11 NC(V) 3 N2 3 Grade 12 NC(V) 4 N3 4 Technical colleges 18 months N4–N6 5 3–5 years Trade test 6 University Year 1 Higher certificate N4–N6 5 Year 2 Diploma Diploma 6 Year 3 Degree 7 +1 Year Honors 8 +3–5 Years Master’s 9 +1–2 Years Ph.D. 10 Source: Adapted by Maluleke (2019) from the South African Qualifications Authority.