Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Compiled by the Research Programme on Human Resources Development, Human Sciences Research Council Published by HSRC Press Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa www.hsrcpublishers.ac.za © 2004 Human Sciences Research Council First published 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. ISBN 0 7969 2044 3 Cover by Fuel Production by comPress Distributed in Africa by Blue Weaver Marketing and Distribution, PO Box 30370, Tokai, Cape Town, 1966, South Africa. Tel: +27 +21-701-4477; Fax: +27 +21-701-7302 email: booksales@hsrc.ac.za Distributed worldwide, except Africa, by Independent Publishers Group, 814 North Franklin Street, Chicago, IL 60610, USA. www.ipgbook.com To order, call toll-free: 1-800-888-4741 All other inquiries, Tel: +1 +312-337-0747; Fax: +1 +312-337-5985 email: Frontdesk@ipgbook.com Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Contents LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF ACRONYMS vi INTRODUCTION 1 The shifting understandings of skills in South Africa since industrialisation Simon McGrath CHAPTER ONE 20 Technical and vocational education provision in South Africa from 1920 to 1970 Azeem Badroodien CHAPTER TWO 46 Training policies under late apartheid: the historical imprint of a low skills regime Andre Kraak CHAPTER THREE 71 Agricultural and industrial curricula for South African rural schools: colonial origins and contemporary continuities Andrew Paterson CHAPTER FOUR 98 High skills: the concept and its application to South Africa David N Ashton CHAPTER FIVE 116 The National Skills Development Strategy: a new institutional regime for skills formation in post-apartheid South Africa Andre Kraak Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za CHAPTER SIX 140 Understanding the size of the problem: the National Skills Development Strategy and enterprise training in South Africa Azeem Badroodien CHAPTER SEVEN 158 The state of the South African Further Education and Training college sector Simon McGrath CHAPTER EIGHT 175 A future curriculum mandate for Further Education and Training colleges: recog- nising intermediate knowledge and skill Jeanne Gamble CHAPTER NINE 194 Skills development for enterprise development: a major challenge for ‘joined-up’ policy Simon McGrath CHAPTER TEN 212 Rethinking the high skills thesis in South Africa Andre Kraak CHAPTER ELEVEN 238 Towards economic prosperity and social justice: can South Africa show the way for policy-making on skills? Lorna Unwin REFERENCES 253 vi Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za List of tables Table 1: The number of educational institutions for Africans in 1912 by territory 78 Table 2: Statistics on schools in the Cape Province in 1935 78 Table 3: Employment of African males older than 15 in the labour market 89 Table 4: Distribution of schools offering agricultural science at the SASCE by location inside or outside of the former homelands, 2001 92 Table 5: Measures of progress against key success indicators from the NSDS, 2002/2003 143 Table 6: Distribution of private sector enterprises by enterprise size and employment in 1997 146 Table 7: Aggregate training rates according to five enterprise training surveys 147 Table 8: Percentage levels of training by sector 148 Table 9: Percentage of in-house versus external training per survey 151 Table 10: Summary of findings on enterprise training by occupation, race and gender 152 Table 11: Country sector exports as a percentage of total world exports in 1994 216 Table 12: Adding South Africa to the Brown, Green & Lauder skills formation model 221 vii Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za List of acronyms ABET Adult Basic Education and Training AITB Association of Industry Training Boards ANC African National Congress BDS Business Development Services CEO Chief Executive Officer Certec Certification Council for Technikon Education Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions COTT Central Organisation for Technical Training DNE Department of National Education DoE Department of Education DoL Department of Labour DoM Department of Manpower DST Department of Science and Technology DTI Department of Trade and Industry ECD Early Childhood Development ET Education and Training ETQA Education and Training Quality Assurance FDI Foreign Direct Investment FET Further Education and Training GDP Gross Domestic Product GEAR Growth, Employment and Redistribution GET General Education and Training HET Higher Education and Training HRD Human Resources Development HRDS Human Resource Development Strategy HSRC Human Sciences Research Council ICT Information and Communication Technology IT Information Technology ITB Industry Training Board IQ Intelligence Quotient MTA Manpower Training Act viii Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za NAD Native Affairs Department Naledi National Labour and Economic Development Institute NBI National Business Initiative NMC National Manpower Commission NQF National Qualifications Framework NSA National Skills Authority NSB National Standards Body NSF National Skills Fund NSDS National Skills Development Strategy NTB National Training Board NTS National Training Strategy OECD Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development PRC People’s Republic of China Prisec Private Sector Education Council R&D Research and Development SACE South African Council for Educators Safcert South African Certification Council SASCE South African Senior Certificate Examination SAQA South African Qualification Authority SARS South African Revenue Service SESD Support to Education and Skills Development SETA Sector Education and Training Authority SETO Sector Education and Training Organisation SGB Standards Generating Body SIC Standard Industrial Classification SME Small and Micro Enterprises SML Small, Medium and Large (enterprises) SMME Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises SOC Standard Occupational Classification TEC Transitional Executive Council TTP The Training Partnership UN United Nations UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organisation VET Vocational Education and Training ix Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Free download from www.hsrc p ress.ac.za [...]... www.hsrcpress.ac.za Introduction: The shifting understandings of skills in South Africa since industrialisation Simon McGrath During the Mbeki Presidency, skill has come to be a central theme of government concerns with improving social and economic performance and explaining weaknesses in implementation Whilst not quite reaching the ‘spinned’ simplicity of Blair’s ‘education, education, education’ in Britain, skill... time, were constrained by continuing inequalities in access and in resources The growing abdication of a dominant role in skills development by the state in this period also led to increasing concerns about the attitudes towards training of employers Successive research reports by the HSRC and the National Training Board (NTB) painted a picture of inattention by employers to systematic skills development... accounts of high skill need to be reworked in a South African context Finally, Unwin reflects on the South African experience of trying to address skills development in the last decade from the perspective of international experiences She suggests ways in which these experiences could inform South Africa and how the high skills account needs to be adapted as a result of the South African experience 18 INTRODUCTION... the beginning of industrialisation and the First World War saw the emergence of a set of trends in South African attitudes to skill and its development that were to persist for most of the twentieth century, and which still strongly shape the state of skill in South Africa today First, much of the early industrialisation was based on the craft skills of white immigrants The continuing influx of such... workers’ skills and potentiality for training that, at times, have been at variance with the official position of the state In reading this schematic description of some of the key moments in the development of understandings of skill, therefore, it is essential to guard against simplistic and uncontested notions Before the South African industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century, black involvement... training, are also absent More could have been made of the range of insights from the field of the sociology of work In particular, there is not enough consideration of work places as learning places Given the collaboration in this volume with leading authors in this field (Unwin & Ashton), it is to be hoped that this omission can be addressed in future work Experiences of learning, of work and of. .. for white South Africans became entwined with social policy From as early as the 1890s, there was a strong strand of skills training focusing on the poor, ‘educationally backward’ and the ‘delinquent’ Skill thus became infused with notions of social control and of the value of industriousness over notions of skills being about economic development, a notion that came late to South Africa Third, the... that focus The authors are particularly interested in unpacking the notion of skill as ways of supporting the national project and suggesting how best to deal with the issue of skill in South Africa The nature of this book A set of core questions Although this book is an edited collection reflecting the diverse interests of a group of colleagues around a broad theme of education-work relations, it is 1... of attitudes towards skill; of labour market structures; and of the economy in just over a century of South African industrialisation had, by 1994, resulted in a seriously dysfunctional skills development system Three principal problems faced the incoming state in this area First, skill had been profoundly racialised and gendered; black (especially female) South Africans had been denied access to skills. .. clear that acquisition and retention of skill vary over individuals’ lives, shaped both by their changing capacities but also by external attitudes, practices and policies The shifting understandings of skill over time Clearly understandings of skill have never been monolithic in South Africa Workers, for instance, have inevitably had different views of their own skills and how to use them than employers . www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Contents LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF ACRONYMS vi INTRODUCTION 1 The shifting understandings of skills in South Africa since industrialisation Simon. www.hsrc p ress.ac.za Introduction: The shifting understandings of skills in South Africa since industrialisation Simon McGrath During the Mbeki Presidency,