National Monograph on Technical and Vocational Training in South Africa

Prepared by Adrienne Bird¹

Foreword

In April 1994 South Africa had its first-ever national democratic election. The political system of apartheid, which preceded democracy, legislatively ascribed different citizenship and employment roles to different race groups. Whites enjoyed wide-ranging privileges and black people suffered severe discrimination and exploitation. For decades South Africa was the most unequal country on earth.

The struggle for and advent of democracy was driven by a widespread commitment to fundamental transformation of the society. And although political alliances have shifted and changed many times since the country's colonisation (stretching back to the mid-1600s) and industrialisation (mining by colonial powers commenced in 1860s and industrialisation intensified in early 1900s), by 1994 there was massive popular support for democratisation - from workers and their trade unions (with a few 'white' exceptions), popular organisations of civil society and even the majority of employer groupings.

The prospect and advent of democracy unleashed unprecedented levels of energy. And in this context, technical and vocational training, like all other areas, was put under scrutiny and fundamentally reconstructed through social dialogue. Indeed since 1994 the entire landscape of training has undergone a revolution. The term "technical and vocational training" does not adequately describe what came after transformation. Before 1994 the apprenticeship system dominated the discourse, and after 1994 an integrated framework for learning has begun to evolve. Today some use terms such as "occupationally-directed learning" and "further education and training" but there are no sharp lines between these and traditional professional training on the one hand and (senior) secondary schooling on the other. Ring-fencing what is relevant for the purposes of this monograph has been somewhat difficult. Nevertheless the traditional notion of technical and vocational education and training has been laid over these new innovations and focus areas and selections made accordingly.

However it has not been possible to follow the Terms of Reference precisely - as to describe the situation as if it were 'steady state' or in a process of 'evolutionary change' is simply not possible in the current climate of 'revolution' in South Africa. What follows has therefore been divided into four broad sections: the first provides a historical context and broad description of the technical and vocational sector as well as the changing South African labour market; the second provides more detail on the provision of education and training; the third describes the transformation agenda driven by various critical pieces of legislation passed to re-frame the sector, together with an indication of the extent to which implementation has begun, and the fourth and final section seeks to capture some of the more interesting projects which are underway to translate policy into a new reality characterised by, as our President has said "a nation at work for a better life for all".

Adrienne Bird
20 May 2001

1. General Overview

1.1 A brief history of training in South Africa

1.1.1 From deep apartheid to 1981

Traditional 'apprenticeships' for farmers, healers, iron moulders, beer brewers, thatchers, storytellers and historians, stone masons, artists, potters and jewellery makers stretch back into history for centuries in South Africa - but much of this knowledge was interrupted with the brutal advent of colonisation, segregation and finally apartheid. And unlike in many other African countries, these rich and diverse traditions were severely crippled by forced removals from land, imposed migrant labour systems and repressive political regimes. Once the colonial powers took over, very limited opportunities for training was provided to black people. The Land Act of 1913 formally limited Africans to 13% of the land. Formal apartheid was instituted in 1948, although extreme forms of racial segregation was the norm long before that date.

In practice Africans were largely excluded from technical and vocational training altogether - in the notorious statement by the man who is widely viewed as the architect of apartheid, Hendrik Verwoerd: Africans were to be "the hewers of wood and the drawers of water".

In the decades preceding 1981, education and training legislation was strictly demarcated along racial lines. The Apprenticeship Act of 1944 and the Training of Artisans Act of 1951 were for whites specifically although 'Coloureds' and 'Asians' were not explicitly excluded. The Black Building Workers Act was for Africans. It was passed in 1951 after the World War - during a period when massive building programme of black housing was undertaken. The latter act "granted to Blacks the opportunity of qualifying as skilled building workers with a view to rendering service to their own communities, but which, inter alia, also prohibited Blacks from undertaking skilled building work in White urban areas"². Then there was the In-service Training Act, 1979 for whites and the Black Employees' In-service Training Act, 1976 - separate acts to regulate the training schemes and private training centres for the different race groups.

But the roots of the craft system stretch back much further than the introduction of formal apartheid in 1948. Immigrant craft workers first introduced the apprenticeship system into South Africa from Britain during the last half of the 1800s. The first apprenticeship contract was signed in South Africa in 1865. They came at the behest of the mining industry to install, maintain and repair the industry's equipment. They brought with them their craft trade unions and associated traditions: branches of the British-based Amalgamated Engineers Union, the Boilermakers' Society and others were formed in South Africa.

Initially the craft unions had controlled the apprenticeship system themselves, but slowly control shifted first to employers then to the state. Employers secured the control by seducing these unions to exchange more and more control of their skill for wage increases and in exchange employers were able to increase the proportion of 'semi-skilled' black workers to lower the overall wage bill. This process accelerated during and after World War II when South Africa, as with many other countries, enjoyed unprecedented growth³. The Apprenticeship Act of 1944 regularised the system and brought it under state control.

1944 was, however, not the first time the state had been involved. The number of craft workers was massively expanded during the first half of the twentieth century when the government sought to address two parallel problems: the first was the 'poor white problem' and the second was the expansion of secondary industry around the mines. The first problem arose when white farmers and their families were displaced from the land during what was known as the Anglo-Boer War at the turn of the century and later by commercial farming, droughts and poor farming practices. They faced poverty and unemployment in the towns in the 1920s and 1930s. The second problem was the need for many more craft workers to work in the newly established parastatal utilities for electricity generation, posts and telecommunications, railways and iron and steel production, which supported the industrial expansion of the day. The government funded a massive craft training initiative to address these two problems and in the process lifted a whole generation of 'poor whites' into the middle class.

The 1944 Apprenticeship Act provided for an industry training committee to request the Minister of Manpower to declare binding conditions of apprenticeship in their industry. And to assist industry, the state established and subsidised the Central Organisation of Trade Testing to oversee all testing in the country. Industries, especially the parastatals, established their own technical colleges to provide the theory component of trade training. These later fell under the control of the National Department of Education. But while learners at these colleges were predominantly apprentices with employment contracts, the system worked well. Employers enjoyed tax benefits when they entered and completed apprenticeship contracts. In 1975 a total of 36,426 people were engaged in apprenticeships⁴.

During the later apartheid years the different racially-based administrations, which 'managed' the affairs of black, Indian and Coloured people, began to establish their 'own' technical colleges i.e. for Africans, Coloureds and people of Asian decent. However, as black people were excluded from the apprenticeship system they were unable to secure employment contracts with firms for their learners. Hence began the trend of more and more predominantly black students being 'private' without apprenticeship employment contracts. Ironically they nevertheless provided the similar 'theory' programmes as were provided to their white counterparts - but without any workplace experience.

Not surprisingly however for most black South Africans system-wide exclusion was the issue - and the struggles of black workers and their communities were AGAINST apartheid in general rather than for access to apprenticeship in particular. In the 1973 these struggles came to a head with massive spontaneous strikes precipitated by falling real wages in the face of the falling gold price, economic stagnation and inflation. This strike wave saw the re-emergence of powerful industrial trade unionisms amongst black workers, which stood in sharp contrast to the craft trade union tradition - it sought to control exit not entry, sought mass membership and used the workplace, not skill, as its basis of organisation.

In 1976, in the cauldron of discontent, tens of thousands of black school students took to the streets to protest against the use of Afrikaans at school and against Bantu Education - in what are now referred to as the Soweto Uprisings.

These social upheavals, compounded by divisions within the Nationalist Party itself and underlying weaknesses in the economy fuelled by decades of tariff protection and inward-industrialisation, rendered the apartheid state insecure. It was forced to take action. It established a number of Commissions of Inquiry to seek a new regime of control. The outcome of which was the introduction of a new set of laws, which sought to de-racialise in areas where it was possible without completely dismantling the apartheid system as a whole. This included the labour market and in certain respects the technical college environment. One of these was the introduction of the Manpower Training Act, 1981 - which for the first time brought all previous training legislation under a single, non-racially defined, act. For the first time Africans could be indentured as apprentices!

Similar discussions took place within the traditionally defined education arena. The De Lange Commission into the state of education reported in 1980. Much of the report focused on the lack of mobility between the formal and non-formal sectors. De Lange maintained that the cause of this was the rigid character of formal education. The report led to the Technical Colleges Act, No. 104 of 1981 which provided for previously advantaged white colleges and previously disadvantaged black colleges to come under a single piece of legislation.

1.1.2 Legislative reform and labour market response, 1981 to 1994

For the first time in South African history the Manpower Training Act of 1981 allowed all South Africans to embark upon apprenticeships and the system was governed by a single act. It also introduced a number of other innovations, many of which were inspired by changes taking place within the British training system:

• The introduction of a National Training Board (NTB) to advise the Minister of Manpower on training issues (replacing the earlier Apprenticeship Board set up under the 1944 Act). The NTB consisted of social partners appointed by the Minister for this purpose. But until 1991 representatives from the democratic movement were excluded and groups such as the 'Blanke Bouwerkers Unie' (White Building Workers Union) were included.
• The introduction of the competency-based modular training system for the apprenticeship system (to replace the earlier 'time-served' model).
• The introduction of a decentralised system of voluntary industry training boards (with optional trade union participation) with the power to manage existing trade training, to nominate new trades for designation and pay grants to employers from their own training levies. At the time that the legislation was eventually repealed in 1998, thirty-three industry training boards had been established.

However, although the legislation provided for the de-racialisation of the apprenticeship system - in practice very few black apprentices were indentured. This was partly as a result of persistent racism amongst employers and craft trade unions (which in some cases cautioned their members not to coach black apprentices or else face expulsion from the union!) and partly as a result of the overall decline of the apprenticeship system. The figures for the period of transition are provided in the table below:

Apprentices registered - 1977 - 1981⁵

¹W = white; C = Coloured; A = Asian; B = Black (African).

1990 was the last year in which racially classified figures were recorded. Of the 9,054 indentured apprentices, 6,709 were white (74%), 871 were coloured (9,6%), 523 were Asian (5,8%) and 951 were African (10,5%)⁶.

Between 1975 and 1991 the number of new apprentice contracts held fairly steady, it only fell from 11,260 to 10,758, and then suddenly to 7,492 in 1992, 6,247 in 1993, down to 5,545 in 1995⁷. In 1999, the number was at 3,129. There are a number of reasons given for this decline:

• The most proximate reason was the withdrawal of "tax concessions on employee training" on 31 July 1990⁸. The reason given at the time was that "the Margo Commission recommended that the tax expenditures still remaining in the tax system should be phased out" and whilst direct subsidies were proposed "to directly stimulate certain types of training... mainly the work categories where shortages of much needed skilled manpower are experienced"⁹ these were never introduced.
• However indirect factors also contributed to the decline. During this period the government owned utilities and producers, which had traditionally trained a large number of apprentices both for their own needs and for those of the market, were under increasing pressure from the state (which in turn was under international pressure) to privatise or 'commercialise' their operations. Iscor, the state-owned iron and steel producer, was privatised in 1989. The following table shows the decline of apprenticeship contracts at one of their key plants and shows how the industry (operating a voluntary levy/grant scheme under the Manpower Training Act) and the company were seeking to respond.
• Militancy by school students led to a desire on the part of the state to diffuse the situation through upgrading black schools. This was expensive. The withdrawal of the tax incentive described above brought much needed revenue.
• Political insecurity. This was a time of massive change in the country - first political and then economic sanctions were applied to force the apartheid state to step down. Employers were unsure about the transition and so held back on entering what were between two-and-a- half to four-year contracts of training.
• Economic restructuring. There was an economic downswing and this was accompanied by structural changes in the demand for skilled labour. In many instances operational staff (black) were expected to undertake routine maintenance themselves with more specialised installation and repair going up the chain to technicians. There was also an overall shift to the services and a decline of the mining and traditional engineering and manufacturing industries in the formal sector of the economy (and the re-emergence of an informal sector).
• Decline of the power of the craft unions in part due to their alliance with the right-wing political forces. This was relative to the massive rise in the power of the black industrial unions. The majority black trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, went into formal alliance with the African National Congress and the South African Communist Party to fight apartheid. Their membership was initially mainly in the semi-skilled categories and apprenticeship training was not a priority area.

Apprenticeship trends at ISCOR, 1988 - 2000¹⁰

There has been a sad consequence to this decline. Just as black people were able to enter the system, the system declined. Kraak¹² summarises the shift in the following way:

Transition in the apprenticeship labour market, 1960s to 1998

1.1.3 Pre-1994 contestation

The apartheid state declared states of emergency in 1985 and 1986. It was clear to the democratic forces that the apartheid state was in crisis, although it was not until about 1987 that it optimism began to take root. In 1988 the National Education Secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, Mr Alec Erwin¹³, announced to his officials¹⁴ that political negotiations had commenced and it was time that trade unionists and democrats began to move beyond opposition and begin preparing new policies. He indicated his intention to establish a number of Research and Development Groups (RDGs). The following year, in 1989, a group of 27 shop stewards and the union's National Training Organiser¹⁵ were appointed as the Training RDG. This group negotiated three months time-off from employers for the union to consider new training policy recommendations. The group met for three weeks in 1989, travelled to different international destinations in 1990 and finalised their recommendations after a final three-week residential period. The group's recommendations were tabled to the union's National Congress in May 1991, and once accepted there, were tabled and approved at the Congress of South African Trade Union's National Congress in July 1991.

The resolution called for a ladder-like framework in which workers could enter at any point and progress upwards in meaningful stages - from 'unskilled' to semi-skilled and skilled levels, and beyond, to para-professional and professional levels. The training ladder was complimented by an adult basic education and training framework to ensure that adults who had been denied a general education as children could still access and climb up the learning framework. This became the central pillar of the trade union movement's push for the integration of education and training in subsequent policy debates with the African National Congress and other social players.

In 1991 the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) was invited by the Minister of Manpower to nominate first one and then two representatives¹⁶ to the National Training Board. The first meeting, which the representative attended, was in August 1991. At the first meeting the representative was asked to endorse a National Training Strategy, which the NTB had previously commissioned. COSATU refused to endorse the strategy, as it was not consistent with the resolution adopted at the COSATU Congress. A year-long battle ensued.

Others had been thinking about these issues too. Following the announcement by President de Klerk in 1990 that apartheid would go, the officials of the National Education Department of the previous regime initiated a process of policy discussion. They invited the employers, through the Private Sector Education Council (PRISEC) to participate. Others associated with the democratic movement were also invited but declined. The initiative culminated in the publication of the Education Renewal Strategy, a document that reflected the tensions between the constituencies involved. A dominant theme of the report was the call for three parallel streams - academic, vocationally oriented and vocational - in the senior secondary phase, mirroring initiatives in Britain at the time.

The employer representatives, influenced in particular by the New Zealand Qualification Framework, advocated a seamless framework. Around this time the employers also established the Joint Education Trust, a R500 million kitty to be governed by a board made up of community, union and employer representatives, as a parallel initiative which aimed to bring the progressive movement and future government into a discussion about the need to bring education and training closer to the needs of the labour market.

Militant student groups formed alliances with university-based democrats and the National Education Policy Initiative (NEPI) was formed. They formed working groups and published eleven focused reports in 1992. This work focused principally on the formal schooling system and did not really address the training system. The union movement was loosely involved in this initiative and contributed to the work on adult basic education and human resources development.

Under the umbrella of the National Training Board, in 1993 in a context where the balance of forces politically had changed completely (Nelson Mandela had been released), the chairperson was replaced and all parties agreed to begin the process of negotiating a new National Training Strategy anew. Eight working groups were established to take the work forward. Representation onto the different working groups was drawn from employer organisations, trade unionists and state officials from the previous departments of Education and Manpower. Providers of education and training were also included. COSATU included in its delegation representatives from the ANC Education Department and sympathetic democrats with whom a formal alliance now existed.

The working groups established were:

1. environment scan;
2. integration of education and training, competencies and career paths, and certification;
3. training of trainers;
4. adult basic education and access to training;
5. incentives and finance;
6. governance;
7. international comparators; and
8. legislation.

The outcome was a consensus report, known as the National Training Strategy Initiative (NTSI), which was finally published in April 1994.

The NTSI vision was:

"A human resources development system in which there is an integrated approach to education and training and which meets the economic and social needs of the country and the development needs of the individual."¹⁷

It was based on twelve principles: integration, relevance, credibility, coherence and flexibility, standards, legitimacy, access, articulation, progression, portability, recognition of prior learning and guidance of learners.¹⁸

• Working group two recommended that a National Qualification Framework be established.
• Working group three recommended that trainers not be seen in isolation from teachers and social development practioners and so coined a new term - Education, training and development practioners (ETD practioners) and defined their roles and functions, [This work was subsequently taken forward by a National Training Board project, funded by the GTZ, entitled "Education, Training and Development Practices Project: An Indigenous model for progression paths, qualifications and standards within the National Qualifications Framework."¹⁹, the outcome of which significantly influenced subsequent developments in the field.]
• Working group four suggested that adult basic education and training be integrated in the proposed national qualification framework.
• Working group five recommended further research was needed to determine an appropriate funding and incentive framework. [On the basis of this recommendation, in 1995, the social partners, under the umbrella of the newly established National Economic, Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC), and funded by a Japanese Grant, commissioned two major studies into the financing of training. The outcome of this work is described in more detail below.]
• Working group six recommended that a single department of education and training be established and that the industry training board system be restructured and expanded into a system of Sector Education and Training Organisations to execute new functions. This recommendation was taken forward in the Skills Development Act. See section 3.]

And the other groups made complementary recommendations.

Whilst the National Training Board work was underway, there were a number of parallel processes of relevance to the evolution of the technical and vocational system. Under the COSATU umbrella, other trade union affiliates participated in a programme similar to that undertaken by the Metalworkers. They called it the Participatory Research Project and workers and trade union officials from across all the other unions participated in it. Ideas were developed and the proposed education and training framework was expanded, particularly in the arena of adult basic education and training, although significant work was also done on the interface between training and grading.

The African National Congress was highly active during this period. And in the education and training policy arena they established the Centre for Education Policy Development (CEPD) and in 1993 set about developing a coherent education policy for what was widely viewed as the government-in-waiting. It too established a number of working groups - including for schooling, higher education and adult basic education and training. The COSATU NTB representative was requested to lead a group which addressed the National Qualification Framework, and not only were the ideas developed within the National Training Board adopted and developed, individual employer members of the NTB were invited to join the working group even though they were not ANC members, such was the level of consensus that had been achieved. This group also included stronger representation from the formal education constituency.

The ANC's Education Department's Policy "Framework for Education and Training" was published in January of 1994, the NTB's NTSI in April and the Centre for Education Policy Development's Implementation Plan for Education and Training was published in May 1994. All three documents unambiguously supported the implementation of a National Qualifications Framework.

Why was there such agreement on the establishment of a National Qualifications Framework²⁰? Workers wanted an integrated framework to secure access to learning which had been denied them. They also wanted their skills recognised beyond their single employer to provide them with greater mobility and prospects for progression. Employers supported it because it ensured that training questions would remain on the agenda (not just general education) and through the focus on outcomes - it was believed that learning could be contextualised to the workplace whilst remaining internationally referenced. It also provided them with a framework within which they could legitimately sub-divide trade skills and hence lower costs. Other ANC policy planners supported the idea because they it provided the means to incrementally upgrade historically disadvantaged learners and institutions to achieve agreed standards and provided a nationally coherent framework for holding diversity. It also provided a home for adult basic education and training - traditionally the 'step-child' of the education system, but vital for overcoming historical exclusion.

Opposition from the craft trade unions (that it would dilute the craft system) was over-ruled by the industrial trade union movement. Their earlier political choices to ally with conservative groupings undermined their influence in the political transition.

The National Qualification Framework is described in detail later in this report.

1.1.4 Policy and legislation: 1994 to 1999

For reasons that are not altogether clear, in spite of a clear policy recommendation to establish a single department of education and training, this did not happen. Two departments, one for Education and one for Labour (incorporating responsibility for the apprenticeship system but not for the public providers of training) were established, and two Ministers were appointed.

The first Minister of Labour, Tito Mboweni, adopted the NTSI Report as policy in his first Five Year Plan of Action, 1994 - 1998.

The Minister of Education first established the National Commission on Higher Education, which reported in 1996, and then appointed the National Committee on Further Education, which reported in August 1997. These two commissions laid the basis for legislation in these two areas.

Jointly the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education, Prof. SME Bengu, established an Inter-Ministerial Working Group (IMWG) to steer the preparation of the legislation for the National Qualification Framework. Membership of the IMWG was drawn from both government departments as well as employer and trade union representatives linked to the NTB initiative, with additional representatives from the teacher trade unions. The South African Qualifications Authority Act was one of the first pieces of legislation passed by the new democratic government - Act number 58 of 1995. It was passed unanimously in parliament - carrying support from all parties.

Listed below are the titles of all of the subsequent education and training legislation passed in the first term of new government.²¹ Together they represent the complete redesign of the entire system. Those given in italics are of particular relevance to what is traditionally known as technical and vocational training - however given the integrated nature of the National Qualification Framework, there are linkages to all. The italicised pieces of legislation will be elaborated in greater detail in subsequent sections.

1.2.1.1 South African Qualifications Authority Act, No.58 of 1995 [Labour and Education]
1.2.1.2 South African Schools Act, No. 84 of 1996 [Education]
1.2.1.3 Higher Education Act, No. 101 of 1997 [Education]
1.2.1.4 Further Education and Training Act, No. 98 of 1998 [Education]
1.2.1.5 Skills Development Act, No. 97 of 1998 [Labour]
1.2.1.6 Skills Development Levies Act, No 9 of 1999 [Labour]
1.2.1.7 Adult Basic Education and Training Act, No 52 of 2000 [Education].

1.2 Technical and vocational training in relation to education and training provision as a whole

1.2.1 Overview

Albeit a little outdated, below is provided an overview of enrolments in the formal education and training system in South Africa, as at 1995. The overview was developed for the National Commission on Higher Education as a backdrop to the development of new policy for higher education:

Total headcount enrolments in education (1995)²²

In order to be able to better understand the current learners in the technical college system, it is necessary to first understand the profile of students who are currently graduating after twelve years from the schooling system. Note that a university exemption is a pass rate which qualifies the graduate to enter the university system. The same entry requirements are not set for the technikons - which are institutions of career-oriented higher education training providing, in the main, diplomas requiring significant periods of placement in the labour market before learners can qualify.

2000 Matriculation enrolments and pass rates²³

Of the 70,127 students who obtained matriculation exemption in 1997, only 43,000 (61%) entered higher education institutions in 1998 as first time entering students in the year immediately after matriculation. There is no data on where the remaining 39% of university-qualifying students in the 1997 cohort went²⁴. Although financial constraints seem to have been the central cause for the poor throughput rate: as one of the interviewees in a recent study amongst young people commented: "If we have money we can go to school and be educated and have a wide variety of job opportunities. But if you don't have money you won't be able to go to school and you won't have job opportunities".²⁵ This is underlined by the fact that only 25% of African males and 14% of African females said that they had gone as far in their education as they would have liked to go.²⁶

In 1999 the universities had a total of 245,000 full-time equivalent (FTEs) learners, the technikons had 141,000 and technical colleges had 122,740 FTEs²⁷. This is referred to as the inverted triangle problem:

Learners (FTEs) at Universities, Technikons and FET colleges

A contributing constraint on throughput from school to further and higher education is the mathematics and science performance of schools. In the same year, 2000, out of 284,017 students who wrote mathematics, 38,520 (13.5%) wrote in Higher Grade and 19 327 (50.1%) of those who wrote in Higher Grade passed in Higher Grade. 245,497 (86.4%) students wrote in Standard Grade and 79,631 (32.4%) passed in Standard Grade. Similarly, only 23,344 (41.9%) out of 55,699 students who wrote in Higher Grade passed Physical Science on Higher Grade and 54,884 (51%) out of 107,486 students who wrote in Standard Grade passed, out of a cohort of 489,941 matriculants in 2000²⁸.

The problem in mathematics and science has not only to do with the numbers who passed on the Higher Grades and who obtained university exemption. In general, mathematical and scientific literacy are extremely poor in the entire schooling system. Two internationally benchmarked assessment exercises have been recently undertaken on learner achievement in mathematics and science in grades 4 and 8. The first, the Monitoring Learner Achievement (MLA) initiative that formed part of the UNESCO Education for All campaign, tested grade four students in a number of African countries against a set of internationally defined numeracy and literacy learning competencies. The average scores for countries participating in the MLA were as follows:

Average literacy and numeracy scores of Grade Four learners, MLA Initiative, 1999²⁹

Looked at from the perspective of young people between the ages of 16 and 34, the above has resulted in the following education profile:

What is the highest level of education you have achieved?³⁰

1.2.2 Enrolments and funding in public technical colleges

In 1998, of the 559,233 students that completed their schooling in 1997, a total of 122,740³¹ full-time equivalent students enrolled at technical colleges in 1998 (21.9%). This needs to be compared to the 5,040³² new apprenticeship contracts entered in 1998 (0.9% of school leavers). Clearly the majority of students were not engaged as apprentices.

The fields in which they were enrolled are³³:

44% of all students are female and 56% are male³⁴.

Profile of students by vocational fields, including gender breakdown³⁵

And in so far as the level of these programmes is concerned, in 1998, "53.4% of the total FTEs enrolled nationally were enrolled in programmes in the FET band (equivalent to years 10, 11 and 12 in the schooling system) and 46% in programmes in the Post N3-level band (beyond year 12 in the schooling system)."³⁶ "In total the Technical Colleges contribute 9% to post-year 12 provision, whilst universities contribute 54%, technikons 30%, colleges of education 5% and other colleges 2%"³⁷.

But, it is important to note that, as Kraak writes "In the period since the statutory de-racialisation of apprenticeships (1981), and more recently with the rapid deracialisation of technical colleges (since 1994) ...ninety percent of students are now black. Most study full-time with no employer sponsorship. Job placement rates after training are estimated to be at an average of about 15%".³⁸

1.2.3 Private College Sector

In 1996 a study was commissioned by the National Training Board into the 'Expenditure on Training in the Private College Sector'. This study, whilst now five years out of date, provides one of the few overviews of private training. The conclusion it reached was that "a total of 187,000 students enrolled in 1995. Adding enrolments in the associated colleges which did not respond (36,000) and a projection of smaller non-associated colleges (18,000), this amounts to an estimated enrolment in 1995 of 241 in training. This is significantly larger than the headcounts at technikons (190,000), technical colleges (112,000), or teacher colleges (81,000)."³⁹ The study found that "almost two thirds of enrolments at private colleges are in commercial courses, whilst only one sixth are in technical courses:

• Commercial courses constitute 62% of enrolment and 64% of expenditure by individuals in private colleges.
• Technical courses, although 16% of enrolment account for only 7.5% of expenditure.
• Of the commercial courses, almost two thirds require Std 10 (matriculation) or above as an entry requirement.
• Technical courses constitute only 16% of all enrolments, with over two thirds of these in the category Std 10 and above.
• Until very recently private colleges were not permitted to offer technical training, and this is one reason for the low enrolment share.
• Teacher education accounts for over 20,000 students in private colleges, over 11% of total enrolment and over 22% of expenditure. (Note: This was 25% of the total enrolment in state colleges of teacher education at the time.)
• Hobbies and Self Development include courses such as African languages and communication skills, as well as flower arranging, photography and various leisure course, such as sailing and navigation. These constitute 10.9% of enrolments and 6.0% of expenditure.

Women constitute 42% of all learners enrolled in private colleges, while Africans are some 45% Of these learners 8.7% were full-time study students, 18.0% were part-time and a massive 73.3% were distance learners. 1.3% of the programmes were shorter than 6 months, 20.1 were between 6 months and a year, and 78.6% were a year or longer. Interestingly the study found that whilst the level of representation of different racial groups was similar to that in the technical colleges, over 90% of the learners in private college training programmes are already in employment - which makes sense when one considers the fees charged - between R200 and R35,000 for a graduate degree programme. The average cost for a one year programme (in 1995 rands) was R1 500.00. The study found that (in 1995 rands) the total private investment by students in these colleges was R334 million, 80% of which is contributed by private individuals.

The environment within which these colleges operate has changed dramatically since the passing of the Further and Higher Education and Training Acts - changes which are discussed later in this monograph.

1.2.4 Apprenticeship system

Much of the history and context of the apprenticeship system is provided in section 1.2 above. Below are provided figures on the number of apprenticeship contracts registered by industry training boards between 1995 and 1999. The total in operation is also provided.

New contracts of apprenticeship registered, 1991 - 1999⁴⁰

¹New Industry Training Board established.

Total contracts of apprenticeship in operation, 1991 - 1999

1.2.5 Upskilling operators

With this decline, the question of who is doing the work arises? It appears that there are two complementary shifts taking place. The first is anecdotal evidence that there has been a significant upskilling of operators taking place. This is an acceleration of a process that has been taking place for almost a century. Large firms - such as large mining operations and continuous process bottling and food processing plants - have for several years been providing significant opportunities for operators to take on maintenance functions. And in certain cases, craft workers have moved from pure maintenance to operation and maintenance. The massive decline in those performing elementary occupations is indirect evidence of this trend.

1.2.6 Higher education technical training (including professional training)

The second trend is the increase in technician level work being undertaken and the increase in technician level training. Standing in contrast to the downward trend at the apprenticeship level, is the increase in enrolments at higher education institutions in more career-oriented programmes.

The Council on Higher Education Annual Report for 1998/1999 notes "the head count total of students following majors in the broad humanities reached a peak in 1995 (329,000) and that these numbers have since fallen by 52,000 (16%) in 1999.

"In contrast, the number and proportion of students specialising in the more career-oriented programmes in business and commerce have risen steadily since 1993. The increase in these majors in 1999 compared in 1993 was 56,000 (62%). The total of majors in science and technology also grew between 1993 and 1999, but at a slower pace than the business / commerce majors.

"One effect of these changes has been that humanities majors in 1999 decined below 50% of the higher education head count total for the first time. The share of enrolments in 1999 is: humanities 49%, business/ commerce 26% and science / technology 25%.

.. Further, the school system's present production of matriculants with the qualifications required for entry into science / technology suggests that any hope of a continued substantial growth in these fields may be misplaced."⁴¹ However, there are shifts within the higher education system which might suggest that this pessimism may be premature. In a recent study Bhorat has noted that the number of graduates in the natural sciences and engineering between 1990 and 1996 for universities and technikons has shifted significantly over the period:

Enrolment Numbers of Natural Science and Engineering Students, 1990-1996⁴²

He notes: "Firstly, it is evident that the growth rates of enrolments in the technikons far outstripped those in the universities. As a first approximation, it could be argued that technikons are adapting more rapidly to the changing labour demand preferences of firms. In turn, this rate of adaptation of technikons is further buttressed by the share of natural science and engineering enrolments in the two sets of institutions. Clearly, tecnikons yield a higher share of these students than universities, with just under a quarter of their students enrolled for these programmes."⁴³

In addition to Bhorat's observations, it appears that there has been a shift away from apprenticeship level training towards tertiary level vocational and technical training. As will be seen in the next section, this mirrors upward shifts in the demand structure of the labour market. This is therefore, a major vindication of the integrated nature of the National Qualification Framework. However it is a moot question whether the rise in higher education vocational and technical training justifies the decline in the intermediate levels. It is a hypothesis that there should be expansion at both levels if significant economic and employment growth and social development is to be achieved.

1.3 Technical and vocational training in relation to the needs of firms and the labour market

1.3.1 Population, employment and unemployment

According the 1996 Population Census⁴⁴, South Africa has a population of 40,583,573 and a demographic profile as follows⁴⁵:

After Brazil, South Africa is the most unequal society on earth, with a Gini co-efficient of 0.60 (Brazil is 0.63).

In February 2000 Statistics South Africa (StatsSA) undertook its first Labour Force Survey (LFS). It subsequently produced a Discussion Paper⁴⁶ to interpret the initial data. The figures from this study are used below, but it should be noted that debate continues about certain definitions used and conclusions reached. However, it provides, for the first time, an overview of the formal and informal economy and hence is useful for the purposes of this monograph.

In South Africa, given the large number of discouraged workers, both official and expanded definitions of unemployment are widely used⁴⁷. Unemployment, by the strict definition, is at 26,7% and by the expanded definition is 35.5%⁴⁸. Below these aggregate figures are broken down by urban and non-urban areas as well as by gender and race. The first table uses the official definition and the second table uses the expanded definition:

Official unemployment rates amongst males and females living in urban and non-urban areas by population group, February 2000⁴⁹

¹Each percentage is a percentage of all people in that particular category
²Number of responses were too few for this analysis

Expanded unemployment rates amongst males and females living in urban and non-urban areas by population group, February 2000⁵⁰

¹Each percentage is a percentage of all people in that particular category
² Number of responses were too few for this analysis

These tables show that unemployment rates are higher in urban, as against non-urban areas, highest among Africans and lowest among whites and it is higher among women than men.

1.3.2 The labour market

The following table shows where people work:

Employment in the Formal and Informal Sectors by Industry, February 2000⁵¹

¹The "total" column includes an extra 87,000 people who did not know whether they worked in the formal or informal sectors.

On the next page is provided a table developed by Bhorat from figures released from the national October Household Surveys released by Statistics South Africa for 1995 and 1999. The table presents total employment shifts in the economy between 1995 and 1999, according to sector and occupation⁵². Note that both formal and informal employment is included in the data.

Bhorat notes that the first, most interesting feature of the data is the aggregated employment performance of the domestic economy. The data shows that over the period 1995 to 1999, employment increased by 1.1 million workers, representing a 12% increase over the 5-year period. However between 1995 and 1999, the number of new entrants increased by about 3.1 million individuals. This has meant therefore that about 2 million individuals - some of whom were first-time entrants into the labour market - have been rendered or have remained jobless since 1995. Indeed jobs would need to have grown nearly three times faster, by 33.4% to maintain unemployment at 1995 levels. Bhorat also notes⁵³ that "Perhaps the most interesting trend in the data is the decline in employment in both community, social and personal services and in the utilities sector, irrespective of whether one uses the growth or the share employment data. Both these are dominated by the public sector. Hence the data reflects a public sector that is in the process of significant restructuring. For example, the community services sector shed over 140 000 jobs between 1995 and 1999. Ultimately then, at the sectoral level, the employment losses that occurred were predominantly in the public sector, with all other sectors, barring agriculture, reporting a rise in employment levels.

Bhorat manipulates the data using the decomposition methodology to show that there have been significant shifts in the demand structure of the economy due both to intra- as well as inter-sectoral factors. His tables for the economy as a whole as well as the economy without the public sector are included below. They show that there is a growth in demand for skilled and highly skilled workers:

Industry-Based Relative Demand Shifts, 1995-1999, by occupation⁵⁴

Industry-Based Relative Demand Shifts, 1995-1999, by occupation, excluding community services⁵⁵

From the perspective of technical and vocational training it is important to note that although there is an increase in demand for traditional craft skills in the private sector, the growth in this demand (0.25) has been significantly slower than that for technicians (4.55) and professionals (7.41). The picture is significantly different if one takes the public sector into account. Here the increase in demand for craft skills is slightly higher (1.90), and there is a net decrease in employment for technicians (-2.47) and professionals (-2.35). Whether this signifies an actual decrease in demand or simply a decrease in employment, is a mute point. Certainly on the one hand there has been significant restructuring in the public sector, resulting in the job losses indicated above. However, there has also been a massive emigration of skilled workers, particularly public sector professionals and para-professionals (nurses and teachers), from the country. In an article published in the South African Sunday Times newspaper, on 25 March 2001, the Central Bureau of Statistics is quoted as saying: "as many as 1.6 million people in skilled, professional and managerial professions have left the country since 1994, and at least one in every five South Africans with a tertiary education now lives abroad. The cost of this mass exodus is believed to be about R2.5-billion a year."

Employment Shifts by Sector and Occupation, 1995 - 1999 (October Household Survey, 1995 and 1999)

1.3.3 Small business (formal and informal)

The Department of Trade and Industry established the Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency under the National Small Business Act of 1996 to provide non-financial services to the small business sector in South Africa. Khula Finance Corporation was established to provide financial services. In 1999 Ntsika published, in partnership with the Department of Trade and Industry, a review entitled "State of Small Business in South Africa 1998".

This review recorded the available data on small business activity in the economy, but acknowledged that the reliability of the data was suspect given that informal sector firms are by their very nature difficult to track. However, for an official overview, the following two tables are provided here, outlining the estimated distribution of private sector businesses by number of enterprises and sized of employment by sector and size-class in 1997:

Estimated distribution of private sector ENTERPRISES by sector and size-class 1997⁵⁶