Master of Ceremony
Honourable Guests
Members of the Press
Ladies and Gentleman
Permit me to begin by thanking the Vice Chancellor of the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Professor Derrick Swartz, for endowing upon me the honour to present the keynote address at this auspicious event - the launch of the Centre for Post-School Education and Training at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU).
It is indeed true that a seamless post-school education and training sector is critical to the education and skills development success of our country. I am further in complete agreement that this sector must at all cost address the education and training needs of the rural and urban poor. NMMU is one of our six comprehensive universities that serve a particular purpose in education and skills provision in our society. As a comprehensive university the institution is in the position to offer qualifications across the entire Higher Education Qualifications Framework, from higher certificates at NQF Level 5 to doctorate degrees at NQF Level 10, from diplomas and degrees to post graduate qualifications.
This university is therefore uniquely positioned to help the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in achieving its key outcome, namely to develop a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path. NMMU’s commitment to achieving this outcome is clear in its mission to offer a diverse range of quality educational opportunities that will make a critical and constructive contribution to regional and national development.
I am convinced that the initiative being launched here today will go a long way in complementing and building upon, in a synergestic faction, the vision, mission, programmes and plans of the DHET.
Conceptualising and contextualising the transition between basic and post-school education
Since 1994, government has embarked on significant measures to transform our education system from a racially segregated, fragmented and unequal system into a non-racial, non-sexist, integrated and quality system. Indeed this has been guided by our commitment to the ideals of the Freedom Charter for the doors of learning to be opened to all.
It is a fact that over the last 18 years of our democracy, as government we have made some significant advances in education. For instance we have done away with the apartheid ethnically and racially based education system, we are closer to the achievement of one of the Millenium Development Goals, that of universal participation in primary education, a significant increase in the matric pass rate, significant growth and positive changes in the racial and gender composition of the university student population, growth of the National Student Aid Scheme now supporting several hundred thousand students in both Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges and Universities, concrete elevation of education and skills development into the centre of our system, to mention but a few. There is also a steady growth, albeit still inadequate, in science, engineering, artisan and teacher education.
The fact that our education system still faces a lot challenges must not blind us to the many achievements made. Thus, for anyone to claim that our education system today is worse than that of apartheid is not only a deliberate distortion, but plain disingenuous, if not outright dishonest. Government has identified and seeking to act on many of these challenges. The very launch of this initiative today is part of a creative response to our department's call and plans for the creation of an expanded, integrated and coherent post school education and training system.
I really want to commend NMMU for this initiative also because it is an appropriate and creative response to the challenges facing our country in our post schooling system. For example we have been insisting that it is time for leaders in the higher education sector to end the habit of only lamenting about the quality of our schooling system, and also begin to ask themselves what they are doing to be part of the solution. For instance our universities have an important role to play in the entirety of our education system.
These institutions train teachers for schools, they must do research into our schooling and post schooling system, and a lot of other things they can do to respond to the schooling and other related challenges. NMMU has done just that, stopped lamenting and established this Centre. That is precisely what we expect of our higher education institutions and their leadership. This is what we mean by a developmental approach to our education challenge.
Since 2008 and, with increasing regularity in recent years and months, there has often been legitimate criticism voiced against the basic education system in our country. The National Senior Certificate (NSC) is increasingly being scrutinised and criticised for not preparing learners for tertiary education and university life. The alternative to the NSC, in the form of the National Certificate Vocational (or NCV), is continuously veered with suspicion, even to the extent that some universities refuse to include the NCV as part and parcel of its entrance admission requirements, including low throughput rates in our FET colleges and universities.
One can imagine the systemic shock to a failing student who, just a few months earlier was celebrating achieving a number of distinctions in his or her grade 12 examination.
Our conception of a post-school education and training constitutes a fundamental rethinking of the transition from school to post school opportunities. It calls for a significant restructuring of our post-school landscape. This will include fundamentally addressing articulation between the schooling and post schooling landscape, as well as between colleges and universities.
It also includes a significant intervention and turnaround strategy to reposition and improve quality, governance and management of our FET colleges. Of equal importance is strengthening the synergies between our FET colleges system with skills levy institutions like Sector Education and Training Authority (SETAs), as well as build a closer relationship between our FET colleges, on the one hand, and employers and communities on the other hand.
In addition we need to mainstream recognition of prior learning and increase distance education initiatives in our post school education and training system. We are indeed very pleased that the NMMU's Centre for Integrated Post-School Education and Training (CIPSET), in your own words, "seeks to proactively respond to national policy imperatives by deepening and expanding collaboration between NMMU ...and other post-school education stakeholders regionally and nationally with the aim of promoting an integrated post-school education sector in South Africa". We also appreciate the seriousness with which the Centre wishes to tackle this task, with the Vice- Chancellor directly taking a leadership role in this initiative.
Some key interventions and plans on FET Colleges and the SETAs
There are a number of interventions we have begun to make in both our FET colleges and the SETAs. We also have other planned interventions aimed at strengthening our Post-School Education System as a whole. These include:
(i) addressing access to universities through the development of a central application service,
(ii) reviewing of foundation phase teaching,
(iii) encouraging enrolments in higher certificates and diplomas,
(iv) including the National Certificate Vocational in admission policies of those universities who have not done so as yet,
(v) developing Recognition of Prior Learning, and
(vi) improving collaboration between FET Colleges.
It is imperative that we address the publicly held misconception that one can only have a successful career if one obtains a university degree. There are far more employment opportunities for graduates with diplomas and certificates as technicians and technical assistants than there often are for graduates with formative three year generic bachelor’s degrees.
Due to the alarmingly high levels of students who do not complete their diplomas or bachelor degrees, comprehensive universities and universities of technology are encouraged to enrol students in higher and advanced certificates. This will aid in addressing our national shortages in technicians and technical assistants, as well as improve tertiary education success rates.
The DHET remains deeply concerned that, with particular emphasis on universities of technology and comprehensive universities, there are still institutions that have not incorporated the National Certificate (Vocational) into their admission policies. Certain institutions even go so far as to tell applicants with an NCV that they do not recognise this qualification at all.
Applicants with NCVs understandably then feel they have wasted three years of their lives. It is completely unacceptable for any university in South Africa not to recognise and include the NCV in their admission policies. We are indeed pleased that NMMU seeks to address this problem as one of the key objectives of CIPSET.
Recognition of prior learning is imperative in our efforts to address past inequalities and build an effective post-school education and training system. I have therefore established a task team to investigate recognition of prior learning and for it to be mainstreamed in our post-school education and training system.
The terms of reference of the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) Task Team further includes investigating the possibility of establishing a National RPL Institute which would centralise and develop RPL practices and policies across the post-school education sector. The Task Team is due to submit its report by the end of May this year.
Collaboration between FET Colleges Universities, SETAs, business and industry remains one of the most prominent focal points of the DHET. The department has developed a number of guidelines for the establishment of collaboration agreements between universities and FET Colleges and there are several successful interactions already in place. It is envisaged that FET colleges will be included in offering of foundation phase programmes of universities and, to this effect, become accessible gateways and articulation routes towards university education.
We are in a process of further strengthening those FET Colleges that are already functioning well, and helping struggling FET colleges to improve their physical infrastructure and programme offerings. The department has obtained the services of financial professionals to act as chief financial officers at our public FET colleges in order to improve management of the huge amount of resources government is allocating to this particular sector. It includes training and development of FET College lecturers as well as developing a complete programme and qualification mix for each college.
We have significantly expanded NSFAS bursaries for FET college students who come fro poor backgrounds, from R318 million in 2010 to more than R3 bn this year. Through this, all FET college students who come fro poor backgrounds and are pursuing the NCV or Nated programmes have now been exempted from paying fees. We are also developing a comprehensive plan to further recapitalise and build new college campuses as part of our goal to reach 1 million students by 2014.
The DHET has also embarked on major transformational initiatives to strengthen the role of the SETAs in post-school education and training. We have streamlined SETA governance structures and are directing the SETAs to increase their support to occupational training programmes (especially the production of artisans and technicians), as well as directing them to work closely with FET colleges. We also want them to prioritise placement of FET college and university of technology students and graduates for learnerships, internships and apprenticeships.
We are also repositioning the National Skills Fund to play a catalytic role in skills development so that it can crowd in other post school institutions as well as employer initiatives. This provides huge opportunities for our public post-school institutions, including colleges and universes to creatively access SETA and NSF funds as part of our skills development efforts.
The establishment of the Centre for Post-School Education at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University is a commendable initiative which fits in with the noted initiatives in place and those planned by the DHET. As a comprehensive University, NMMU is perfectly placed to initiate and drive partnerships between the University, FET Colleges, business, industry, SETAs and the community, that will lead to the development of an integrated post-school landscape. I and my Department will be watching the progress made by (the) CIPSET and NMMU in this regard with great interest as we wholly support the initiative and are eager to learn from it.
We would also urge NMMU to forge partnerships with our historically disadvantages institutions, especially in this province to also build capacity to support our education and skills development initiatives.
I wish the Centre for Post-School Education and Training, its staff and its beneficiaries all success in this endeavour. The University’s commitment to bridging the gaps in articulation between different education sectors is highly commendable and I applaud your initiative in this regard, in particular your efforts in building inter-sector partnerships to develop our youth.
I can assure you that the DHET is prepared to be a partner in supporting and strengthening initiatives such as yours.
I thank you.
