Question 203
Mrs F F Mushwana (ANC) to ask the Minister of Higher Education and Training:
What steps will he take to change the perception of the labour market with regard to the value of a matric certificate and a Further Education and Training (FET) certification for admission to universities?
Reply:
1. The first most critical thing that the department is doing is to collaborate with the employers in the design of the college programmes and curricula so that the design takes into account the needs of the industry and employers. We have already started with this collaboration which culminated in the FET summit. One of the recommendations of the summit is the review of the college programmes by a Ministerial Task Team. We shall therefore ensure that the labour market players are represented in the Task Team.
2. With regard to admission to University, in 2009 I published a policy in the Government Gazette in terms of which, as is the case with Matric, a student who has passed the NC (V) is eligible for University admission into a) Higher Certificate, b) Diploma or c) Degree studies. In order to change the thinking of universities, we are aware that policy on its own is not enough. It is for this reason that we are initiating a project called a Collaboration for Occupational Skills Excellence (COSE) whereby we want to consciously build partnership between universities and colleges in order to (a) build capacity of colleges to produce quality graduates (b) create awareness of college curriculum and its quality assurances processes by universities (c) build communities of trust at both institutional and faculty levels at both the university college.
Source: Department of Education
