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provinceTable 3.2: Technical college graduates, by population groupTable 3.3: Highest level of education of father/male guardianTable 3.4: Highest level of education of mother/female gua

Learner destinations and labour market environments in South Africa

Technical College Responsiveness

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Learner destinations and labour market environments in South Africa

Edited by Michael Cosser, Simon McGrath, Azeem Badroodien & Botshabelo Maja

Technical College Responsiveness

Compiled by the Research Programme on Human Resources Development,Human Sciences Research Council,

in association with the Joint Education Trust

ISBN 0 7969 2037 0

Cover design by FUEL

Text design by Flame Design

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Chapter 5:

Local labour environments and FET colleges:

provinceTable 3.2: Technical college graduates, by population groupTable 3.3: Highest level of education of father/male guardianTable 3.4: Highest level of education of mother/female guardianTable 3.5: Qualifications achieved by technical college graduates in 1999Table 3.6: Choice of field of study for N2, N3 or NSC, in descending order of

popularityTable 3.7: Choice of field of study, by genderTable 3.8: Reasons for choice of field of study, in descending order of extent of

supportTable 3.9: Sectors in which technical college graduates are employedTable 3.10: Occupations of technical college graduates

Table 3.11: Gross monthly income of employed technical college graduatesTable 3.12: Reasons for study at a technical college, in descending order of popularityTable 3.13: Reasons for choice of particular technical college, in descending order of

popularityTable 3.14: Language of learning at collegeTable 3.15: Quality of provision at technical colleges, in descending orderTable 3.16: College provision of assistance in employment seekingTable 3.17: Types of assistance in finding employment provided by college, in

descending order of occurrenceTable 3.18: Graduate indication of types of assistance in finding employment provided

by college, in descending order of occurrenceTable 3.19: Graduate means of finding employment after college education, in

descending order of occurrenceTable 3.20: Factors helping graduates secure their first job, in descending order of

importanceTable 3.21: Factors graduates indicated helped them secure their first job, in descending

order of importanceTable 3.22: Reasons for graduates accepting work not linked to their college education,

in descending order of assentTable 3.23: Satisfaction with aspects of work situation, in descending order of extentTable 3.24: Satisfaction with aspects of work situation in companies/organisations, in

descending order of extentTable 3.25: Likelihood of graduates making the same study choicesTable 5.1: Student and staff numbers

Table 5.2: The staff composition of the three institutionsTable 5.3: Breakdown of learner headcounts per vocational field for the three

institutionsTable 5.4: Student and staff numbers

Table 5.5: The staff composition of the three institutions

Table 5.6: Breakdown of learner headcounts per vocational field for the three

institutionsTable 5.7: Student and staff numbers

Table 5.8: The staff composition of the four institutions

Table 5.9: Breakdown of learner headcounts per vocational field for the four

institutionsTable 6.1: Nature of correspondence from respondents to the graduate tracer study

Figures

Figure 2.1: The multiple methods for studying technical college responsiveness

Figure 4.1: Percentage of companies and employees by Sector Education and Training

Authority (SETA) Figure 4.2: Employer satisfaction levels with courses taken by college graduates

Figure 7.1: Perceived skills shortages by occupational category

The South African Department of Education has, through the National Business Initiativeand Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) reports on technical colleges and its owninstitutional landscape study, subjected the technical college sector to a series of majorreviews over the past five years Long considered the ‘Cinderella’ of the education andtraining system – particularly in relation to its sister sector, schooling – technical collegeeducation has often been characterised by critics as performing poorly in terms of labourmarket placement of graduates since its historical links to apprenticeship went intodecline in the 1980s

The broader restructuring of education and training in South Africa into three bands –General Education and Training (GET), Further Education and Training (FET), and HigherEducation and Training (HET) – and the formulation of a suite of policies to addressimbalances in the education-work interface in South Africa have focused attention on the role of technical college education in the new dispensation and on the contribution

of colleges to meeting the skills development needs of the country That focus hasresulted, in the first instance, in a new institutional landscape that sees a reduction from

151 colleges to 50 through a set of mergers based on physical location (colleges to bemerged being in the same geographical vicinity) and resource allocation (state- and state-aided colleges, or public and semi-independent colleges, being merged in the process)

It is against this backdrop that the Joint Education Trust (now JET Education Services)commissioned the HSRC in late 2000 to conduct a study on the responsiveness oftechnical colleges to the labour market The project proposal, entitled ‘Investigating

“responsiveness”: Employer satisfaction and graduate destination surveys in the SouthAfrican technical college sector’, made provision for three separate but related studies:

• A tracer study of a cohort of technical college students who had graduated fromcolleges two years prior to the survey (managed by Michael Cosser)

• An employer satisfaction survey of a sample of employers of college graduates(managed by Botshabelo Maja)

• Institutional profiles of a sample of technical colleges (managed by AzeemBadroodien) including a socio-economic profile of the physical locations and locallabour markets of colleges throughout the country (compiled by Gina Weir-Smith).This volume presents the findings of these three studies.1What its contents suggest,through the juxtaposition of the core chapters, is the importance of viewing the issue

of responsiveness through a series of distinct, but related, lenses Thus collegeresponsiveness is gauged through a multiple focus on graduate perceptions, employerperceptions, college perceptions, and local labour environment conditions, with theinevitable overlay of the researchers’ interpretations of their findings within the context ofeducation and training provision in South Africa This methodology, while not taken to itslogical conclusion in this study, provides a useful model for future studies of institutionalresponsiveness As Cosser maintains in his chapter on the graduate destination survey, the bringing together of as many sources of information about institutional responsiveness

as possible is needed if a holistic picture of the sector that can inform its transformation

This volume goes beyond a report on the project itself, however, to place the findings

within the broader context of technical and vocational education and training elsewhere

in Africa and abroad Thus Simon McGrath (part of the Secretariat of the Working Group

for International Cooperation in Skills Development) and Lorna Unwin (Professor of

Vocational Education at the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester)

have each contributed to the volume based on their work in other national contexts

By locating the investigation of technical college responsiveness within the broader

framework of international technical and vocational training initiatives, the volume

demonstrates, within a rapidly globalising economy, the interrelatedness of education and

training systems and the constant need for dialogue amongst them

A chapter is devoted to an analysis, by Michael Cosser, of the unsolicited letters of

graduates addressed to the project manager of the graduate destination survey Going

beyond statistics, the letters personalise the predicaments facing many technical college

graduates as they enter the labour market Finally, Simon McGrath draws together some

of the key agreements and disagreements of the separate analyses to show the

multi-faceted implications of the study for policy, practice and research

This volume will, I believe, make a valuable contribution to the restructuring of technical

college education in South Africa as the new FET Colleges take their rightful place as the

primary developers of high-quality technical and vocational skills at the intermediate

level

Dr Andre Kraak

Executive Director, Research Programme on Human Resources Development,

Human Sciences Research Council

This monograph represents the collective endeavours of a number of persons both within andoutside of the Research Programme on Human Resources Development (HRD) at the HumanSciences Research Council (HSRC) From the Research Programme, I should like to thank:

• Dr Simon McGrath for methodology synthesis; book conceptualisation; chapters on thecontext of the project and implications of its findings; quality assurance and editing

• Dr Andre Kraak for project conceptualisation; research and instrument design;quality assurance

• Dr Azeem Badroodien for interview schedule design, fieldwork and co-ordination ofinstitutional and provincial employer profiles, synthesis of institutional profile reportsand institutional profile report writing

• Botshabelo Maja for design and management of the employer satisfaction survey andthe chapter on the employer satisfaction component

• Jacques du Toit for questionnaire design, piloting, printing and packaging; forsampling; monitoring and managing of call centre consultants; for monitoring andmanaging of the postal survey; for calculation of response rates; managing of datacapturing; database construction and preparation, and data analysis; fieldwork andco-ordination of institutional and provincial employer profiles; and for writing up themethodology for the institutional profile component

• Mateselane Tshukudu for project administration

• Mariette Visser for sampling and college database management

• Dr Tom Magau for instrument design and questionnaire tallying

• Mmamajoro Shilubane for instrument design and questionnaire tallying

From outside the HSRC, I should like to thank:

• Anthony Gewer, JET Education Services, for helping to conceptualise the project anddesign the questionnaire, and for critically reading component reports

• Prof Lorna Unwin, University of Leicester, for participating in the fellowshipprogramme on technical college education, presenting a keynote address at theHSRC conference on the project, critically reading component reports, and writing achapter for this book

• Dr Nick Taylor, Director, Jet Education Services, for assisting with projectconceptualisation and critically reading the final manuscript

• The Joint Education Trust, for its generous co-funding of the project

• Members of the Further Education and Training Branch of the Department ofEducation – especially Themba Ndhlovu and Steve Mommen – for assisting withproject conceptualisation

• The Examinations Office of the Department of Education, for providing us with datafor the sampling process

• The Association of Further Education and Training Institutions of South Africa(AFETISA) – especially Molly Venter and Raymond Preiss – for facilitating access totechnical colleges

• Coltech – especially Japie Roos – for data retrieval

• The technical colleges nationwide that provided us with student records

• The 3 105 respondents to the graduate tracer survey

Michael CosserProject Manager

CEO Chief Executive Officer

CoVEs Centres of Vocational Excellence

DET Department of Education and Training

DoE Department of Education

EMIS Education Management Information Systems

FE Further education

FET Further education and training

FTE Full-time equivalent

ETQA Education and Training Quality Assurance body

GET General education and training

GIS Geographical Information Systems

HE Higher education

HET Higher education and training

HSRC Human Sciences Research Council

ILO International Labour Organisation

JET Joint Education Trust

LEAs Local Education Authorities

LFS Labour Force Survey

M-TEC Michigan Technical Education Center

NBI National Business Initiative

NCVER National Centre for Vocational Education Research

NGOs Non-governmental organisations

NIC National Intermediate Certificate

NQF National Qualifications Framework

NSC National Senior Certificate

NTB National Training Board

OHS October Household Survey

SETAs Sector Education and Training Authorities

SIC Standard Industrial Classification

SMMEs Small, medium and micro-enterprises

SOC Standard Occupation Classification

Stats SA Statistics South AfricaTAFE Technical and Further Education

colleges, communities and

‘stakeholders’

L o r n a U n w i n

Colleges must develop the capacity to offer greater support to learners, innovativepartnerships with business, industry and communities and an even more

responsive and flexible curriculum Failure to address these imperatives will result

in colleges remaining mere aggregations of what existed before (Asmal 2002: 7)

Introduction

Throughout the world, different countries are trying to create closer synergies between

the needs and purposes of their education and training systems, their local and regional

labour markets, and their national economies This is largely a result of an international

consensus which, though contested, argues that people and organisations need to

embrace new skills and knowledge at regular periods in order to meet the challenges

of a much more dynamic and unstable economic climate (see, inter alia, Ashton & Green

1996; Brown, Green & Lauder 2001; Field 2000; Nieuwenhuis & Nijhof 2001) In addition,

more and more workplaces, including those where manual skills are still dominant,

require their employees to use their cognitive and so-called ‘key skills’ in order to engage

in decision-making, problem-solving, and teamwork Such developments ask important

questions of national education systems in terms of curriculum content, teaching and

learning processes, assessment and qualification structures, and the expertise of

educational professionals At the centre of most national systems sit institutions which

provide vocational education beyond compulsory schooling with a particular emphasis on

intermediate level skills These are pivotal organisations which, to a greater or lesser

extent depending on the national context, straddle the worlds of education, work and the

wider community In the United Kingdom (UK), just as in South Africa, policy-makers

want their further education providers to be more ‘responsive’ to the demands of a range

of stakeholders including individual learners, employers, local communities, and the

national economy Hence, providers in England are now seeking to become Centres of

Vocational Excellence (CoVEs), the case for which, according to the government, is as

follows:

… if we are to meet the competitive challenge and overcome the productivity gapthat still divides us from our major competitors, we must have a Further Educationsector which is flexible and responsive, works effectively with employers and issharply focused on meeting their skills needs We need colleges that are fastmoving, first to respond to change and that can give both adults and youngpeople access to the enhanced vocational learning they need to succeed in amodern economy (Harwood 2001)

Here we see the shared language of international policy-making, familiar in both the UK

and South African contexts: ‘flexible and responsive’; ‘respond to change’; ‘competitive

challenge’ In this chapter, I want to question some of the assumptions behind the

demand that colleges become more responsive and discuss some of the implications

I also want to argue that despite the considerable differences between national contexts,

the issues raised in this book transcend national boundaries and are of concern to

policy-makers, educational professionals and researchers throughout the world The chapter

concentrates on how these issues affect those institutions usually called ‘colleges of

further education’ which are located in the public sector It is important to note, however,that in some countries private sector providers can also access public funding to deliverprogrammes and services to learners and, hence, act in competition with the public sectorcolleges The impact of this private sector provision upon the public sector institutionswill be discussed in the chapter

The chapter is divided into four sections The first examines the role and purpose offurther education in different countries and provides evidence from the UK and Australiawhere colleges have been required to become more responsive The second sectionexamines the implications of responsiveness for the staff who work in colleges and fortheir ‘clients’ The third section addresses issues related to the state’s approach to thecontrol and management of the further education sector, and the fourth section offerssome concluding remarks

The role and purpose of the further education sector

The further education sector differs from country to country in terms of its size andmission, for example:

• In Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands, colleges (referred to in thosecountries as ‘vocational schools’) are similar to those in South Africa in servicinglargely young full-time students

• In the UK, colleges are filled with full- and part-time students ranging from the age

of 14 to well past retirement age

• In the United States (US), ‘community’ colleges play a major role in providing access

In many countries, notably in the Middle and Far East, the further education sector hasbeen underdeveloped until relatively recently but the global emphasis on lifelong learningand a concern to make provision for young people in danger of being socially excludedhas drawn attention to the inadequacy of concentrating educational resources oncompulsory schooling and higher education Finding the most appropriate and realisticmix of provision for the further education sector is a challenge for national governments.The choices include using the sector to:

• Improve the basic education of young people and adults who have struggled at

school

• Focus on vocational education and skills training at intermediate level

• Be comprehensive by providing a wide-ranging curriculum from foundation and

remedial to sub-degree level which bridges the vocational/non-vocational divide

• Provide short, ‘just in time’ courses for business and industry

• Prepare adults without the required qualifications for entry to higher education

• Provide specialist courses for people with learning difficulties and/or physical

disabilities

• Be socially inclusive and so widen participation in education and training

Despite their differences, further education institutions across the world share the fact that

they provide for people in some form of transition, with varying educational goals and

varied educational experiences and levels of attainment Writing from their perspective as

senior managers in one of the UK’s largest further education colleges, Gravatt and Silver

(2000: 115) argue:

Colleges are the adaptive layer in the education system Shock waves from theworlds of work, politics or the family often rebound off school walls or ivorytowers, but frequently permeate further education

By occupying this middle ground, colleges of further education face an immediate

problem of identity Unlike schools and universities, they have the potential to service

a much wider community of learners and to offer a bigger range, type and level of

programme Such diversity can, however, mean that colleges struggle to achieve

recognition and/or status for being specialists in particular types of provision Attempting

to service the needs of too many stakeholders also makes colleges subject to constant

change and so can weaken their ability to stand firm when stakeholder pressure becomes

overly intrusive In the UK, the further education sector has long been referred to as the

‘Cinderella’ of the education world, always doing the hard work and never getting to go

to the ball As in the USA, UK colleges are also seen as ‘second-chance’ institutions as

they accept many people who struggled at school, those who decide later in life to

improve their qualifications, and those who need to retrain through the loss of a job or a

downturn in their local economy In a seminal book on America’s community colleges,

Grubb and Associates (1999: 8) record the words of one teacher:

Community colleges are invisible, right? I mean, many people don’t seecommunity colleges They’re not institutions like the university; they’re looked on

as kind of very low-status Teachers in community colleges … really need to thinkabout being at a non-prestigious institution where many of the students areunderprepared, and they’re going to have to think about why they chose thatpiece of the vineyard

As the research reported in this book shows, colleges in South Africa have to address a

number of difficult questions which resonate with questions being posed by colleges

around the world:

• What is the purpose of the college?

• What are its underpinning values?

• Can the college pursue social justice as well as business goals?

• How does the college sit in relation to the wider further education sector?

• Whose needs should the college serve?

• Will some stakeholders have priority over others?

• Which other organisations/stakeholders should the college form alliances with?

• How should the college be structured in order to act responsively?

• How can the college develop its staff to ensure they have the capabilities required

to fulfil its mission?

• How can the college best manage risk and strive for a balance between short-termgains and long-term stability?

How colleges (and policy-makers) answer those questions will depend on: the way inwhich they conceptualise their mission; how they draw boundaries around the nature andscope of their stakeholder communities; and the tightness of the policy straightjacket theyare forced to wear Trying to be all things to all people can result in a loss of identity andfurther marginalisation at a time when schools and universities promote themselves asmore focused institutions (see Unwin 1999)

In recent years, colleges in the UK and Australia have had to react to their respectivegovernments’ demands that they become more responsive This experience highlights thedangers and rewards of the responsiveness agenda

The UK experience

Historically, colleges in the UK have differed from schools and universities in six key ways:

• They tend to have more complex histories

• They are more socially inclusive

• They are required to adapt more quickly to the changing agendas of governmentsand their communities

• Their funding comes from multiple sources

• They employ a more diverse range of teaching and learning approaches

• Students pass through at a much faster pace

To understand the way a college functions and the background to its character demands

a knowledge of: its history; the socio-economic make-up of its local/regional community;the spread of expertise of its teachers; the aspirations and values of its managers/teachers;the demands placed on it by government (local/regional/national); and the nature andrequirements of its student community In the UK, colleges were initially established inthe nineteenth century to meet the needs of specific sectors, notably mining, engineeringand construction (see Huddleston & Unwin 2002) They expanded this sectoral role,whilst, at the same time, developing courses in general and liberal adult educationprogrammes for the unemployed, and short courses tailor-made for employers

Colleges had, then, a strong history of ‘responsiveness’ Yet when, as a result of theworldwide oil crisis in the mid-1970s, rising inflation, unemployment and a collapse inmanufacturing hit the UK, colleges, along with schools and universities, were blamed bypoliticians and employer lobby groups as being part of the problem This led to what Ball(1990) has called a ‘discourse of derision’, which attacked teachers and educationalresearchers for being too left-wing, against capitalism, for using and advocating ‘trendy’

teaching methods and for generally failing both the country’s children and its economic

imperative It also attacked the unemployed and school-leavers for not having the right

attitudes to or skills for work and, hence, it was their fault if they failed to find jobs

This discourse was a key driving force behind the development of competence-based

vocational qualifications, which sought to put the learner as opposed to the provider in

control (see Jessup 1990) Esland (1991: v) has argued that:

The displacement of responsibility for economic failure and decline from thepolitical and economic arenas to the educational and training institutions (and theindividuals within them) has had the effect of distorting public policy debateabout the relationship between economic change, education and employment

The concentration on changing the content of education and attitudes of teachersand learners has led to the neglect of the part played by political and economicfactors (such as the nature of Britain’s industrial policy) in determining the shapeand quality of the national workforce

Politicians always need scapegoats One of the major dangers in attempting to be

responsive to the state as well as a diverse client group at local and regional level is that

educational institutions are very vulnerable when the clients need someone to blame The

letters from college graduates in South Africa, in Chapter 6, are strong reminders of the

limited impact which educational institutions can have on the economic problems of their

surrounding areas

In 1992, and as part of a wider plan to make the UK’s public services more

‘business-like’, colleges were freed from the control of democratically elected Local Education

Authorities (LEAs) and encouraged to take their wares to the marketplace Whilst some

colleges approached this transition with caution, many rushed into adopting the language,

behaviour and ethos of the private sector Hence, students became ‘customers’ or ‘clients’,

teaching became ‘facilitation’, ‘guiding’ or ‘mentoring’; and, where once a college was run

by a ‘principal’, he or she was now called ‘chief executive’ or ‘director’ The physical

environments of colleges also reflected change; thus thick carpets and better furniture

would be seen in departments benefiting from direct investment from employers Student

dress has also been affected For example, in one college in the English West Midlands, a

car manufacturer insists that its apprentices attend the college wearing boiler suits

emblazoned with the company logo

The two examples in Box 1 illustrate the different ways in which colleges responded to

the new climate, whilst also highlighting the considerable amount of work and resources

(financial and human) involved

For nearly ten years, colleges competed with each other and with schools and other

providers of post-compulsory education and training for business Whilst this led to

some innovation in terms of course design, delivery and promotion, there were also

disadvantages In order to respond more flexibly to ‘customer’ demand, colleges replaced

many of their full-time teachers with people on part-time, temporary contracts, and all

staff experienced considerable work intensification Industrial relations reached an all time

low in the late 1990s as teachers saw the gap between their pay and that of college

managers grow increasingly larger, causing some to equate conditions in colleges with

those of the worst Fordist-style enterprises (see Taubman 2000)

Since it came to power in 1997, the labour government has signalled a move away fromcompetition between institutions and has established local learning and skills councils toplan and manage publicly-funded further education and training provision at regional andsub-regional level (see Huddleston & Unwin 2002) At the same time, however, collegesare still expected to have the capacity to respond in as flexible a way as possible to thevarious demands of individuals, employers, and communities Being responsive in thenew climate also means being proactive; hence, colleges need to have up-to-date labourmarket information and the creative flair to develop new programmes using the latestteaching and learning technologies

The Australian experience

The Australian experience in making its further education sector more responsive is ofparticular relevance to South Africa because of national similarities in terms of

geographical distances, significant needs of rural communities, and equity issues TheTechnical and Further Education (TAFE) sector in Australia, which encompasses some 80institutions spread across over 300 campuses, underwent marketisation in the 1990s withcolleges reconstituted as ‘largely autonomous VET enterprises’ competing with otherpublic and private sector providers of vocational education and training (VET) for publicand private funds (Seddon & Malley 1999: 478) In their study of how TAFE colleges wereresponding to this change, Noble, Hill, Smith and Smith (1999: 15) point to:

… the need to get the balance right between empowering the consumer(employer and apprentice or trainee), meeting the needs of industry for relevant,

6

©HSRC 2003

Box 1: Examples of technical college responsiveness in the UK

A college in one area has been successful in promoting courses for the Sikhcommunity at a local community centre, the local hospital and an Asianwomen’s group As part of this programme, the college offers open learningworkshops and a home-study service The provision was effectively marketed

in the local Punjabi-speaking community as a result of a bilingual advertisingcampaign on local radio The proportion of students from minority ethnicbackgrounds attending the college is actually higher than represented in thelocal population

One agricultural college conducted market research and held interviews with

12 local poultry producers in preparation for developing poultry provision Theresearch identified a range of training needs, including management, marketingand personnel skills as well as stockmanship Poultry provision began in 1991with six part-time students Good links with industry enabled the college to use practical facilities owned by major companies However, the lack of such facilities on site was a limiting factor, and the college corporation decided to build a specialist poultry unit using industrial sponsorship Over the next threeyears, a total of 45 industrial sponsors provided cash or equipment, allowing thecollege to build a modern facility … The unit is run as a business partnershipwith industry, and now provides central training for large poultry firms

Source: Huddleston & Unwin (2002)

applicable or accessible training; maintaining economies of scale and avoidingdestructive effects of undiluted competition.

In their survey of providers, Noble et al (1999) found that whilst some saw serving the

needs of marginalised groups (for example non-English speakers; people with learning

difficulties) as a potential ‘niche’ market, others were very wary because of concerns

about the continuity and level of funding for such groups From the client’s point of view,

whether that is an individual learner, an employer or a community, he or she too may

lose out on market-based provision as providers decide to abandon non-viable

programmes or if the travelling distance to the desired programme is impractical

Noble et al (1999) remind us that demand is likely to be at its highest in metropolitan

areas where there are large numbers of providers and buyers There are clearly problems

for colleges serving ‘thin’ or ‘at risk’ markets where: employers may be restricted to a

small number of specialist sectors; employers may operate at the low-skill end of the

product market; or the population may be spread across a wide geographical area In all

countries, the rhetoric of change (for example a shift to a knowledge economy) may be

slow to impact on regional economies and labour markets, so traditional courses in craft

and trade-specific skills may still be needed

Seddon and Malley (1999: 489) explain how TAFE colleges have had to develop a ‘market

sensitive, self-reflective organisational capacity’ in order to ‘monitor their own work

practices, their position in the market, and the scope for innovation and development’

As shown in Table 1.1, they have identified three ways in which providers (including

those in both the TAFE and private sectors) are making use of research and intelligence

Seddon and Malley (1999) argue that movement towards the capacity-building model

depends on the extent to which providers recognise research (broadly defined) as a

‘fundamental to their core business’ They add that, where this happens, opportunities are

created for teachers as well as managers to participate in research and, in turn, for that

research to legitimise their innovative and reflective practices

As this model shows, shifting to a responsive mode clearly makes demands at every

level of the further education sector In the next section of this chapter, I examine the

implications for college staff and for learners

Table 1.1:Ways in which TAFE and private training providers use market research

Research and organisational Research used instrumentally Research integral to the

operations are to meet system and organisation Seen as a means

compartmentalised and enterprise priorities of building longer-term

Individual research not Individual research used Individual research integrated

absorbed by organisation on a limited fit basis productively with

organisational operations

Source: Seddon & Malley (1999)

Implications of resposiveness for staff competence, job design and

connections between the current topic under study, their work and personal lives Inaddition, some college staff are increasingly likely to have to combine a teaching and/orsupport role with entrepreneurial activity such as consulting with potential clients andgenerally promoting the college’s provision This means that teachers and support staffhave to cross professional boundaries, work within more than one community of practice,and possibly spend time out on secondment to client organisations

In their study of staff satisfaction in 80 colleges in England, Davies and Owen (2001: 8)found that staff were much more likely to feel valued within a college that had ‘anembedded culture of continuous improvement – rather than one of blame – whichencouraged bottom-up initiatives within a clearly understood framework’ Robson (1998:

8

©HSRC 2003

Box 1.2: Examples of technical college responsiveness in the USA

The Bay de Noc Community College in Michigan has established theMichigan Technical Education Center (M-TEC) to train workers in the state’srural Upper Peninsula M-TEC is not a building but a ‘concept’ in thattraining programmes are established where and when the learners needthem The range of partners, including trade unions, means that M-TEC is notdependent on any single customer or sector The Director of CustomisedTraining at the college explains: ‘With attention to the bottom-line, and aneye for resource acquisition and diverse revenue development, the M-TECestablished partnerships with business and industry, receiving financialcommitments and equipment donations in exchange for training and facilitydiscounts, 24-hour/7-day access and a seat on the M-TEC oversight board.’

588) argues that ‘the very diversity of entry routes into further education (FE) teaching …

creates, in sociological terms, a weak professional boundary’ and, thus, weakens the

profession’s overall standing She adds that most FE teachers who deliver technical and

vocational subjects retain strong allegiances to their first occupational identity (as formed

in industry or commerce) Moving into a college can, therefore, be a stressful experience

if those preformed occupational identities are threatened or disregarded A shift to

‘facilitation’, as opposed to didactic teaching or instruction, and hybrid job design can

lead to a sense of de-skilling and de-professionalisation for new and also experienced

teachers Time and space for reflection need to be found for new college teachers to get

to grips with their core pedagogical role before they are launched into more hybrid and

entrepreneurial activities Support and staff development also need to be in place for their

more experienced colleagues

The rhetoric of responsiveness places a positive spin on change, particularly in relation

to the ‘customers’ of education and training Policy-makers and other advocates of a

demand-led or market-led system take it as axiomatic that the customers will delight in

having their demands met Yet research evidence shows that individual learners and

employers can be less than thrilled if the flip side of flexibility means that too many

demands are made on them In the UK, for example, employers have been less than

keen to take up competence-based qualifications when they discover they might have to

use some of their more experienced (and productive) employees as workplace assessors:

much easier to return to college-based courses where assessment is carried out by

teachers (see, inter alia, Raggatt & Williams 1999) And when flexible learning actually

means being left alone in front of a computer screen or simply being shown where the

library is, most learners will crave time with a knowledgeable teacher In their study of

16 to 19 year olds in colleges in England, Bloomer and Hodkinson (1997) found that they

wanted a mix of teaching and learning approaches and that this desire for variability was

rooted in their life histories and the fact that their dispositions to learning shifted over

time as a consequence of changes in their personal, social and working lives

Implications of responsiveness for state policy and system

management

A shift towards a more demand-led system poses challenges for the state bureaucracy and

for partnership arrangements at local and regional levels The state has to decide on the

extent to which responsive institutions need to be and can be controlled Whilst it

continues to fund colleges, the state will demand a return in terms of the need for its

own national objectives for education and training to be met Yet this may bring the state

into conflict with its colleges if the latter find that in seeking to serve local clients,

national objectives fly out of the window For example, there may be a large local

demand for courses in hairdressing, whereas the state may want the colleges to put more

effort into higher-level occupations in order to raise the area’s skills levels Local people,

in areas where jobs are scarce or concentrated in low-grade occupations, might demand

courses in a more liberal adult education tradition in order to extend their knowledge

rather than train for skills they may never use Demand, then, can go in a different

direction to the state’s priorities

The state can, of course, choose to play a very centralist role and manipulate demand It

has four powerful weapons at its disposal: funding; audit; inspection; and targets It might

©HSRC 2003

decide to allocate funding for courses it believes to be important and restrict the number

of courses colleges can run for which clients pay full costs In contrast, the state can take

a middle path and use funding to incentivise responsiveness by steering colleges in aparticular direction whilst still allowing plenty of freedom to respond to the market

Alternatively, the state could take a laissez-faire approach, placing no restrictions on

funding and allowing colleges to follow market demand The state can also keep a closeeye on colleges through audit and inspection regimes, and can set targets (for examplefor student retention and attainment; employer engagement; social inclusion and so on)

to put pressure on performance

Whichever type of role the state decides to play will have an impact on the nature of thepartnerships colleges can forge with their client communities Gravatt and Silver (2000)stress that the best partnerships evolve from shared aims, desires and intentions as shown

in Table 1.2

They also stress, however, that colleges need to challenge the responsiveness rhetoric byremembering they are nothing without their students and that those students are part offamilies and communities ‘which define their experience, education and identity’ (Gravatt

& Silver 2000: 127) To this end, colleges need to look inward as well as outward to thegroups of staff and students that form its existence

As the opening quotation to this chapter indicates, colleges in South Africa have beenassigned a significant role in the country’s development and, therefore, the people whomanage the colleges will face considerable challenges An evaluation of the CollegesCollaboration Fund in South Africa, established in 1999 to help transform colleges intomore efficient and responsive institutions, has highlighted the need for ‘significantleadership ability among senior managers, combined with the strong guidance of agoverning council’ (Gewer 2002: 61) Research in the UK has shown that governingbodies can only do so much and that governments need to put much more resources intothe training and continued support for and development of college principals and seniormanagers (see Shattock 2000)

Table 1.2: State and college partnerships: what works and what doesn’t

Shared purpose and values Forced purely for geographic reasonsTrust between partners No trust

Different agendas respected Own agendas forced to topOutward looking Resistant to necessary changeTime and freedom to evolve Over-control by external auditTransparent procedures and lines of Hidden agendas

responsibility

Source: Gravatt & Silver (2000)

Concluding remarks

Given the enormous economic and social challenges in South Africa, the newly emerging

Further Education and Training (FET) colleges have a vital role to play They will need to

work in partnership rather than in competition to make the most of their opportunities

and to best serve their country’s needs This will demand a new type of infrastructure to

enable college principals and staff at different levels to form networks to share good

practice and provide mutual support Such networks will also enable the colleges to forge

a significant presence in order to fight their corner vis-à-vis schools, universities and the

private sector providers

In the midst of the attitudinal revolution created by responsiveness, however, the colleges

will need to hold on to their educational values People still want to learn and be

intellectually stretched Colleges also have an important role to play in terms of the

creation of vocational knowledge and its implementation in practice They have to be

able to juggle the competing demands of and handle the possible frictions caused by

being, all at the same time, academies, consultancies and educational supermarkets South

African colleges can, however, take some comfort from the knowledge that most

countries in the world are grappling with the complexities involved in extending and

improving their further education sectors

S i m o n M c G r a t h

The transition from school to work, or its failure, has been a recurrent theme of political

and academic debate internationally for many decades The problem has been seen as

having economic, social and political dimensions and has spawned countless

interventions Whilst much attention has been given to making the school a better

preparation for the labour market, the technical college, and its equivalents

internationally, has been seen as a major part of both the problem and its solution

This book seeks to make a new contribution to this debate It does so in the context of

South Africa, with its particular development challenges and its unique history of racially

organised further education and training (FET) provision Crucially, it seeks to make this

contribution at the point in time when the old system is beginning to give way to the

new, with all the uncertainties that brings Significantly, it also attempts to revisit this

debate through a new methodological approach in which a tracer study of FET graduates

is married with an analysis of employers’ satisfaction with public providers; with a more

qualitative exploration of college-employer relationships through case studies of college

clusters; and through the more literary analysis of letters spontaneously sent to the

research team by participants in the graduate tracer survey It is hoped that this blend of

methods may provide a richer and more compelling account of the state of technical

college responsiveness in South Africa at the dawn of the reconfiguration of the sector

Moreover, it is intended that this exploration will be of value to practitioners and

policy-makers in building the new FET college system

In this chapter, I shall provide some reflections about the nature of responsiveness from

the perspective of the African and southern literatures on the topic, building on the

previous chapter, before turning to an overview of the varied methodological tools used

in the study

‘Responsive’ training institutions

We need to locate the notion of responsiveness in a series of contexts It has come to

South African technical colleges relatively late in the day, having spread first in other

regions (see Unwin’s chapter) and across Africa It is also a debate that is clearly located

in the global dominance of neo-liberal thinking during the 1980s and 1990s

In South Africa, as elsewhere on the continent, public vocational training institutions

emerged under the colonial system to cater for the relatively small numbers of skilled

workers needed in the formal sector of the economy The South African technical college

essentially followed the model of its British sister institution, being mainly concerned with

theoretical provision for apprentices However, as Badroodien (2003a) reminds us, there

was also a strong racial differentiation within the system and strong concerns with issues

of social inclusion and control that often cut across the economic rationale of provision

Elsewhere in Africa, the rapid growth of schooling after independence was not matched

by the expected take-off in formal sector employment As a result, ‘educated

unemployment’ quickly became a major issue of political debate This led to the

introduction of a range of new post-school institutions and programmes that were

intended to make school-leavers better able to enter labour markets, whether in rural orurban contexts Famous examples included the village (later youth) polytechnics of Kenyaand the brigades of Botswana The regular technical college, however, continued to focus

on servicing formal industry and expanded in numbers and enrolments, although oftenexceeding the level of growth of formal employment

With the coming of structural adjustment in the 1980s, these colleges found themselvesfaced with a set of new challenges and demands, in keeping with the rest of the public

sector Particularly after the World Bank issued its policy paper on Vocational and Technical Education and Training (World Bank 1991), colleges found themselves under

pressure to become more responsive This model of responsiveness has focused on twomain themes: a shift from a supply-led to a demand-led system of training; and a focus

on training for self-employment (King & McGrath 2002)

Demand-driven training

The World Bank report, and much of the subsequent literature, highlighted theineffectiveness and inefficiencies of most public providers Quality of training was seen aspoor and colleges were judged to be incapable of meeting the needs of employers andthe economy It was proposed that training markets should be freed up to allow far moreprivate involvement There would still be a role for public providers but they would have

to become more demand-orientated It was believed that this would enjoin quality Ratherthan have curriculum and enrolments centrally determined, it was deemed essential thatcolleges should be free to respond to labour market needs and should be capable of sodoing

However, this account has increasingly been challenged Its nạve belief in the marketand in institutions becoming demand-led seems particularly problematic It is necessary tothink very carefully about the nature of demand and whose demand is actually meant.Student demand, social demand and employer demand may all be very different fromone another Moreover, there are strong reasons for believing that, in adverse economiccircumstances, each of these demands may be ineffective, in the economic sense of therebeing demand that cannot be marketised (King & McGrath 2002)

This was also a very narrow view of the world to which colleges needed to respond.Clearly, colleges needed to be more directly responsive to changes in the labour marketthan did other elements of the education system However, this view of responsivenesstended to ignore other legitimate elements of college responsiveness in areas such associal policy and community development, as well as the crucial issue of how collegesrespond to the range of needs of individual students

Moreover, the ability of providers to become more responsive tended to be over-assumed.There was very little sense in this account of the internal dynamics either of institutions or

of their ability to develop better employer and community linkages The assumed modelappeared to be built upon a social, political and economic environment that was perhapspresent in some donor countries such as Germany, but was far from most African

realities Moreover, it did not really address the challenge of developing adequate labourmarket information systems and outcome indicators for measuring providers’ performance(King & McGrath 2002)

Nonetheless, it seems plausible that responsiveness, as it is widely understood, is an

important quality of colleges Logically, this can be enhanced by better involvement of

stakeholders in managing training Better interaction with, and understanding of, local

stakeholders is likely to be of considerable benefit to providers

A key element of responsiveness is that colleges should better understand their local

labour environments Too many colleges have been producing graduates in trades that

are already swamped or where there is no local market This is a particular problem for

some South African colleges given the apartheid-driven logic of their locations It

becomes more important that colleges can respond quickly to new opportunities within

their catchment areas and become more adept at training for niches rather than being in a

mass production mode However, it is equally important that colleges are aware of the

possibilities of training for provincial, national and regional labour markets where

appropriate (King & McGrath 2002) Colleges internationally developed out of a need for

theoretical enhancement of on-the-job training of youth workers However, globalisation

and rapid technological change point to the need for reskilling over an individual’s

working life (ILO 1998) Here again is a challenge and opportunity for colleges, but it is

one where there is little sign of progress across Africa

Providers can only be so responsive on their own Although national training authorities

are yet to have much success in Africa, their performance in East Asia and Latin America

points to the advantages of strong tripartite involvement in training systems at the national

level The decision in South Africa to have a sectoral focus to training oversight may well

enhance responsiveness, given the positive experiences in this regard in other countries

such as Brazil (WGICSD 2000)

At the level of delivery, the trend across Africa towards competency-based modular

training is also driven by the logic of greater market responsiveness of training:

The focus on competencies is far more closely linked to notions of what is useful

in the market place and how this is changing over time Where this induces acloser focus on what skills are really needed, it is clearly a positive development

Nonetheless, there are widespread concerns internationally with the tendency ofcurrently existing competency-based systems to impoverish training and

disempower trainees through narrow and cognitively weak provision In theemerging account of skills development, it is apparent that competencies willneed to be seen in a broader sense A skills development focus can serve tohighlight the combined importance of good practical skills development, solidtheoretical grounding, positive attitudinal reinforcement, sound general educationand meaningful work experience (King & McGrath 2002: 126)

The focus on self-employment

Most public training providers were set up to meet the needs of formal wage

employment Indeed, self-employment promotion was not a policy goal till long after

most of these institutions had been established However, from the late 1980s on,

self-employment has increasingly achieved policy prominence and public training providers

have come under growing pressure to address this goal (Grierson & McKenzie 1996; King

& McGrath 2002; McGrath & King with Leach & Carr-Hill 1995)

©HSRC 2003

Often, the challenge of becoming more responsive to self-employment has played out in an additional module, such as creation of a business plan, being added to theconventional curriculum On other occasions, there have been attempts to add extracomponents after training, such as credit, business incubators and enterprise training, as

in the South African technopreneur project However, evidence of the success of most ofthese programmes focused on the traditional college clientele remains limited, in spite ofthe large amounts of donor money that have been invested in them (King & McGrath2002) There is little likelihood of college graduates entering into successful self-employment immediately from college Rather, they are more likely to progress to viableself-employment through an initial, perhaps even lengthy, period of wage employment(King & McGrath 2002; McGrath & King 1995)

A more radical approach of addressing a new clientele of existing informal sector workershas also been attempted in a number of countries At the maximalist end of the spectrum,

it has resulted in institutions such as the Malawi Enterprise Development Institute beingtransformed from a regular training college to an institution with a principal focus onenterprise development for those already in self-employment (Grierson & McKenzie 1996;McGrath & King 1995) A number of other programmes have sought to provide additionaltraining, often theoretical, to those employed in the informal sector, alongside theirconventional offerings (King & McGrath 2002) This seems to chime with trends incountries such as Australia to shift to a focus on lifelong learning and the needs forupskilling of those in employment rather than the traditional focus on pre-employmenttraining

The spread of these ideas to South Africa

South African colleges were effectively insulated from these pressures before the end ofapartheid However, with the coming of democracy and the need to overturn the racialdivision of colleges, the system was also opened to broader international discourses abouttraining institution reform Therefore, within the context of becoming merged institutions,South African FET colleges are also being expected to become more responsive, with ademand focus and a self-employment focus being identified by some as the ‘dualmandate’ (Gamble 2003a; McGrath & King 1995) of these new institutions This forms acentral element of the responsiveness that is being increasingly required of them

It is apparent that this new agenda of responsiveness is a complex and contested one.Responsiveness of colleges cannot simply be to the economy, even though FET is clearlythe most directly labour market-related element of the education and training system Ihave already argued that responsiveness must also be thought of in terms of communitiesand of a social agenda In South Africa, for instance, this means that public colleges mustalso be responsive in terms of transformation and equity However, it is apparent that suchnotions need far deeper consideration, not least in terms of how finance mechanisms can

be developed in resource-poor environments Economic responsiveness does not simplymean being entirely demand-driven Colleges should also be able to focus on strategicprovision where there is a lack of effective demand for whatever reason

It is also important to think of responsiveness as a process on which colleges areembarked rather than looking for whether they are or are not responsive Becoming moreresponsive is challenging and is constrained not only by college and staff capacities butalso by a range of external factors

Researching responsiveness: a methodological exploration

The research presented in this book is an attempt to use a new combination of methods

to shed light on the responsiveness of one national public training system at a particular

moment in time This combination is important as it seeks to bring very different but

complementary lenses into focus on what is a highly complex area Although it does not

engage with all the relevant stakeholders, nonetheless, the project’s engagement with the

experiences and perceptions of students, employers and providers offers a richness that is

not present in mono-dimensional studies

The project made use of tracer study methodology as a key element of its approach

The choice of such a tool was informed by the lack of such data being generated in the

system Indeed, the choice of this methodology was in a sense also a matter of advocacy

– of highlighting the potential importance of tracer methodology to the future of the

South African FET college system

Tracer research in the South African education and training system remains scarce, with

Bennell and Monyokolo’s (1992) study of matriculants being a rare exception There has

been some tracer work done elsewhere in Africa for the college sector, most recently in

Tanzania and Zambia, again under Bennell’s leadership, as part of an evaluation of

Danish assistance to skills development (Danida 2002) However, these types of surveys

are more prevalent in developed countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the USA

(NCVER 1997) For example, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research

(NCVER) in Australia conducts a national tracer study on Technical and Further Education

(TAFE) institutions called the Graduate Destination survey

One of the methodological breakthroughs of the NCVER approach has been to include

an employer satisfaction component In this book we present research that uses both the

tracer study and employer satisfaction survey tools However, the dual survey approach

has been further refined through a combination with the gathering of richer data through

in-depth interviewing of institutional leaders and employers The research team was also

very mindful of the key role played by context, and this is reflected in background

research on socio-economic and policy contexts, which draws heavily on the HSRC’s

capacity in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) analysis This multi-level project

framework is captured in Figure 2.1

However, this conscious methodological strategy was further adapted in the course

of the study A number of students who completed the tracer questionnaire also wrote

unsolicited letters to the survey team It was decided that this source of unstructured and

unmediated qualitative data could provide a valuable further element of the research as

reported Given the unusual power of hearing the unsolicited words of former learners,

it has been decided to include a flavour of these letters as a separate chapter

Whilst the combination of tools, both deliberate and serendipitous, was an advance on

previous mono-dimensional approaches, it is clear that the development of a robust

multi-dimensional approach is still in its infancy, as the subsequent discussion will

• Final satisfaction levels.

Through these questions, the questionnaire sought to elicit information on theresponsiveness of technical colleges as seen through the lens of graduate perceptions oftheir college education and its relationship to the world of work

Sample

The target population for the study comprised all learners of technical colleges in SouthAfrica who achieved an N2, N3 or National Senior Certificate (NSC) qualification in any ofthe six Department of Education (DoE) fields1in 1999 This particular cohort of graduateswas chosen for two reasons

First, the study focuses on the FET band as defined by the National Standards BodiesRegulations: Levels 2 to 4 of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), equivalent to

ve y

3 /N S C G r a

d u at

e s

8 0

t a

Figure 2.1: The multiple methods for studying technical college responsiveness

1 The six fields are business studies, engineering studies, art & music, general education, utility studies, and educare & social services.

Grades 10 to 12 in the schooling system and accommodating the N1, N2 and N3/NSC

certificates in the technical college system Second, the study is intent on investigating the

extent to which learners achieving N2, N3 and NSC certificates are considered employable

by companies/organisations as measured by employment rates As will become clear in

the study, this choice is significant in what it both shows and hides in ways that are

profoundly significant for debates about the permeability of the boundary between further

and higher education and training (HET)

A limitation of the sampling process is that the sample population, while stratified by

programme type (DoE-provided programmes) and qualification type (N2, N3 or NSC), is

not random Because the project team had to rely on colleges themselves to furnish the

HSRC with the names and addresses of 1999 graduates, the sample frame is as

representative as the willingness and capacity of colleges to respond to requests for

information The investigation of college responsiveness begins, then, with the extent to

which colleges were prepared, or able, to co-operate with the HSRC in populating the

sample frame

Attempts were made by the project team to contact colleges across the country over an

extended period The poor response rates in Table 2.1 are attributable to a variety of

factors:

• The inherent difficulty in contacting colleges (no response from the college

switchboard, telephone and/or facsimile number discontinued, or e-mail address

incorrect)

Table 2.1: Sample frame for the tracer study component of the Technical College Responsiveness

project

• The unwillingness of colleges to participate in the survey.

• Inadequate Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) in colleges

• Lack of capacity in colleges to return information (in the format) requested

Two major points are apparent from Table 2.1 First, the college response rates in allprovinces except the Eastern Cape (31 per cent) and the Western Cape (59 per cent) weresufficiently favourable notionally to allow for a reasonable sample of learner information

to be obtained However, the colleges that did respond in the Western Cape accountedfor almost three-quarters of the 1999 cohort of graduates in terms of the province’sresponse profile Unfortunately, the Eastern Cape respondents only accounted for 14 percent of the province’s 1999 graduate cohort Second, only three of the nine provinces –the Free State, Gauteng, and the Western Cape – provided usable names and addressesfor more than 50 per cent of their 1999 graduates In other words, two-thirds of theprovinces were not in a position, for whatever reason, to respond to the HSRC’s requestfor information to the extent expected

Piloting of the questionnaire

The questionnaire for the tracer study was piloted amongst students of two technicalcolleges in Gauteng in June 2001: one historically black and one historically white Inboth colleges, respondents ranged from the N3 to the N6 level The response profile wasrepresentative of the three major categories of ‘employed’, ‘unemployed’ and ‘studying’foregrounded in the survey

The objective of the pilot phase was to assess, amongst a representative sample of paststudents of technical colleges, the accessibility and appropriateness of the questionnaireahead of the main study Though the questionnaire had undergone extensive iterativedevelopment by members of the HSRC project team with support from two internationalpartners – the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (Australia) and theUniversität Gesamthochschule, Kassel (Germany) – it was substantially revised in the light

of pilot phase student comments

Survey response rate

The questionnaire was mailed to 9 781 N2, N3 and NSC graduates between Septemberand November 2001 A postcard reminder of the closing date for the survey was mailed

to survey participants

The graduate response rate to the survey is outlined in Table 2.2

As is evident from Table 2.2, there is a reasonably high response rate for a mail surveyfrom all provinces, although findings based upon fewer than 100 responses from anyprovince should be treated with caution Thus the findings for the Eastern Cape, NorthernCape, Limpopo and the North West cannot be extrapolated to the general population ofgraduates in those provinces with any confidence Nationally, however, a response rate of

36 per cent – or 3 503 questionnaires – in principle allows generalisation to thepopulation of technical college graduates in South Africa

However, in talking about the generalisability of the data, it is important to flag twoimportant characteristics of the sample First, through the conscious focus of sampling on

a specific range of national programmes the data show a higher percentage of

engineering students than would be the case if a sample of students on all programmes

in public FET colleges were made This is because both non-DoE programmes and N4

and above programmes are less engineering-dominated Second, a further implication of

this sample design is that there is a preponderance of male students, given the gendered

nature of course enrolments It is crucial, therefore, that the data and analysis are read in

the light of these concerns

Employer survey methodology

Background

The employer satisfaction survey was intended to complement the information collected

through the tracer study, with the aim of providing more information about the

college-to-work transition Its overall aim was to ascertain the levels of satisfaction employers had

with technical college graduates in their employ To achieve this aim the study looked at

employer familiarity and satisfaction with:

• Technical colleges themselves

• Technical college graduates

• Technical college graduate courses

• Graduate work skills

Broad target population

From the 3 503 responses received from the traced graduates, 34 per cent of graduates

classified themselves as employed (including self-employed) It was decided to follow up

those who claimed to be employed in the formal sector This gave a total of 966

graduates Of these, only 858 graduates provided specific employer details that could be

followed up Checking these details for duplications produced a total population of 753

employers

Table 2.2: Graduate response rate to tracer study survey

Rationale for choice of employers to be surveyed

As the population to be studied was readily identifiable, and as resources permitted, theintention was to survey all of these employers This approach nullified any samplingdecisions that would have had to be made However, the team undertook a data-cleansing and verification process with the intention of confirming the employer contactdetails provided by the graduates whilst at the same time priming employers about theimpending survey This was done in an attempt to raise awareness and thus improve thequestionnaire response rate Employers were contacted with the following key aims:

• Verifying the existence and contact details of the identified employers

• Establishing and verifying contact with the responsible employer representative whowould be responding to the survey

• Establishing with the employer contact person the nature of instrumentadministration most suitable

• Booking an appointment for the follow-up administration of the survey instrument.The employers were informed about the study and why they were contacted They werethen advised of the impending survey and their co-operation was solicited Finally, theywere requested to advise the research team about the most convenient form of instrumentadministration and the weekdays and times most suitable to them

The results of the verification and data-cleansing process informed decisions on the form

of instrument administration to be undertaken, and reduced the original population ofcontactable and willing employers/respondents to 329 This was because 64 employernumbers had been discontinued, 313 employers indicated that they did not have anycollege graduates in their employ and 47 employers indicated their reluctance to provideinformation or respond to the survey

Of these 329 employers, 39 per cent indicated that their preferred medium of instrumentadministration would be e-mail, while 38 per cent of them indicated a preference for fax.Twenty-two per cent of employers were non-committal in this regard This represented abalanced preference between the two media of instrument administration, adding up toalmost 80 per cent preference On the basis of such information, it was decided toadminister the questionnaire through the three media of fax, telephone, and e-mail The implication of consulting employers about their preferred mode of response was thatthe survey instrument had to be substantially simplified and reduced, covering only keyissues and themes core to the project This would enable the instrument to be

administered in less than 20 minutes telephonically, completed at once electronically ande-mailed back, and completed on paper and faxed back without consuming too much faxtime and paper

The research team also had to address the high number of employers who indicated thatthey did not have technical college graduates in their employ The assumption andpossible explanation was that some, if not most, of these employers might employ suchgraduates whilst not being aware that they were graduates of technical colleges The teamdecided that they would contact all employers for whom they had contact details, as long

as they had not declined to participate This meant an actual population of 642employers Specific graduate information was provided to all employers in an attempt to

increase the accuracy of information provided whilst similarly linking an employer to a

graduate to resolve the concern of the 313 employers who indicated that they did not

have such graduates in their employ

In total, 130 employers participated in the survey This response rate is low in the light of

the rigour of the approach to this part of the data collection Indeed, it seems to stand as

an important research finding in its own right However, its interpretation is more

difficult It is possible that this reflects the limits to employers’ information systems It may

reflect the extent to which the employment that graduates were reporting is highly

casualised If this were true, it would also add to a picture of employers as showing little

interest in issues of ongoing skills development As such, it would serve to raise issues

about the extent to which responsiveness is meaningful to employers if employers

themselves are unresponsive in the area of skills However, such interpretations are

largely speculative, and indicative of ways where research on responsiveness might be

developed in the future

One particular way in which further research might wish to develop is in moving away

from this approach to sampling employers Whilst this book reports on research that

deliberately tried to have a close link between employer and graduate data, the limited

employer response rate requires us to question whether this was in fact the best strategy

to follow Whether there would be merits in a national sample of all employers, or of

employers in key graduate employing sectors, warrants further consideration in any future

attempt to link surveys in this way

Local labour environments methodology

Background

The decision to link these two survey instruments to a study of the local labour

environments of South African technical colleges is an important methodological

development Responsiveness is a notion that relies on the assumption that colleges

should be embedded in the realities of their local labour environments As the response

rate for the employer satisfaction surveys hints, it is not enough simply to go to

employers to ask them questions about colleges Therefore, this section of the

methodology sought to do two other important things First, a richer understanding of

specific to-be-merged colleges’ constraints and opportunities could be understood through

the development of geographical and economic data about their environments Second, a

deeper appreciation of the understandings of college staff and managers about industry

linkages could be developed through a more qualitative exploration in case study

locations A number of local employers were also interviewed to provide a potentially

different perspective on the nature of college-industry relationships

Originally it was planned to have four case study merged colleges to illuminate particular

and localised local labour environment challenges for this component However, late in

the planning phase, one of these had to be abandoned because of low levels of

institutional responsiveness to the research As a result, the final number of case studies

was three

The selection of these merged institutions was subsequent to the collection of tracer data,

and the response rates from that survey were considered However, the primary driving

force for selection was a desire to choose colleges with potentially different labour marketenvironments A basic three-part typology was developed to reflect this One mergedcollege was selected from a metropolitan setting Another was selected which reflected acluster around a smaller provincial capital and its satellite townships The third settingincluded town and township-based colleges, with one in a more rural setting All threereflected a different mix of local economic opportunities.

The three case study FET colleges

Given the research need to respect the anonymity of profiled colleges, this project usesthe definition of technical colleges before 1994 as a way of framing their context and thecomplex relationships and challenges that inform their development in the contemporaryenvironment The colleges profiled in the study will be referred to simply as state orstate-aided colleges This tool of college identification is employed specifically to concealcollege identities In all other instances in the report, the legislative description of FETcollege is used The study is not concerned so much with the particular developmentpossibilities of specific colleges but rather with making the point that the local labourenvironments of colleges need to be better understood analytically and responded to inpractice

Research focus for institutional profiling

The institutional profiling component of the project adopted a qualitative approach toexplore the unique challenges and dilemmas that confront individual FET colleges inSouth Africa The adopted research methodology informed the project in a number ofcritical ways Importantly, the availability of nine provincial FET situational analyses(Kraak & Hall 1999; NBI 1999a and b; NBI 2000a-f) meant that the gathering of certaintypes of data was unnecessary These studies, which included detailed labour

environment situational analyses, captured key data about individual colleges The focus

of the institutional profiles could thus raise particular questions about the individualcollege sites that make up FET colleges, specifying the links with industry and the world

of work It was argued that interviews with influential college staff and labour partnerswould develop an understanding of specific aspects of college activity and flesh outcertain taken-for-granted assumptions about the college-industry linkage

Crucially, the provided reports from the individual college sites did not attempt toduplicate and reproduce already available data and perspectives on colleges Rather, thereports used the available secondary material as the foundational basis from which to askvery specific questions about institutional processes in particular college sites

A series of topic guides were developed for the interviewing of college staff (principalsand heads of departments), employers and industry role-players Importantly, researcherswere encouraged to adapt these to given situations and contexts

The purpose of the fieldwork conducted at the three FET colleges in May 2002 was tounderstand recent college innovations in responding to the changed environment and tointerpret the established cultures of individual colleges that either inhibit or facilitatechange By focusing on the college-employer linkage in local labour environments, theidea was to chart trends from the kinds of relationships and partnerships developed inindividual localities

Three teams of researchers visited the designated FET colleges in the three chosen

provinces All in all, the teams visited ten institutions that had been designated technical

colleges, colleges of education and manpower centres before 2001 Researchers were

briefed to focus specifically on the issue of college-industry partnership as a way of

understanding distinct local labour environments Researchers were provided with four

overarching questions that needed to frame the interviews with college staff and various

related employers The interviews explored:

• Partnerships that existed between the college and industry, business, government

and small to medium enterprises

• How these partnerships were established and how learner and employer needs were

aligned

• How the partnerships corresponded with college programmes and their

operationalisation

• The marketing strategies that individual colleges developed

Each college visited for the study was also asked about the number and nature of

partnerships with employers and industries and the kinds of innovations that were

particular to that college The employers mentioned were then consulted not only to

verify the stated partnerships but also to elaborate on the kinds of issues that informed

their relationships with FET colleges The information and observations collected during

the various visits and interviews were then analysed and compared across each FET

college These collective insights were used to frame an understanding of respective local

labour environments and the prospective role of FET colleges in given economic

localities

Graduate letters methodology

As noted above, the letters that were sent to the project team by graduates were not

solicited and were not part of the research design However, the team decided that the

existence of 70 such letters required reading, analysis and presentation in this book,

although without making any spurious claims about their generalisability Serendipitously,

the leader of the graduate survey component has an academic background in discourse

analysis, and this encouraged a decision to approach these letters from a narrative

analysis perspective Whilst the number and length of the letters does not argue for them

receiving a major place in this book, they are nonetheless a valuable and often powerful

addition to the reading that the other chapters present It is here, albeit briefly, that we

can read the hopes and fears of graduates expressed in their own words This chapter

also raises two interesting methodological points First, if such an analysis is considered

valuable, then should it be explicitly added into the design of such graduate surveys?

However, what impact on such letters would soliciting for them have? This links to the

second point: is it inevitable that those with the strongest, and, in this case, most

negative, views are most likely to respond? If so, does such a tool, when used more

rigorously, threaten the overall balance of the account?

Conclusion

This study should be seen as a step in a process of understanding college responsiveness

in South Africa There are a number of reasons for this First, the challenge of

responsiveness is still new Second, the reconfiguration of colleges into merged

institutions was still ongoing at the time of the research Third, research on this topic inSouth Africa is in its infancy as a result This study has increased our understanding of thedynamics of responsiveness and how to study it It has illustrated some of the powerfuladvantages to be gained by a multifaceted approach to this issue Particularly, it hashighlighted the need to think more coherently about the nature of the local labourenvironments in which providers are located However, further refinement is needed ofsuch a methodology, including how to increase response rates, how to prevent biasestherein, and how to carry out sequential sampling across instruments In building richerunderstandings of local labour environments, there will also need to be more thoughtgiven to the regional, national and even international dimensions of particular colleges’possible hinterlands Moreover, there is a need to think further about how such anapproach can explore some of the less economic elements of responsiveness in moredepth

South African experience in this sector is, of course, unique but it does share much withexperiences elsewhere It will be important to build up an awareness of comparativeexperiences, as outlined in this chapter and Unwin’s, whilst remaining mindful of theimportance of context

In spite of such health warnings, the following chapters provide a range of valuableinsights into a system undergoing great changes There will be much of interest forpolicy-makers, practitioners and researchers as you read on

M i c h a e l C o s s e r

Introduction

The conceptualisation of the tracer study of technical college graduates1reported in this

chapter preceded the work of the National Landscape Task Team that led to the

recommendation that 151 colleges be merged into 50 (DoE 2001a), though the tracer

study and Task Team investigations were conducted concurrently Besides the need to

speak of ‘technical colleges’ rather than ‘FET colleges’ that this precedence implies,

however, a key difference between the two investigations is that while institutions came

under the spotlight of the Task Team, the unit of analysis in the tracer study is not the

institution but the learner The population to which the findings of the tracer study can

be generalised, then, is those graduates of 151 technical colleges who achieved an N2, N3

or National Senior Certificate (NSC) in 1999 In this sense, institutional responsiveness is

viewed through the lens of graduate perceptions of their college experience and the

extent to which it has prepared them for entry into the labour market

This chapter reports on the key findings of the graduate tracer study under three broad

headings The first briefly profiles the 3 503 respondents in terms of their biographies,

highlighting such variables as province, population group, gender, age and

parental/guardian education levels The second extends this profile to a consideration of

respondents’ college education and employment status, focusing in the first part on the

qualifications of graduates, including the fields in which they achieved their college

certificates, and in the second juxtaposing these with their current employment situations

and their employment experience between 1999 and late 2001 The third adds a new

dimension to the analysis It considers the quasi-behavioural evidence regarding

respondents’ experience of their college education: language of learning; the provision

of career guidance; work experience during college studies; and first employment

experiences Moreover, it interweaves these quasi-behavioural aspects with an analysis

of respondents’ attitudes regarding their college education These include:

• Why they chose to study at a technical college and their reasons for choosing one

college over another

• How the language of learning at the college affected their academic performance

• How they rate the quality of college provision; and for those who found

employment, whether they were satisfied in their jobs

• Whether they would make the same study choices if given a second chance

The distinction implied here between behaviour, a supposedly objective phenomenon

that can be scientifically verified, quasi-behaviour, a behaviour the verification of which

may not accord with objective reality because it is actually a perceived behaviour, and

attitude, a perception purely in the mind of the beholder, is difficult to sustain in the

context of a tracer study Notionally these phenomena exist on a continuum, at one pole

of which is objective reality and at the other subjective opinion But what in a tracer

1 The use of ‘graduates’ to denote those learners who have achieved an N2, N3 or NSC certificate at a technical college

is problematic, since it implies the achievement of a qualification signalling a milestone in a learner’s study trajectory –

when in fact most technical college learners, the study will show, go on to achieve qualifications higher than N3/NSC.

study passes for objective reality, for example, whether learners received career guidance

or not, is in part a matter of interpretation (career guidance can take a variety of forms,some of which may be indirect); hence the use of ‘quasi-behavioural’ to describe suchbehaviours

As social attitude exponents like Jowell aver (2002), moreover, the measurement ofattitude is no less valid than the measurement of behaviour In the context of thetransformation of the technical college sector into the FET college sector, it is important toassess institutional responsiveness by going beyond the ‘hard evidence’, the quantitativeoverviews of the sector provided through the collaboration of the Department ofEducation (DoE), the National Business Initiative (NBI), and colleges themselves (Powell

& Hall 2000 and 2002), to canvass student opinion about the extent to which colleges

have prepared them for entry into the labour market The triangulation of as manysources of information about college responsiveness as possible is needed if a holisticpicture of the sector that can inform its transformation is to emerge

As Table 3.1 indicates, the vast majority of responses (more than half of all responses)were from graduates in Gauteng, only four other provinces providing more than five percent each of the responses This means that the findings for the Eastern Cape, NorthernCape, Limpopo, and the North West should be treated with some caution, there beingfewer than 100 responses from each of these provinces This is true even though the dataupon which the interpretation is based are weighted Most of the findings from the surveyare reported at the aggregated, national level

2 In this and subsequent tables, province names are abbreviated The key is: EC = Eastern Cape; FS= Free State;

G = Gauteng; KZN = KwaZulu-Natal; M = Mpumalanga; NC = Northern Cape; L = Limpopo; NW = North West; and WC = Western Cape.