Sue Blaine
9 July 2009
Johannesburg — FOR the second year running more than a third of the students at the state-funded further education and training (FET) colleges who wrote the new National Certificate Vocational (NCV) courses through which South African artisans receive theoretical training, failed.
With construction projects for the 2010 World Cup on the go and plans for increased electricity generation, SA still needs artisan skills despite the global financial crisis hitting construction companies.
The government has, since it recapitalised the colleges with R1,9bn, punted them as an alternative to dropping out of education for high schoolers who leave at the end of G rade 9.
Also, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande has promised to increase FET enrolment from 400000 to 1-million by 2015.
The pass rate in 2007, the year in which the NCV courses were introduced, was about 50%.
Last year's overall pass rate for the certificate at L evel 2 -- written for the first time in 2007 -- was 55%, and for L evel 3, 66%.
"My prime interest is in (artisan) apprentice training ... and the colleges are only sending out a trickle, so we can't tell how they will fare in the (sector)," said Janet Lopes, skills development manager of the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation .
After their NCV course was completed, trainees still had to complete 80 weeks of practical training before writing a trade test to become fully- fledged artisans, Lopes said.
Business Unity SA (Busa) is also concerned about the quality of the NCV graduates.
"Even if the pass rate is between 50% and 60%, what is the quality?" said Stella Carthy, Busa representative on the national FET board.
The board is a statutory body established to advise Nzimande on the 50 public FET colleges.
When the first NCV examinations were written in 2007 only 9,2% of candidates passed the seven subjects that make up a full year's NCV course, qualifying them for a L evel 2 NCV .
Also, there are enormous disparities between the performance at the 50 state-funded colleges, with one registering a zero pass rate in at least three NCV subjects, and others topping 70% .
Last year, the national average pass rate for four of the NCV subjects at Level 2 and at Level 3 was below 30%.
The Level 2 subjects were: electrical systems and construction, 28%; electronics, 24%; fitting and turning, 27%; and mathematics, 28%; the Level 3 ones: electrical control and digital, 15%; engineering fabrication, 12%; engineering, 23%; and engineering sheet metal, 10%.
"These are the people we'll use as artisans.... It is very, very difficult to market FET colleges, and there are some that are very good, but we are getting 0% in a range of subjects at some of the colleges," said Carthy.
The higher education department was compiling a report on the two best-performing public FET colleges -- the Western Cape's Northlink College and Mpumalanga's Gert Sibande Public FET College -- to present to the board this month, said board chairman Dennis George.
Where individual colleges had very poor results, the department had asked them to "consider if they have the capacity" to teach that subject, said the department's deputy director-general of FET, Penny Vinjevold.
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