Post on 21-May-2018
FET College Lecturers in the Western Cape
Prepared by Timothy McBride, Joy Papier and Seamus Needham
Further Education and Training Institute, University of the Western Cape
June 2009
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INTRODUCTION
Further Education and Training (FET) college lecturers are critical to the Human Resources
Development Strategy, yet there is limited provision and a lack of systems for their preparation,
support and development. More immediately, there is a dearth of current data on college lecturers.
The last survey involving college lecturers was conducted by the NBI in 2002 and published in 2004
(NBI 2004). Since then there have been significant policy and curriculum shifts in the FET sector. In
particular, there is an ongoing lack of clarity about how many college lecturers require training, and
what training they require. This lack of clarity has contributed to the inability of Higher Education to
respond to calls for college lecturer development. The recently gazetted National Policy Framework
for Lecturer Development in FET Colleges in South Africa (DoE, 2009) signifies serious attention to
the certification and development of college lecturers, but the college sector is poorly served by the
lack of current data on qualifications and experience of its lecturers to inform a response. This
presents a challenge for planning, research and administration of lecturer preparation, development
and support.
This report is the outcome of two linked projects conducted during 2008 by the FET Institute, UWC.
One was a survey of college lecturers which provided baseline information on lecturers’
qualifications and experience in order to construct a profile of college teaching staff. The second
was a qualitative enquiry undertaken to gather information on lecturers’ development needs as
articulated by them. This, it was proposed, would result in a complementary database to inform
future debates on training and development provision for college lecturers.
BACKGROUND
The advent of a democratically elected government in South Africa coincided with vocational
education reform internationally in the 1990s, accompanied by discourses of ‘responsiveness’,
‘demand led’ training and ‘transformation’ which were institutionalized by the FET Act of 1998 and
related policy documents. These policy reforms provided for new institutional arrangements,
funding formulae and qualification reform (McGrath 2003).
The FET Colleges Act of 2006 which replaced the FET Act of 1998, further devolved college functions
to FET College Councils in a process which Akoojee (2008) characterizes as ‘managed autonomy’.
Other important national developments in the FET college sector were the recapitalization national
grant which injected an additional R5billion into the sector for upgrading of infrastructure, the new
funding formula for colleges, the National Plan for FET and the introduction of the National
Certificate (Vocational) in 2007 to replace the NATED courses as official national curricula.
The National Policy Framework for Lecturer Qualifications and Development in FET Colleges in South
Africa (June 2009) provides a framework in which systems, learning pathways, vocational pedagogy
and curricula for FET College lecturer training can be developed.
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METHODOLOGY
The FET Institute conducted a survey of FET college educator staff in the Western Cape in 2008,
focusing on qualifications and experience. All 38 teaching campuses participated, resulting in a
response rate of about 90% and obtaining data for over 700 college lecturers.
Questions focused on formal qualifications achieved, whether in cognate areas or education, and
experience gained in teaching and in the workplace. Employment and demographic details were
included in the data collection process.
To gather data on lecturers’ perceived development needs, focus group interviews were conducted
with 4 FET institutions in the Western Cape which offered particularly programmes for the
workplace, and lecturers in the Business and Engineering National Certificate (Vocational)
programmes.
SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
This research focused on the Western Cape and targeted in the quantitative survey FET College
lecturers who teach. The project is an initial study to address the dearth of reliable data on lecturer
development, and could undoubtedly be replicated in other regions or extended to other target
groupings.
Focus groups and individual interviews targeted lecturers, programme managers and innovation and
development staff, and were conducted across Western Cape campuses. As these staff members are
usually engaged in both NCV programmes and occupational training programmes at colleges, the
findings do not treat them as separate respondent groupings.
FINDINGS
QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS: A PROFILE OF COLLEGE LECTURERS IN THE WESTERN CAPE
Data for 752 respondents was obtained, although there were instances of missing data where
particular questions were not completed. Cross tabulations exclude missing data from the
calculations and provide percentile scores in order to make statistical calculations more accurate.
Missing data is however included in the calculations in the accompanying tables in the Appendix.
SIZE AND SHAPE OF THE WESTERNCAPE COLLEGE LECTURER SECTOR
In the Western Cape there are 6 colleges which together have a total of 38 teaching campuses and 6
administrative sites. There are 3 peri-urban colleges (17 teaching campuses) and 3 urban ones (21
teaching campuses). The sizes of individual campuses vary, hence colleges vary in educator
complement size, from about 60 to over 240 lecturers per college. Figure 1 below shows the sizes of
the lecturer complement at individual campuses.
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LECTURER DEMOGRAPHICS
The racialised legacy of technical education in South Africa continues to offer employment
challenges in regard to the recruitment, retention and distribution of college staff. Figure 9 shows the
distribution of college lecturer staff by population group and gender with numbers given as a
percentage of the total. Lecturers were asked to provide demographic details on gender, racial
classification, home language and birth year. Afrikaans was the dominant home language (394
lecturers/57%), followed by English (279 lecturers/37%) and Xhosa (55 lecturers/7.3%,). A small
number of Sotho, Zulu and Ndebele home language speakers were present. On the face of it, there is
a fair balance of gender representation, but ‘race’ and linguistic diversity remains an issue in terms
of the demographic breakdown, though the reasons for this still require proper investigation.
9 9
5
4
11
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0-10 11-15 16-20 20-25 over 25
Number of lecturers at campus
Nu
mb
er o
f C
amp
use
s
Figure 1: Number of campuses by size of lecturer complement
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Figure 2demographic breakdown of staff by population group and gender:
Gender
Population group Female Male Total
‘White’ 28% 19% 46%
‘African’ 5% 6% 11%
‘Coloured’ 17% 21% 37%
‘Indian’ 1% 1% 1%
Other 0% 0% 1%
Missing data 2% 2% 4%
Grand Total 52% 48% 100%
Further analysis showed additional features of the ‘race’ and gender breakdown. Proportionally
there are no significant racial differences in qualifications and work experience after controlling for
gender. ‘White’ females however tend to outnumber their male counterparts, with the reverse
being true for ‘coloureds’ and ‘africans’. There were significant gender differences (p<0,001, df=1) in
teaching qualifications and workplace experience, favouring females and males respectively. An
analysis by campus suggests that about 23% of ‘Africans’ in the province are concentrated at a single
campus, and over 40% at three campuses. The first result suggests that gender behavior differs by
‘race’. The second result suggests that the skewed distribution of ‘africans’ may call for diversity
training in terms of building staff cohesion or dealing with perceptions of alienation.
Figure 10 provides a histogram showing the age distribution of staff and shows that the age
distribution is slightly skewed towards the 50-60 age group, but also with a younger cohort in the 20-
30 category. The reported age of lecturers varied from 22 to 72 years old, with an average age of 45
years. Many of the older lecturers only entered college teaching at an advanced age. This suggests
that the population is not ageing as much as has been reported in Australia for instance.
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Figure 3: Age distribution of college lecturers (with normal curve and median line)
SUBJECTS TAUGHT
Lecturers were asked to indicate subjects and courses that they were teaching and were grouped in
terms of these. The general fields used were Business (for business subject lecturers, but including
office data processing), Community (mainly ECD), Engineering (a range of subjects, including
computer programming), Fundamentals (Languages, Math, Life Orientation, end user computing),
and Utility (mainly service workplace subjects like clothing, hospitality and hair care). Based on this
classification, Business accounted for 28,1%, Engineering for 27,7%, Fundamentals for 20,8%,
Services for 14,5% and Community for 4,6%.
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Figure 4: Distribution of staff by subject field
Teaching Area % of lecturers
Business 28.1%
Engineering & IT 27.7%
Fundamentals 20.8%
Services 14.5%
Community 4.6%
LECTURER QUALIFICATIONS
Definition of terms used in coding data
The survey aimed to ascertain qualifications of lecturing staff in three areas of expertise: teaching,
academic and workplace, aligned to the notion that a vocational teacher requires expertise in all
three domains. Clearly defining teaching, academic and workplace qualifications is tenuous in
practice though, as these terms often overlap and intersect. However, there are distinctions in the
literature between subject matter knowledge (academic disciplines associated with a vocational
specialism eg. Engineering Science), pedagogy (knowledge of the field of education/for teaching),
and workplace knowledge and practice (as in specific occupational qualifications applied within a
particular workplace, eg. Banking, Plumbing).
Hence academic qualifications refer to studies in cognate areas usually offered by public or private
universities or universities of technology, where such qualifications are broad and formative rather
than occupation-specific professional qualifications. These include undergraduate and postgraduate
degrees, national higher diplomas and B.Tech degrees. Cognate disciplines are understood as areas
of study rooted in ongoing scientific enquiry and research into which knowledge bases students are
inducted, and with a larger focus on theoretical knowledge.
Workplace qualifications refer to qualifications which prepare persons for particular types of work,
and which are not linked to general academic subjects as their primary focus. Whilst these courses
often operate in the same field as the academic qualifications and have a strong knowledge base,
the focus is on the practical application rather than the theoretical understanding of the subject
matter. Generally these refer to trade and professional qualifications obtained outside public higher
education, and include qualifications such as vendor qualifications, trade qualifications, FET college
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qualifications (e.g. N1 – N6) and occupation specific diplomas (e.g. CIDESCO, IMM). In lay terms,
workplace qualifications could broadly be described as practical knowledge for a particular industry.
Teaching qualifications refer to qualifications that prepare graduates for careers in education and
which have official recognition as such. Teaching qualifications include education management or
education research qualifications at the higher levels, teaching degrees or national diplomas such as
the National Higher Diploma, the 4-year B.Ed and various degrees in Human Ecology Education and
Sport Education have been included as teaching degrees. They have not been categorised as ‘general
academic’ degrees as they specifically prepare candidates for teaching. Also included are
qualifications for primary school teachers obtained from teaching colleges. Assessor training and
other OD-ETD modules are categorized as short courses, rather than qualifications and are therefore
not included in this definition unless a full qualification has been obtained.
This survey sought to establish the prevalence of qualifications in the three discrete categories and
examined the range of the highest level of qualifications in each of them. Lecturers were asked to
indicate the highest qualification they held in each of these categories. The results are reported
below and in the tables in Appendix 2.
Further analysis ascertained the overlap between academic, teaching and workplace qualifications
provided in Figure 5 below. As indicated, 6% of lecturers have academic, workplace and teaching
qualifications; 29% have academic and teaching qualifications, while 14% have workplace
qualifications only.
Figure 5: Venn diagram of overlapping qualifications
In other words, the study found that the majority of lecturers, over 90%, do not have qualifications
in all three areas of teaching, academic and workplace, and the combinations of qualifications in
these areas of expertise vary. Although qualifications in the three discrete categories are prevalent
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amongst college lecturers in the Western Cape, a substantial number of lecturers lack qualifications
in one or more of the three discrete areas.
102 respondents indicated that they had completed N courses or National Trade Diplomas, with
larger groupings at N3 (28) and N6 (38) levels. Only 4 indicated N1 or N2 as their highest level of
industry qualification. This amounted to about 13% of the lecturing staff. 18 people indicated that
they had T courses at different levels.
There was a range of under- as well as post-graduate qualifications of which there were 4 PhDs, 27
Masters Degrees, 65 Honours Degrees and 29 BTechs in the sample. About 13% of lecturers held
only ‘artisan’ qualifications, while 42% lacked workplace qualifications. There was not only a diverse
range of qualifications, but also a variety of qualification routes lecturers took in entering FET
teaching. Under 50% held a “degree/academic qualification plus teaching qualification’ combination
common in academic secondary schools and graduate teacher programmes, but others had taken
various other routes into college teaching.
Figure 3 below describes more fully the teaching qualifications acquired by college lecturers.
Teaching qualifications
The data in Figure 3 shows that there was a variety of qualifications that lecturers had acquired,
mostly school teacher preparation qualifications located on the higher education qualifications
framework in existence prior to 1997.
Some qualification types were dominant as the highest level of qualification. For instance, out of
66.2% of lecturers indicating that they had teaching qualifications, the HDE (a post graduate first
teaching qualification in the previous HE qualification framework) was the dominant teaching
qualification (25.7% of the workforce). There were a few qualifications at higher postgraduate levels,
including 3 Masters degrees and 2 PhDs.
Indicative of the changes in higher education nomenclature after 1995, 23 respondents held the
PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) and 13 the interim NPDE qualification (National
Professional Diploma in Education), as well as 5 who had acquired the ACE (Advanced Certificate in
Education). Older qualifications, since phased out in higher education, included the NTD, the
Teachers Diploma, STDs and Technical teaching diplomas were also present.
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Figure 6: Teaching qualifications by qualification type
0
50
100
150
200
250O
ther
NT
D (
National
Teachers
Dip
lom
a
Teachers
Dip
lom
a
(Colle
ge) NP
DE
ST
D
AC
E (
Advanced
Cert
ific
ate
in
Education)
Technic
al T
eachin
g
Dip
lom
a
HD
E
PG
CE
Bachelo
r of
Education
Honours
(B
Ed)
Maste
rs in E
ducation
PhD
Total
Further studies
Some lecturers are continuing their studies in various fields, notably in postgraduate studies and first
degrees. According to lecturers’ responses, 8,1% are currently doing a teaching qualification, 4,8% a
workplace qualification, and 14,1% a general academic qualification. In the sample these included 4
academic PhDs, 4 teaching masters degrees, 10 academic masters, 7 ‘N’-Courses, 23 NPDEs, 8 ACEs
and 7 PGCEs, 5 BEd honours, 8 honours degrees and 8 degrees and 6 BTech degrees. This therefore
includes 32 post graduate degrees, 14 undergraduate degrees, 30 first teaching degrees and 7
occupational qualifications.
Figure 7: Current professional studies
Courses currently being undertaken Number
Post Graduate Degrees 32
Undergraduate Degrees 14
Occupational qualifications 7
Nu
mb
er o
f le
ctu
rers
11
Academic PhDs 4
Academic Masters Degrees 10
Academic Honours Degrees 8
Teaching Masters Degrees 4
Teaching Honours Degrees 5
Initial Teaching Qualifications 30
Total 114
Short training programmes
Assessor qualifications featured strongly amongst lecturers. Lecturers were asked to indicate their
achievement of the OD-ETD unit standards in assessment, moderation, verifier and facilitating
learning. 84.4% (636) have completed assessor training, 43.1% (325) have completed moderator
training and 3,2% (24) have completed verifier training. Only 19,1% (144) though, have completed a
course in facilitating learning, illustrating the gap between teaching and assessment where lecturers
are trained in assessment procedures but often fail to see the necessary link between learning and
assessment. According to lecturer responses, these courses were largely sponsored by college funds
(about 90%), though there were lecturers who paid for the training themselves.
While the lecturer qualifications profile can best be described as multi-faceted, a pattern emerges of
a fairly well-qualified lecturing staff across a range of areas, though viewed in terms of discrete areas
of expertise qualifications achievement has been uneven and patchy, with considerable overlap. A
substantive number of lecturers are furthering or completing studies in one or other area, while
assessor and moderator training has been widespread in the sector.
LECTURERS’ WORKPLACE AND TEACHING EXPERIENCE
This section examines lecturer experience in terms of both workplace experience and teaching
experience. These two forms of experience are disaggregated further by duration and currency of
workplace and teaching experience.
WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE
There is a dearth of workplace experience amongst lecturers. 50.9% of lecturers responded that they
had workplace experience. They were asked to indicate the period spent in the workplace (industry)
as well as their period of college teaching. Figure 4 provides a histogram of the distribution of
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number of years in industry (non-teaching capacity) and reveals that 35% of lecturers had more than
5 years work experience prior to entering college teaching.
This result is directly relevant to the proposed DoE Framework for FET College Lecturer
Development. The Framework proposes a subject matter qualification, a teaching qualification, and
3 years work experience in the case of vocational teachers. According to lecturer responses about
31% of the staff hold a teaching qualification and three year’s work experience. However, questions
about the kind work experience required by policy, and how experience is to be evaluated are still
unclear at this stage. Given the range of qualifications, and differing understandings about what
constitutes ‘sufficient’ work experience, it is difficult to comment on the suitability of current staff or
their future qualification/experience requirements.
Figure 8: Histogram of years spent in a non-teaching workplace (n=383)
The study also took into account the years that lecturers have been out of the workplace. Figure 5
shows that the years after having left the workplace prior to entering college teaching ranged from 1
year to 40 years. On average lecturers have last been in a workplace 9.4 years ago. Two potential
implications of this result are that college lecturers have had limited exposure to relevant
workplaces after being employed as a college lecturer, and, the number of lecturers with more
recent experience are probably newer recruits into the sector. Whilst these results would require
further investigation, it does imply that more opportunities for workplace exposure are needed to
retain the currency of lecturers’ workplace experience.
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Figure 9: Number of lecturers by years out of workplace
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Teaching experience was the second area of experience examined. The various routes into college
teaching followed by lecturers would probably be an interesting study in its own right. Most
lecturers had taught before entering the college sector: some entered teaching directly from a
workplace, some entered teaching at a relatively advanced age, and there was a range of
permutations in the sequencing of academic, workplace and pedagogical studies, and teaching and
work experiences. 61% of lecturers reported that they had taught before entering the college sector
and had gained teaching experience outside of the college. It would appear that the majority of FET
college lecturers are recruited from the schooling sector.
The amount of teaching experience overall, and the amount of teaching experience at a college
specifically are shown in Figure 6 and Figure 7. Figure 6 shows a wealth of teaching experience
distributed over 1 to 58 years of teaching experience with teachers on average having taught for
16.5 years. However it also shows a large number of new teachers entering the college sector. Figure
7 shows that the average period of college teaching experience is 8.7 years which is considerably less
than the overall teaching time. As suggested in the previous paragraph, this would be because the
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majority of lecturers were recruited from teaching posts outside the college sector. Figure 7 also
provides the length of service of lecturers within the college sector (i.e. at any of the colleges). The
large number of relatively new entrants into the college sector is indicative of staff turnover and
growth. If this trend continues into the future, it would suggest the increasing need for induction
and support provision.
Figure 10: Number of lecturers by years of teaching experience including in the FET college sector.
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Figure 11: Number of lecturers by years of FET college experience
TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS AND WORKPLACE EXPERIENCE
The overlap between teaching qualifications and workplace experience and between teaching
qualifications and previous teaching experience provides some insights into routes that FET college
lecturers take into FET colleges and the diversity of the FET college lecturer workforce. The data
shows that there were equal numbers of lecturers at Western Cape colleges entering the profession
either directly from the workplace or through a teaching qualification. Figure 7 shows the distribution
of teaching qualifications and workplace experience amongst lecturing staff.
Figure 7: Cross tabulation of teaching qualifications and workplace experience
No teaching qualification Has teaching qualification
Work experience Workplace only
30%
Workplace and Teaching
32%
No work
experience
Neither workplace nor teaching
5%
Teaching only
33%
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Figure 8 provides an indication of lecturers’ teaching qualifications and teaching experience. From
Figure 8 it can be seen that a majority of lecturers (52%) hold a (school) teaching qualification. An
additional 10% have no teaching qualification, but have gained teaching experience. Only 15% of
college lecturers entered college teaching directly after completing teaching qualifications. 23% of
lecturers entered college teaching without teaching qualifications or previous teaching experience
and presumably came mainly from industry or other workplace contexts.
Figure 8: Cross tabulation of teaching qualification and non-college teaching experience
No teaching qualification
Has teaching qualification
Taught Previously
Unqualified and teaching experience
10%
Qualified and teaching experience
52%
Did not teach previously
Unqualified and no teaching experience
23%
Qualified and no teaching experience
15%
EMPLOYMENT STATUS
LENGTH OF SERVICE
Employment is somewhat turbulent in the college sector. Figure 12 shows the number of lecturers
by hire date, with cumulative percentages and a moving average. Nearly a third of the lecturing staff
have been hired in the past 2 years, 22% in the past year. It is not clear what these figures represent
causally1, other than relatively short lengths of service for a significant percentage of the staff. Figure
14 shows that about 46 % of staff have contracts till the end of 2008 for whatever reason. Figure 13
disaggregates the cumulative total by contract status, showing an increased incidence of non-
standard employment as younger cohorts are added. Again this does not necessarily show casuality2,
1 For example the college could be growing, or there could be a high staff turnover or ‘revolving door’
employment practices. A baseline study would not be able to determine trends.
2 If short term contracts were non-renewable or project based, these would be logically correlated to length of
service, but there are also various instances of contract staff in long service.
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but it does show a tapering off of permanent workers. If, however, a significant portion of the
lecturer workforce is being casualised, this would have significant implications for the
conceptualisation of teacher education and professional development.
Earlier, in the section on Teaching experience it was noted that there were high levels of teaching experience,
and a number of lecturers (over 60%) entering college teaching from other teaching contexts. It also showed
that younger teachers (post 1999) as a group tended to be less likely than older teachers to have teaching
qualifications.
Figure 12: Cumulative totals of lecturers by hire date
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Figure 13: Cumulative Total of lecturers by hire date (disaggregated by employment type)
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
8001970
1974
1975
1977
1978
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Other
Temporary
Contract
Permanent
Figure 14: Lecturer profile by contract expiry date (2008
sample)
, 373, 50%
2008, 350, 46%
2009, 24, 3%
2010, 4, 1%
2011, 1, 0%
2013, 1, 0%
2012, 1, 0%
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
PART-TIME AND FULL-TIME
Cu
mu
lati
ve N
um
ber
of
lect
ure
rs
19
Non-standard employment has been less prevalent in terms of part-time employment. Figure 15
shows that the college environment is predominantly a full-time employment environment, though
there is a growing part-time lecturer component. Earlier reports (e.g. NBI 2004) have suggested that
employment practices may have been constrained by particular workload formulae. This survey
shows that lecturers by and large have full-time employment though earlier calls for ‘more flexible’
or ‘responsive’ workforces may gain ground under the provisions of the FET Colleges Act (RSA 2006).
From a teacher education perspective, the prevalence of part-time staff and a more mobile college
workforce would pose a challenge.
Figure 15: Full time vs part-time lecturers
, 38, 5%
Full Time, 635, 84%
Other, 19, 3%
Part Time, 62, 8%
CASUALISATION OF VET WORKFORCE
Recent trends in VET employment practices have pointed toward increasing casualisation of the FET college
workforce as a global push (Stehlik et al 2003, Smith 2003). There are debates as to why this is so. Some link it
to changes in the nature of the economy and moves towards flexible employment, while others link it to FET
reforms and the impact of managerialism, decentralization and cost- sharing. Figure 27 shows that a significant
number of college lecturers are contract staff (45%), though the majority of lecturers are still permanent. This
is consistent with trends in vocational colleges in Anglophone countries where standard forms of employment
are still in the majority, but where casualised labour is on the increase. Figure 16 shows the distribution of
contract vs permanent posts by college. This indicates that practices vary across colleges, with some colleges
being predominantly contract based. The contracts are predominantly one year contracts, with most of them
ending in 2008. Further investigation shows that a number of vocational teachers without teaching
qualifications are on short-term contracts. The source of such casualisation is not clear, and could stem from a
variety of sources, for instance how the college conducts business, an increase in short term business
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contracts, policy uncertainty resulting from the legislative shift to college councils as employers, issues around
recruiting and retaining appropriately qualified staff, or college hiring practices and college employment
philosophies. An increase in casualisation and short-term contract staff is likely to have an impact on the
training culture and the capacity and willingness of colleges to train.
Figure 16: Lecturer profile by permanent or contract employment
, 47, 6%
Contract, 341, 45%
Other, 9, 1%
Permanent, 314, 42%
Temporary, 43, 6%
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Figure 17: Distribution of permanent and contract posts by college
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
COLLEGE A COLLEGE B COLLEGE C COLLEGE D COLLEGE E COLLEGE F
Other
Temporary
Contract
Permanent
Figure 18: Types of employment contract as percentage of lecturers at
college
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
COLLEGE A COLLEGE B COLLEGE C COLLEGE D COLLEGE E COLLEGE F
Other
Temporary
Contract
Permanent
Nu
mb
er o
f le
ctu
rers
P
erc
enga
ge o
f le
ctu
rers
per
co
llege
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DECENTRALISATION OF STAFF EMPLOYMENT
The FET Colleges Act (RSA 2006) passed the responsibility for staff employment to the college
councils. Earlier research reported that lecturers prior to 2006 were employed in ‘establishment’
(state appointments) and ‘non-establishment’ (i.e. college appointments) posts (NBI 2004). Colleges
had been hiring their own staff additional to that allowed for by the state’s budget since the early
1990s with the differentially funded ‘state-aided’ and ‘state-funded’ colleges. In the wake of the
recent FETC Act, lecturers were given the choice of remaining provincial Department of Education
appointees (and subject to redeployment) or transfer to college council appointees (subject to
college conditions of service after an initial 12 month period). The decentralisation of staff
appointments and conditions of service (in what Akoojee (2008) calls ‘managed autonomy’) creates
different centres for the management (and payment) of training, and potentially creates new
dynamics for staff recruitment, retention and retraining in the sector.
We now turn to more qualitative findings gleaned from focus group interviews with college staff
members who commented on what they considered to be their training and development needs.
Given the pictures that have been drawn above on ‘who’ FET college lecturers are and ‘where’
they come from, the information gathered and reported below is instructive as to ‘what’ college
personnel think they need from those who will provide training into the future.
COLLEGE LECTURER TRAINING NEEDS: FINDINGS
The findings presented below concern the nature of the work of college lecturers i.e. those involved
in workplace training such as learnerships and skills programmes as well as those teaching official
NCV curricula, and additional aspects of college lecturer development.
NATURE OF COLLEGE LECTURERS’ WORK
Section 6.2.4 noted that vocational teachers’ work was shifting, diversifying, expanding and
intensifying in other countries. Our research suggested that similar changes were happening to
college lecturers’ work in South Africa, placing new pressures and competence requirements on
lecturers. Lecturers themselves afforded insights into how their working lives were changing in the
South African context and the kind of preparation that they felt this entailed. While colleges were
being called upon to be responsive to the practical needs of industry and business - make learners
employable and train for a growing economy - new curricula made challenging cognitive demands of
lecturers in terms of high-level knowledge and skills required. This report therefore disaggregates
lecturers’ perceived needs with regard to the workplace training component of programmes, and
that of their classroom teaching component.
Training needs related to the world of work
Programme managers and lecturers reported that they were not directly involved in training at the
workplace itself. Where workplace training did take place, it was conducted directly by the
companies while the colleges’ role was off-the-job training and brokering workplace arrangements.
However colleges constantly sought practical exposure for learners through a variety of strategies
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such as workshops, simulations and job placements, as lecturers reported difficulties in obtaining
work placements from companies, with one factor being workplace safety compliance responsibility.
In addition colleges offered the fundamentals component of learnerships or provided assessment
services. Lecturers felt that current training in the NCV programme emphasised theoretical
understanding of particular vocations and that this was a shift from the more ‘practical focus’ of
artisan training to which some lecturers and learners had been more accustomed.
The changing relationship with the world of work implied by reform of FET policy and new curricula
gave rise to a range of competencies that lecturers found that they needed.Lecturers requested
assistance to align the pace, sequencing and content of college curricula with the workplace so as to
maximize learners’ experiences there, but also to bring learners’ experiences at the workplace back
into their instruction. The need to obtain more recent work experience and to keep up with
technology in the field was a common theme. A respondent commented that:
we need training in job shadowing, Courses on how to integrate work and learning and
integrating work into curriculum, especially NCV 4. (Lecturer Focus Group plenary discussion
notes)
Another perceived need was that of engaging with industry. Programme managers reported that
developing relationships with industry was a key skill. Learnership and apprenticeship programmes
required a structured work environment and in some NCV programmes colleges attempted to give
learners workplace exposure. Some lecturers thus took on the task of engaging with industry
without the benefit of any training in this regard, and felt that they were not maximizing the
potential opportunities for learners because of their own inexperience of the workplace terrain.
In SETA supported training programmes where workplace learning was required, lecturers had
difficulty managing the learning at both the college and workplace learning sites. Lecturers had to
oversee learners’ logbooks or in some instances provide assessment services when companies did
not have this capacity. Campus innovation units were often called upon to offer the fundamental
components of full qualifications, resulting in lack of integration with other related components of
the qualification. Lecturers desired further development within their subject specialism and expertise
in the field, as well as becoming more technologically literate. In particular, lecturers requested
updated industry experience and assistance in expanding their repertoire of teaching and assessment
skills.
Training needs related to classroom teaching
Lecturers regarded the new NCV curricula as more academically challenging than their previous
NATED curricula, resulting in the need for more training in teaching and classroom management. In
addition, the new curricula tested the limits of their subject matter knowledge. Lecturers
complained about the curriculum being too broad and diffuse, and examination requirements being
too vague, making it difficult to know what was required of their learners, the curriculum emphasis
and the depth required on a given topic. They wanted help in interpreting the curriculum documents,
but also in arriving at a common understanding of what was required. Moreover, lecturers felt that
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the curriculum required a stronger content base and more subject specialism on their part. It
required them to be able to access and source additional information to satisfy the knowledge
component of the curriculum.
The student profile according to lecturers had changed, with more learners needing academic and
other support. These included having to deal with diversity, multilingualism, behavior management
and learner motivation, counseling and ‘remedial’ work.
Lecturers were concerned about finding ways of addressing the administrative and other workloads.
Thus they expressed a need for curriculum, subject, pedagogical and learner knowledge, to cope with
an increased examination focus and with the new student profile.
LECTURER VIEWS ON TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
Lecturers felt that there was a need for upgrading qualifications, but that RPL and in-service training
methods were needed especially for those who had been teaching in the college sector for a long
time and had gained much experience. Lecturers were uncertain as to how to access opportunities,
or how the CPD points system worked/would work in practice. They were uncertain about which
qualification route to follow that would enhance their status and have portability in the future. They
were of the view that new qualifications should afford prospective lecturers wider options of career
paths in the future.
SUMMARY OF LECTURER NEEDS
The data on lecturer needs in this section supports the theory that lecturers need a ‘polycontextual’
range of competencies in order to fully deliver the new curricula (Young 1996). This includes
academic, pedagogical, workpace, curriculum and organizational competences.
The data also supports the theory that the nature of vocational teachers’ work is changing: it is not
only shifting, but expanding, diversifying, and intensifying. Whilst direct involvement of college
teachers in training at the workplace (as a learning site) is not evident, there still appears to be
marked shifts in the nature of lecturer work which place a number of new demands on lecturers.
More specifically, lecturers felt a need to be oriented toward both classroom-based teaching and
workplace-integrated learning. In addition, lecturers raised matters of professional wellbeing such as
managing their workload, administrative functions and supporting learners in a changing and diverse
student population. Lecturers expressed the need to be more prepared as traditional teachers in
areas like curriculum knowledge, administration, classroom and learner management, and subject
specialism knowledge on the one hand. On the other hand, lecturers teaching vocational subjects
and occupational programmes said they wanted more workplace experience and exposure to
technology in their field. In addition they noted the need to integrate theory and practicals, offer
students’ workplace experience, as well as gain access to additional sources of information. FET
reform had placed before lecturers the challenges of a more academic, cognitively demanding
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curriculum at the same time as it challenged their learning provision to be more workplace
integrated. FET reform had resulted in a changing student profile, organizational arrangements and
teacher workloads. Lecturers have attempted to rise to these challenges, but without adequate
support for meeting the required skills and knowledge base, FET reform itself may be at risk.
IMPLICATIONS OF LECTURERS’ PROFILE AND TRAINING NEEDS FOR THE TRAINING OF
COLLEGE LECTURERS
The profile of college lecturers in the Western Cape that emerges from the statistics reported earlier
in this report, and the expressed needs gathered in focus group interviews, are instructive for those
planning vocational teacher education for the future. Factors to be taken into account include the
diverse, but uneven and multifaceted qualifications profile of lecturers; significant differences
between colleges; types of support needed for different cohorts evident by the different routes
taken into college teaching; language and other diversity challenges; workplace experience and
issues of recruitment into the college sector.
Figure 2 (Venn diagram of overlapping qualifications) suggests that 90% of staff lack one or other
form of expertise (teaching, workplace experience, academic/subject matter competence). Current
thinking on vocational pedagogy suggests a combination of academic, pedagogic and workplace
expertise as optimal (e.g. Young 1995, Barnett 2006).
Lecturers have followed various pathways into vocational teaching, indicated by Figure 9 herein.
52% of lecturers surveyed were ex-teachers, mostly from the school sector, with teaching
qualifications obtained in an earlier education dispensation. Thus continuing professional
development and qualifications upgrading in terms of modernized college curricula and new
teaching approaches would be important elements of a training system. The second largest grouping
(23%) would be those who entered teaching without teaching qualifications or experience. These
would require induction and support programmes to enable them to cope with the college
environment, and in the longer term to gain access to appropriate qualifications. The smaller, but
still sizeable grouping of first time teachers will require support and possibly access to work
experience, while experienced, unqualified teachers will require initial teaching qualifications.
The data showed that a large proportion of college lecturing staff lack workplace experience and
where this does exist, its currency is unevenly dispersed. Whilst there are lecturers with relatively
recent experience, many lecturers reported long periods out of workplaces or having no workplace
experience at all. This aspect of teacher education provision may need to be considered seriously if
lecturers’ understanding of the workplace relative to what they are teaching is regarded as
important for the training of their college learners. As it stands, more than 70% of lecturers have not
had workplace exposure for the past five years or more, and may have missed important innovation
and development in particular industries that affect future employment opportunities for college
learners.
Lecturers’ age profiles and age entry characteristics are indicative of their life circumstances and life
histories, and suggest further study into lecturer dispositions and motivations. Furthermore, given
the current average lecturer’s age, and the ages at which lecturers entered the college sector,
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continuing professional development courses would need to be packaged in ways that encourage
and enable participation by adult learners.
The statistics on college lecturer demographics suggest that diversity in college employment is an
issue. There is limited linguistic diversity, and African lecturers appear to be concentrated at
particular campuses. Depending on how college managements deal with issues of diversity, this has
the potential for lecturers from particular population groups to feel isolated or alienated at
particular campuses. Multilingualism and creating inclusive environments are potentially issues that
lecturers themselves may be poorly equipped to deal with given the current lecturing staff profile.
Further study is required to establish how these issues manifest at campus level.
CONCLUSION
College lecturers are critical to the human resource development strategy in general and to FET
reform in particular. This study investigated the existing profile and needs of current FET college
lecturers in the Western Cape. The findings of this study are supported by findings in relevant
literature that vocational lecturers require academic, workplace, pedagogical and organizational
skills to implement FET reforms. The study found further that whilst a combination of academic,
workplace and pedagogical skills are required, between 70% and 90% of lecturers do not have this
combined expertise. This is similar to many international contexts where vocational teacher training
often occurs after employment in a vocational college.
The results suggest that a robust vocational teacher education system will need to incorporate not
only higher education provision (both academic and teacher education faculties), but also provide
for contributory lecturer development at workplaces and colleges. Moreover, a system of lecturer
development should incorporate induction, support, preparation and ongoing professional
development.
Unfortunately limited infrastructure currently exists to support college lecturers in meeting the
challenges posed by a rapidly changing policy environment. This puts FET college reform and the
human resource development strategy at risk. The evidence from this research suggests that the
phased implementation of a robust and reconceptualised VTE sector is a worthwhile and necessary
enterprise.