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

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4

6

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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

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ate

in

Education)

Technic

al T

eachin

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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

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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

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8001970

1974

1975

1977

1978

1980

1981

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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

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of

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rs

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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

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P

erc

enga

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llege

22

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.