virtues of construction training in traditional societies

Pergamon

PII: SO360-1323(96)00073-X

&d/ding and Enuironmenf, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 289-294, 1997

C 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd. All nehts reserved Prmted in &eat Britain

036&1323/97 Sl7.00+0.00

Virtues of Construction Training in Traditional Societies

A. B. NGOWI* (Received 28 August 1996; revised 26 September 1996; accepted 14 November 1996)

indigenous construction technologies were transferred from one generation to another through training by participation in all aspects of construction. Trainees were required to master knowledge of materials, construction techniques andplanning in so much detail that they hardly needed written references. Today, construction is more complex and has to be learned through a combination of education and training. This paper discusses theproblemsfacing contemporary construction training and proposes facets which may be learned from training in traditional societies in order to address them. It concludes by emphasising that great attention should be paid to integrating construction education and training. 0 1991 Elsevier Science Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

IN the traditional European societies, the master mason and master carpenter headed a construction team as he served in two capacities at once, both architect and contractor [l]. He stayed in contact with the client(s) and at any stage of construction, if a design change was required as a result of practical considerations or the client’s wish, he immediately attended to it. He saw the project from a broad picture as well as in detail given the fact that he had administrative skills based on thorough and com- prehensive knowledge of the work.

The other members of the construction team were craftsmen and their helpers. The craftsmen were responsible for procuring materials, obtaining tools, scheduling operations and paying bills in their respective craft areas as well as performing the actual labour. The helpers performed most of the ancillary activities so that the craftsmen could be free to do what they did best.

In the traditional African societies, construction was an activity for all members of the community. Everyone had a role to play and, through participation, the building skills were passed down from one generation to another. In some parts of Africa, there were families of builders responsible for all the building activities in their communities. Building skills were passed down the generations among the members of these families only.

In the contemporary societies, on the other hand, the construction industry has been split into a maze of specialised roles-architect, engineer, supplier, builder inspector, broker, buyer, insurer and sometimes tenant. In this case, each participant behaves according to the imperative he or she faces, whether that be minimising up-front costs, maximising a commission, or meeting a deadline [2]. The design and construction roles which were successfully done by the master builder in con-

*Department of Civil Engineering, University of Botswana, Private Bag 0061, Gaborone, Botswana, Africa.

sultation with his client in the traditional European societies or by the members of the community in the traditional African societies, are now often handled by different organisations and, as a result, are almost totally isolated from each other. In general terms, this situation is inherently inefficient, fully harnessing neither the skills of the contractor/manufacturer during the design, nor the speed of automation and information technology to transfer information from the designer to the contractor/manufacturer, with the result that many parts of the process are done by both parties. It has also led to an adversarial attitude between parties on either side of the divide which, in the longer term, must be counter-pro- ductive.

The craftsman has also been put at the receiving end. Although everyone else on the project has special skills that contribute in some way in getting the job done, the craftsman, because of history reflected in both his formal and on-the-job training, is the only one who could probably do the whole job himself. The others therefore support him and perform functions that assist him, not vice versa. They do this so he can be free to do what they cannot: perform the labour.

Participation by the members of the community in building activities, which was very successfully implemented in traditional African societies, has also disappeared because a person needs special skills before he/she can contribute meaningfully in the new scenario. The acquisition of these skills is no longer a matter of participation in the building activities. One needs to attend courses at special centres which, besides separating the theoretical and practical elements of the skills, are not readily accessible to the majority of the members of the communities.

Against this background, the present paper explores the integration of education and training in contemporary societies with a view to incorporating what worked in the traditional societies. Although today construction is more complicated and involves more special-

A. B. Nqowi

ised areas, a reassessment of the practical virtues of the construction training in traditional societies is needed, not to promote a sentimental backward-looking and inevitably artificial imitation of pre-industrial times, but to assess what worked best and can be adopted for incor- poration into the modern milieu.

CONSTRUCTION TRAINING IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES

Informal design and construction education began in prehistoric times as soon as there were skills to acquire. According to Mead [3] “the ability to learn is older-as it is also more widespread-than is the ability to teach”. At its most rudimentary level, learning, even among ani- mals, involves trial and error problem solving. An early shelter builder possibly piled rocks together, and when they collapsed he may have experimented with a roof of broken tree branches, until eventually he created a successful shelter. While struggling with the problem, he repeated those forms which worked and avoided those which repeatedly failed. By this simple mechanism he learned at least one way of building a shelter that he could subsequently repeat. Those which worked were passed on in the form of traditional, rigid and apparently arbitrary rules for selecting sites, orienting the building and choosing the material, building methods and design

[41. However, these early individuals did not live alone.

and were not entirely dependent upon their own personal inventive skills for solving every problem. Others in their culture had faced similar problems, and had developed successful artefacts and skills for dealing with them. By imitating successful forms already existing within their cultural traditions, these individuals were guided to successful solutions without suffering the inevitable failures inherent in the trial and error approach. Even the animal world learns skills through imitation [3]. Cultural traditions allowed the individual to share in the collective experiences of many generations, and made their collective work more efficient. These two processes of learning, i.e. imitation and trial and error experimentation, originated in man’s dim past and are still the fundamental basis of learning today. Although in the earliest stages of culture individuals depended entirely upon unconscious forms of imitation, with increasing complexity in the culture the adults began to see the need for more explicit directions to the young. Starting with little more than “demonstrating the right behaviour or pointing with disapproval at the wrong behaviour”, the efforts to teach the essential skills and behaviour to the young gradually became more formalised [3].

Construction training in traditional European so&ties In medieval Europe, out of parental guidance grew

the apprenticeship system behind all craft training even today, and behind most subsequent systems of architectural and construction education. In the apprenticeship system, a novice who wished to learn a skill assisted a master who already commanded that skill. Working alongside the master as he himself performed the skill, the novice observed the master, attempted the

skill, and then was corrected. Often the master could not give a reason why the skill ought to be performed in a particular way, other than that it worked. Theory and abstract knowledge were not important components of this early educational system.

In the middle ages, craft guilds which were at first informal and voluntary, and later regulated by the various municipal authorities, grew. Workers in the same trade banded together to pursue common interests like securing raw materials, worshipping together and, most importantly, controlling and regulating the craft itself [5]. One form this control took was to establish a monopoly and combat foreign trade, thus ensuring a steady and profitable supply of work for the guild members. Another form of control was to regulate the quality of work, and to do this, the guilds naturally took over responsibility for training the young. Typically, an intending young craftsman served an apprenticeship under a master, who was himself a qualified practitioner and member of the guild, for seven years [5]. The master supplied his apprentice with food, clothing and shelter, and taught him the essential skills and knowledge required in the first stage of his education. The apprentice, in turn, gave the master free help on the projects in the workshop. Occasionally, the parents of an apprentice paid a premium to a par- ticularly well-regarded master, to ensure their child a place in a good workshop. An apprentice architect or builder usually first learned a building craft, carpentry or masonry or both, and worked alongside the builders on actual projects. At the same time, through his mem- bership in the guild and from his master, he learned trade secrets including how to generate a plan and elevations through geometrical manipulations, and how to design important construction details and how to design facades. Many of these secrets were transmitted by means ofjealously guarded pattern books, which set out specific exemplars of good practice. Distinguished practitioners in each generation added to these books, drawing upon their own experiences and innovations, and in this way the guild’s design traditions naturally evolved over time. Other jealously guarded secrets of master craftsmen were only worked out in private lodges and discussed behind closed doors at period synods [6, 71. Even the secrets of design were disclosed only at the end of the medieval period [8].

Unlike Vitruvius’ [9] proposal for basing education on abstract principles found in the liberal arts, education in the guild was based first and foremost on particular examples of architectural, geometrical and decorative form. After training with the master, the intending construction professional worked for three more years as a journeyman, travelling to observe and sketch notable exemplars around Europe and working on various building sites in various trades to gain experience. After set- tling down, he presented a masterpiece of work to the guild in order to prove his competence, and to qualify as a master in his own right. If he passed this test he was allowed to secure commissions for work and even to take on apprentices himself.

Construction training in traditional African societies In traditional African societies, cultural heritage is

handed down orally from one generation to the next.

Virtues of Construction Training in Traditional Societies 291

In Africa, houses were built using local materials only. Permanent houses would have been an embarrassment for many people, for instance the hunters and gatherers such as Pygmies, Bushmen, the migrant pastoralists such as Fulani and Masai, or the peoples who practised agric- ulture and moved on every four or five years. The temporary nature of many of such buildings, contrary to epitomising an unstable and unsure society, provided solutions which worked in that particular environment. There was probably more feeling of permanence in many African societies than in, say, medieval Europe. Such feelings were strengthened through religious and social order, through such ideas as those that people were ances- tors in the making and that the aged had authority, in order to counter the hazards of impinging on society

vol. The buildings were created without the aid of architects

or even specialised builders. As Equino [ 1 l] wrote of the Ibo communities of West Africa, “every man is a sufficient architect for the purpose. The whole neigh- bourhood afford their unanimous assistance in building... and in return receive and expect no other recompose than a feast”. The architecture was a personal adaptation of a group solution. The houses erected by a particular society were in a style which had been communally worked out over generations and consequently more closely tailored to the needs of its people. Traditional construction in at least the rural areas of East and Central Africa was almost always a highly co-operative venture as noted by Curtin [ 111. Building would be a major social occasion in which both the men and women of a village co-operated. Thatching was often done by women and ritual jokes about their slowness were made by the men, who of course finished the walls long before the women’s roof was complete. As noted by Kenyatta [12], the Kikuyu custom was emphatic in insisting that the building must be completed in a day, for leaving it unfinished overnight would be an invitation to evil spirits. This one day would actually be the culmination of perhaps several weeks spent by a man and his family preparing the necessary building materials. A wealth of custom and tradition surrounded the construction process in almost every society. Given the types of dwellings prevalent in Africa as constructed using the limited materials available, it becomes obvious that a good deal of skill which had been carefully developed over a long period of time was employed. These construction skills were passed down from every member of one generation to every member of the next, since few houses outlasted a single lifetime. This has been a major exercise in frequently non-literate societies.

Schapera [ 131 observed similar construction training trends in Tswana communities in Southern Africa as he wrote “...in the past, each household in Tswana communities built its own houses and granaries and did its own housework.... Men, women and children all con- tributed....” In this kind of situation, there were no specialist builders whose sole activity was to build houses. By participating in house building, everyone in the communities got some idea of what was involved, although some people mastered the skills more proficiently than others and would from time to time become leaders in such activities.

Traditional construction training in West Africa was slightly different from what was observed in East, Central and Southern Africa. In this region, there were families of builders and training was done specifically for their members through continuous and uninterrupted participation in building activities. As noted by Clapperton [14]

The Friday Mosque in Zaria built by Babban Gwani Mallan Mikaila for Emir Abdulkarim in the 1830s is very much similar to the one being built in Sokoto and designed by a man from Zaria whose father, also a builder, studied “Moorish” architecture in Egypt, The resemblance is so close that it is more than likely that they were built by the same man, or at least by close relatives of the same family of builders.

The narration continued to state that the post of the chief builder was still held by the direct male descendant of Babban Gwani, which seems a good reason to believe that the chief builder of Zaria before Babban Gwani was a more senior male member of his family. It further explained that the male descendants of Babban Gwani are today the leading family of builders in Zaria, their knowledge having passed down to them from their ances- tors.

The review of construction training in traditional societies shows that there was no clear demarcation between crafts and construction professions. Knowledge and skills were acquired in a long continuum whereby crafts represented the early stages of the ultimate knowledge of the master. It further shows that construction training was achieved through participation in building activities. From Europe to Africa, oral not written tradition was followed in training apprentice and journeyman, the members of the family of builders or members of the community in the building trades. Construction skills were learned by example and demonstration at the site.

CONSTRUCTION EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES

Contrary to the traditional societies where training in construction was done orally and by demonstration on site, contemporary societies rely heavily on construction technologies developed elsewhere, which are not necessarily based on local environment and materials. For these technologies to be employed, they need to be modified to suit local conditions. The modification process cannot be done by people who have learned them solely through “learning by doing” since they need to know the basic scientific and technological theory behind them. Such scientific knowledge, which is indispensable for adaptation, modification and development of technologies, can only be learned through education.

Education in general has much loftier ideals than those of preparation for employment. At its best it is concerned with the development of the individual’s full range of abilities and aptitudes, with the cultivation of spiritual and moral values, with the nurturing of imagination and sensibility, with the transmission and reinterpretation of culture. Indeed there is a strong tradition within education which derides the instrumental or utilitarian and which regards vocational matters as being improper educational concerns [ 1.51.

292 A. B. Ngowi

To avoid this derision, construction education has to be complemented with proper training so that its rel- evance can be seen practically. Although training in its fullest sense includes further education, widely based so that the trainees become more skilled in their profession, happier in the job, and are made aware of opportunities for advancement or even for changing their training should they want to, there are always problems of integrating education with training, as was established by a survey of graduates in construction disciplines from the University of Botswana.

Survey of graduates in construction disciplines ,from the University of Botswana

Degree programmes in Engineering at the University of Botswana started in 1990 and hitherto three cohorts have graduated. A total number of 38 graduates studied construction related programmes such as project management, contract administration, site organisation and management, etc. Towards the end of March 1996 a survey was carried out, one of the objectives of which was to determine how successfully the graduates have integrated the education they obtained from the Uni- versity with the training at their work places. The methodology adopted for the survey was to visit each graduate and ask oral questions related to integration of their education and training, and whether the courses at the University needed improvement to enable easier integration. The majority of the graduates observed that the problems they were facing in integrating their education with training were as follows.

When they were recruited they expected that they would be “trained” just as they were “educated”. Many of them found it difficult to make the transition from being educated, where they were the focus of resources, to being required to learn as an adjunct to producing useful work; they felt inadequately supported because the prime focus was work output and not their personal development. This corroborates what was observed by Steels [16] among British civil engineering trainees. The transition from education to training is fraught with problems and insecurities as one discovers that construction is not quite what you were taught and that one’s skill at assimilating material is ineffective due to a lack of readily available information. One is no longer told what to learn, the only syllabus is a rather vague col- lection of objectives; there are no previous examination papers for one to look at and no textbooks of worked examples to memorise. One must quickly develop new learning skills and explore alternative methods of accumulating knowledge and experience.

Employers, too, created problems when they sought vocational competence that would allow graduates to be capable of producing useful work in their first day of employment. The ethos of construction education is necessarily different from that of business, and a key feature of successful integration of education and training is a clear understanding by both educational institutions and industry of the functions of each. The industry must accept the role of training while the education institutions concentrate on imparting knowledge.

Another problem concerning integration of education and training faced by the graduates is that there is a

general reluctance by employers to train recruits from educational institutions for anything other than the role envisaged for them when taken on. This often leads to frustrations as the young people expect to exploit their academic capabilities in various areas, especially if those opportunities exist within the company.

Also, none of the organisations recruited the graduates with the intention of developing them for senior pos- itions; such choices are generally made much later, when there is evidence from the workplace of an individual’s abilities. By the time this situation is arrived at, the trainee might have already felt that he/she is not that important to the company and might have already looked for an alternative employer.

The construction programmes at the University of Bot- swana are full-time, where the student is loaded with the theoretical aspects for a period of a year before he/she is fully exposed to actual working conditions. Most graduates indicated that they found it difficult to apply the theoretical knowledge on site. According to them, better results might be obtained if the education phase was done part-time, where students gained their academic qualifications on day or block release while working.

CONSTRUCTION TRAINING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

There is a general tendency for construction engineering graduates from institutions of higher education in developing countries to keep away from the worksite and devote themselves instead to design and administrative work. Only craftsmen and technicians carry out the pro- duction work at the site. This, besides denying the engineers the possibility of applying their academic knowledge to solve problems which may arise on the work site, also results in lack of self-confidence and courage among them.

Studies by the International Labour Organisation [ 171 have also revealed that there is a general lack of management skills among the staff who have managerial responsibilities in most companies. Despite having adequate educational background, these people need management training so that they can relate their education to a real working environment. Acquiring management skill and practising it with success requires a special learning mechanism which according to Hernes [17] consists of three steps: learning the skill and how it is applied; applying the skill in a real working environment; and using the skill to succeed in the environment.

This mechanism, however, requires an integrated training programme with relevant methodology and on-the- job assistance. For instance, step one can and should be achieved through training sessions because this means learning a skill, in which case the training must be practically oriented, tailored to the needs of the participants and presented in an effective learning environment. Step two is a natural outcome of step one. If the course has been useful, the trainees will try to apply the skill. However, no matter how realistic the exercises or case studies used in the course are, they will not have simulated all the factors which the trainees encounter when applying the skill to their own situations. If they try and fail,

Virtues of Construction Training in Traditional Societies 293

discouragement will set in and there will be a danger that they will dismiss the skill as inappropriate to their need. To overcome this danger, trainees should be able to call upon the assistance of advisers or other trainees when necessary. Thus, in order to achieve step two, on-the-job support is needed. Step three is surmounted when the participant effectively uses the acquired skill to succeed in the environment. An example [17] is a trainee who learns the basics of estimating, practices it to prepare tenders (step two) and then uses the skill to prepare tenders which are high enough to earn a reasonable profit, but sufficiently low to win the contract (step three). Step three is related to the operational environment which includes competitors, clients, suppliers of materials and the workforce. Succeeding through using the skill cannot be effectively learned from a training course. The best way of achieving step three may be to form an action learning group where the trainees learn from each other how to apply the acquired skills successfully. At this stage some tangible performance improvement can be expected.

CONCLUSIONS

The purpose of this paper has been to examine how to integrate education and training in construction with reference to how this task was carried out in traditional societies. The problems facing construction education and training, especially in the developing countries, were mentioned with a view to assessing what can be learned from the traditional societies. The following conclusions can be drawn from the discussion.

The construction industry in the traditional societies put emphasis on training by participation in on-going projects. Craft practices were learned by visual example and oral direction. There was a general reluctance by craftsmen to reveal trade secrets on which their superior reputation and standing in their field were founded. This, in effect, made the trainees curious and eager to train hard because a high reputation was guaranteed after attaining competence. The status of master builder was attained after a long and painstaking career in various crafts in which a builder proved to be a master. Such master builders had nominal educational backgrounds, basically in financial and political matters. Their high standing in society was unquestionable as they could assess a project from a general point of view and from a specific, detailed point of view, at the same time. Again, training was through a long process of participation in different types of construction projects. There was direct communication between the master builder and the craftsmen in traditional societies. This was possible because the former was conversant with all crafts and he could give instruction in any craft to make the activity fall in line with the general picture of the project which was constantly in his mind. This ability made the craftsmen train hard in order to acquire such a status.

In most cases, training in construction is pursued after construction education has been completed, in which case the trainees cannot easily relate their academic knowledge with the working environment. As was the case in the traditional societies, the most effective way of learning a skill is to practice it. Hence, part-time education where graduates gain their academic qualifications on day or block release while working should be very effective. Alternatively, a period of industrial experience should be sandwiched within the course. As in the traditional societies, some employers in contemporary societies expect new recruits to produce useful work on their first day of employment. This puts a lot of pressure on graduates from educational institutions because they need to be oriented to the work environment before they can produce much. Moreover, construction education which is oriented in such a way that the graduates can produce useful work on their first day of employment runs into a danger of producing graduates who can only apply established knowledge and techniques to conventional problems without any real understanding of under- lying principles of construction. This can, however, be smoothed by a close co-operation between the educational institutions and industry whereby each party clearly understands its role in “construction education and training”. One of the main problems of integrating construction education and training is that many trainees find it difficult to make the transition from being educated, where they were the focus of resources, to being required to learn as an adjunct to producing useful work; they feel inadequately supported because the prime focus is work output and not their personal development. Again, this can be alleviated by sand- wiching as much industrial experience as possible in the course. In most developing countries, management skills in the construction industry seem to be lacking. By including adequate practical experience in a real work environment as part of the education curriculum, this problem can be alleviated. Alternatively, training programmes to address specific management skills can be organised for practising managers.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The construction industry in contemporary societies This study explored construction education and train- has been split into a maze of specialised roles in which ing by comparing how it was done in the traditional each participant behaves according to the imperatives societies and how it is being done now. It is recommended

he/she faces. The nearest equivalent of the master builder is the project manager who might possess similar administrative skills, but hardly such a wide range of craft skills. This has necessitated creation of several intermediaries in the form of general foremen, super- visors, charge hands, etc. to make communication between the project manager and the craftsmen possible. A construction education and training programme which will enable participants to acquire a wide range of knowledge and skills will go a long way in making project leaders perform as well as the master builders.

294 A. B. Ngowi

that a case study on the integration of education and programme has been able to bridge the gap between the training in a developing country should follow up this contemporary and the traditional construction tech- study to highlight how far the construction education nologies.

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