An imprint of the Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa
JEANNE GAMBLE
CURRICULUM RESPONSIVENESS IN FET COLLEGES


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Compiled by the Research Programme on Human Resources Development,
Human Sciences Research Council
The research for this book was co-funded by Ntsika Enterprise Promotion Agency.
Published by HSRC Press
Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa
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© 2003 Human Sciences Research Council
First published 2003
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Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 A historical perspective on FET curriculum 5
Introduction 5
From past to future: two modes of interpretation 6
The technical and vocational curriculum considered in historical terms 7
Conclusions: learning from the past 11
Chapter 2 Intermediate knowledge and skill for employment 13
Introduction 13
The ‘new global economy’ 14
Employer demand 18
The impact on education and training 21
Conclusions: from employment to employability 27

Chapter 3 Intermediate knowledge and skill for self-employment 29
Introduction 29
The policy context 29
Two pathways to self-employment 30
The knowledge and skill required for successful self-employment 33
The role of FET institutions in preparation for self-employment 36
Conclusions: learning-led competitiveness 40
Chapter 4 Practice and theory in the FET curriculum 41
Introduction 41
Te c hnological capability – the new demand 41
Bringing practice and theory together 43
Conclusions: linking practice and theory 50


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Chapter 5 Language in the FET curriculum 53
Introduction 53
Communicative competence 54
The role of language in concept formation 56
Language in teaching and learning 57
Conclusions: language and communicative competence 59
Chapter 6 Curriculum futures in FET colleges 61
Introduction 61
The call for employability 61
Possible future curriculum scenarios 63

Education and training for the informal economy 67
Conclusion: curriculum responsiveness 69
References 71
iv curriculum responsiveness in fet colleges


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Introduction
The task of building knowledge and skill at the intermediate level has, for a long
time, been the appointed curriculum responsibility of technical colleges. For many
years, this responsibility and task was part of a system of apprenticeship, which
prepared young men and women, from one population group only, for entry
primarily into the engineering and hairdressing trades. Later, preparation for
various business-related occupations became the focus of many newer colleges,
which did not have strong relationships with those industry sectors that supported
apprenticeships.
Although the technical college sector was the last to be subjected to policy reforms,
the process is now in full swing. Both the Department of Education (DoE) and the
Department of Labour (DoL) have been engaged in a legislative process that has
produced the Further Education and Training Act (1998), the Skills Development Act
(1998) and the Skills Levies Act (1999). Specific reforms to be introduced in South
Africa’s technical colleges were spelled out in A New Institutional Landscape for
Public Further Education and Training Colleges (DoE, 2001).
These legislative and policy instruments are intended to change the nature of
technical and vocational education and training in South Africa, fundamentally.

Once the restructuring of the institutions, and the governance and funding
arrangements have been crystallised, in terms of the new legislative and policy
frameworks, the curriculum will in turn be restructured. The controversy and
debate regarding Curriculum 2005 that is taking place in the primary and
secondary education sector is not the main issue in the further education and
training (FET) college curriculum. The main issues focused on in this sector
have centred round the low pass and throughput rates; the limited range of
programmes offered; and the restrictive nature of centrally administered curricula.
Further concerns are the lack of adequate workshop facilities and the need to
include work experience in the curriculum. In the engineering field, the decline of
the apprenticeship system and the subsequent lack of opportunity for students to
gain practical work experience has added to the requirement for ‘a fundamental
overhaul of programmes and provision’ (DoE, 2001: 12).
What is visualised and proposed is a new and dynamic FET college sector that
can meet a multitude of needs. It is worth quoting from the New Institutional
Landscape document to show the scope that is required.
The support for lifelong learning requires a network of FET colleges. The new system
will need to work with different partners to deliver responsive and relevant
programmes to meet the needs of individuals and the wider social and business
introduction 1


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community as a whole. The achievement of our national policy imperatives of redress
and economic inclusion depends on the existence of accessible, high-quality and cost-

effective learning opportunities for young people and adults. (DoE, 2001: 6)
The implications for the FET curriculum of such policy statements are daunting
and challenging by any standards, but particularly for those institutions that
have a ‘low status’ history and a limited track record in terms of curriculum
development. On what sources can the FET college sector draw to find the
inspiration to develop and deliver the necessary and required curricula?
An answer that comes to mind immediately is that they will want to find out what
FET colleges in other parts of the world are doing. They will also look towards the
newly established Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) for guidance
on how to find their way through the requirements for qualifications and
programmes which have been set by the South African Qualifications Authority
(SAQA) with regard to the National Qualifications Framework (NQF). These
processes are already underway, so this book takes another route. First, it examines
the literature to understand how education and training are linked to employment
and the economy. Second, it looks at current debates and factual evidence on how
to translate the needs of industry and employers into meaningful changes in the
curriculum. This approach is perhaps a controversial one as it lays itself open to
the criticism that economic demands and an instrumental approach are
determining the future of education and training. Can education and training ever
provide only what an economy and employers want? The answer is clearly ‘no’ and
a scan of the recent South African policy documents shows a far broader vision
than one that just focuses on economic demands.
A successful FET system will provide diversified programmes offering knowledge, skills,
attitudes and values South Africans require as individuals and citizens, as lifelong
learners and as economically productive members of society. It will provide the vital
intermediate to higher-level skills and competencies the country needs to chart its own
course in the global competitive world of the 21st century (DoE, 1998b).
However, one of the criticisms of current FET policy documents is that they do
not adequately address the economic context in which the transformation of FET
will take place (McGrath, 2000). The need to be part of the global competitive

world is acknowledged and so is the need for equity and redress, but little is said
about the nature of intermediate and higher-level knowledge and skill and,
particularly, what this means in curriculum terms.
The requirement for FET colleges to prepare their students for a world of work
that includes both employment and self-employment as possible options also
presents challenges. While entrepreneurship and small business management are
currently included as subjects in a range of programmes, there is doubt about
whether these subjects offer sufficient preparation for the complex task of actually
starting a business enterprise. There is also scepticism and doubt expressed about
whether colleges are, in fact, in a position to contribute meaningfully to
2 curriculum responsiveness in fet colleges


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preparation for self-employment. If FET colleges are expected to take on this task
as a mainstream activity and not simply as an add-on to what they really do best,
namely the development of technical and technological capability, will they
succeed? There is widespread acceptance that education and training should have a
particularly important impact on the enhancement of informal job creation in
order to sustain livelihoods. There are many references in the various policy
documents, which point to the need for some form of change to the question of
economic inclusion. This redress should focus on attending to the needs of the
informal economic sector. How such redress is to be achieved, however, is by no
means clear.
Even though we may wish it were possible, theoretical and empirical sources

cannot produce ready-made answers to the questions such as the ones raised
above. Practices cannot be taken out of a particular location in time and space,
and used to serve as solutions in another time and place. Furthermore, all texts are,
to a certain extent, ideologically biased in one direction or another. This bias, in
turn, shapes the explanations and prescriptions the texts articulate. A wide range
of texts has been consulted to ensure that the reader encounters a variety of views
and arguments. Even though the sources used are restricted to texts available in
English, which inevitably emphasises Anglophone (English) interpretations, they
are of sufficient range and quality to provide a balanced perspective.
The first chapter examines the origins of technical and vocational education and
training in South Africa, and traces the ways in which these roots have shaped
curricula over time. In Chapters 2 and 3, the nature of the demand for
intermediate knowledge and skill for employment and self-employment are
explored from both economic and employer perspectives. Placing these two
focuses side by side allows for both common ground and differences to emerge.
In curriculum terms, they are, in fact, not as far apart as many may think.
The ways in which the messages received from economic and employer contexts,
with regard to intermediate knowledge and skill, can be implemented in the
curriculum is dealt with in the fourth and fifth chapters. Chapter 4 deals with
conceptual arguments about the nature of the relationship between theory and
practice, while Chapter 5 examines the role that language and communicative
competence plays in the teaching-learning process. These chapters focus on
practical lessons learnt by other countries that are further along the path of FET
implementation, although evidence from South Africa is also reviewed. In the light
of the evidence and arguments reviewed, the concluding chapter suggests possible
future curriculum scenarios and argues for a set of curriculum principles that
deepen, rather than dilute, knowledge and skill at the intermediate level.
It is hoped that the book contributes to building an understanding of the
complexity of the challenges facing curriculum development in a sector that has
been described as fragmented and without a common institutional character and

identity (DoE, 1995). The educational task of designing, developing and
implementing responsive programmes, needs a ‘community of practice’ that takes
introduction 3


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into account economic and labour market debates yet still defines responsiveness
in terms that can be defended on curriculum grounds. This, in the end, is the
strongest contribution that FET colleges
1
can make towards realising the vision
that guides current policy reforms.
Notes
1Vocational education and training (VET); technical and vocational education and
training (TVET); technical and further education (TAFE); further education (FE) and
further education and training (FET) are terms used in different countries to refer to
more or less the same kind of educational provision, although FET in South Africa is
only partially synonymous as it also covers senior secondary schooling. South Africa is
currently changing from VET to FET and the two terms are used interchangeably.
4 curriculum responsiveness in fet colleges


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chapter 1 5
CHAPTER 1
A historical perspective on
FET curriculum
Introduction
One view of curriculum change is that it should break with the past. Another view
advocates that an analysis of the past should be used as a foundation for
curriculum change. It is the latter view that provides the rationale for this chapter.
Two historical pathways, which have influenced curriculum development in the
technical college sector in South Africa, are sketched. One traces the origins of
technical education and the other traces the origins of industrial or vocational
education. These two pathways were connected to, and partly determined by,
South Africa’s racial legacy. They also, however, pulled technical and vocational
education in directions that bear a marked resemblance to the division between
high skill and low skill that emerges from economic and employer perspectives
reviewed in the next chapter.
The warning is thus, that history may easily repeat itself, with the main dividing
line and determining factor no longer being race, as it was in the past, but rather
the ability of colleges to get the theory-practice combination right. Calls for
increased responsiveness may well lead to a focus on the practical and
occupational that overshadows the educational task of the formation of cognitive
concepts within a theory-practice framework. On the other hand, the continuation
of a system where the majority of students study only theoretical courses, without
access to practical training and on-job experience, is equally problematic from an
educational point of view.
This chapter returns to original formulations of the theory-practice combination
that constitutes knowledge and skill at the intermediate level. It is argued that,

simply because unequal provision based on race determined past policy, this
should not mean that earlier formulations of the theory-practice combination are
ignored and discarded in an attempt to eradicate racial inequity.


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From past to future: two modes of interpretation
Breaking with the past
FET colleges currently function in an environment filled with both institutional
and curricular change (DoE, 2001; Gewer, 2002). Below is an example taken from
a recent South African publication on further education and training. Curriculum
change is depicted as a decisive break with the past in order to establish new ways
of presenting the curricula, which support an integrated approach to education
and training. The call is for a closer ‘fit’ between the everyday world of practical
knowledge and the changing demands of the workplace.
Dowling (1998: 19) argues that past-future representations of this kind of change
rest on a ‘dystopia-utopia’ dichotomy, or split, with both ‘dystopia’ and ‘utopia’ as
imaginary places or conditions: the one (dystopia) where everything is as bad as
possible and the other (utopia) where everything is as perfect as possible.
‘Dystopian-utopian’ dichotomies create problems for the present. This is because
the future is not yet a reality, yet it often becomes the template or model, against
which current practices must be evaluated – a kind of utopian or idealised ‘best
practice’. Gee (1994: 83) argues that such texts seek not just to describe, but also to
create, a new reality, in which boundaries between what ‘is’, what ‘will be’, what
‘must be’ and what ‘ought to be’ are frequently blurred. The past then becomes ‘out
of bounds’, so to speak, and a view of educational change, as one in which new
elements are added to the old, is not considered.
Building on the past

A radical break with the past is one way of mapping out the future. Building on
the past is another. In a complex, comparative analysis of the strategies followed in
6 curriculum responsiveness in fet colleges
Ta b le 1.1 Curriculum changes as a break with the past
The curriculum of the past The curriculum of the future
Focuses on transmitting existing knowledge. Focuses on creating new knowledge as well as
transmitting existing knowledge.
Prioritises divisions in a fixed framework. Prioritises flexibility, continuity, and multiple access
routes and exit points.
Value is placed on knowledge and learning for its Value is placed on how knowledge can be applied
own sake. and used for transformation.
Higher value is placed on subject knowledge Emphasis is placed on the interdependence of
than on relationships between subjects. knowledge areas.
Assumes a hierarchy and boundary between school Emphasis is placed on the relevance of school
and everyday knowledge so that problems emerge in knowledge to solve everyday problems.
transferring school knowledge to non-school contexts.
Source: Angelis & Marock, 2001: 90


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Scotland and England, in the attempt to achieve a unified system of academic and
vocational learning, Howieson, Raffe, Spours and Young (1997) show, for instance,
how England drew on a radical and ambitious concept of unification that was
related to a view of the changing global order. This concept was based on a reading
of continental European systems. The focus was more on critiques of existing
arrangements, than on the design of a new, unified system or the process of
implementing such a system. Scotland proceeded in a more low profile manner by
using an analysis of their present system’s weaknesses to work out a more fully

specified concept of a unified system. They benefited from an evolutionary,
consensual, agreed-upon, and consultative tradition of policy development. The
analysis argues that the end-result in Scotland was less visionary than the English
model and that the Scottish model also had less power to challenge conservative
assumptions and practices but, over a similar time period, it advanced further
towards actual implementation.
In this view of curriculum change, the past is not viewed as ‘bad practice’, which
needs to be done away with. It is rather viewed as a complex interweaving of
strengths and weaknesses. This is the approach, that is adopted in the remainder of
this chapter.
The technical and vocational curriculum considered
in historical terms
Technical and vocational education and training have many different meanings,
which are shaped by wider social, political and economic contexts. The next
sections position the relationship between theory and practice as being central to
understanding how these different interpretations have evolved.
British roots of the technical education curriculum
In South Africa, the demand for technical education to be made available to white
youth was an outgrowth of industrial development that happened in the late
1800s. It was linked to mining and the development of railways, harbours and
small engineering workshops in urban centres that developed. Historians note that
technical education referred to ‘a type of education which had reference to
manufacturing and industrial pursuits and the scientific principles underlying
these’ (Smuts, 1937: 97).
1
The origins of the formation of technical colleges and
later, technikons, can be traced back to this era (Smuts, 1937; Pittendrigh, 1988;
Chisholm 1992), and to this particular framing and vision of technical education.
The general educational system, as well as the system of technical education in
South Africa, evolved from British systems. Layton (1984: 21–35) traces the

interface and link between the school science curriculum and industry in England
to show how school science has remained insulated from demands for ‘utility’ and
‘application’. He explains how the ‘pure science’ ideal, as it was constructed in the
context of doing research, was transferred to teaching contexts in schools and
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universities in the late nineteenth century. The reasons for this were partly linked
to knowledge traditions in the training of scientists and partly attributed to the
liberal education model that was dominant at the time. ‘The educative qualities of
science as a school subject were thought to reside in its ability to discipline the
mind, rather than in its utility and practical problem-solving potential. Science
had to be justified in the curriculum in the same terms as classics and mathematics
were justified, if it hoped to make any inroads’ (Layton, 1984: 24).
At the same time that science was becoming entrenched in the school curriculum,
an ‘alternative road’ of technical education for artisans was also being developed
in England. Layton argues that the alternative technical education route as
constructed in England in the late nineteenth century was, in practice, not greatly
different from liberal education as far as science education was concerned. The
definition of technical education incorporated in the English Technical Instruction
Act of 1889 shows the basis of this argument. Technical education was defined as
being ‘limited to instruction in the principles of science and art
2
applicable to
industry and not to include teaching the practice of any trade or industry or
employment’ (Layton, 1984: 25, original emphasis). This definition certainly fitted
well with the requirements of professional scientists who were the teachers and

examiners in the new system, but there were also other reasons. One such reason
was that industries did not want their trade secrets opened to those involved in
public teaching. A second reason was that state-aided instruction in the practice
of any particular industry could also be seen as a direct subsidy by government.
Such a subsidy was considered unacceptable in the laissez-faire economic regime
of the time.
It was this ‘scientific’ definition of technical education that was adopted in
South Africa around the turn of the nineteenth century. A theory-practice
combination developed which required technical colleges to provide the ‘theory’
part of apprenticeship training, while workplaces provided context-specific work
experience. McKerron (1934) argues that instruction in general scientific
principles was viewed as a remedy for the loss of all-round craft knowledge.
Such loss occurred when increasing specialisation and the division of labour,
under conditions of mass production, changed the way in which industrial work
was organised.
From their inception, the educational task of technical colleges was thus framed
in terms of concept formation that would strengthen and expand craft and trade
practices. Technical colleges were educational institutions that were placed and
embedded in a work-based apprenticeship system. Green (1995: 139), in a
comparison between the development of scientific and technical education in
nineteenth-century England and France, is critical of the division between theory
and practice, and between academic knowledge and vocational learning that
became entrenched and established in these early institutional structures in
England. Despite this criticism, this educational path has, over the years, produced
many fine artisans both in England and in South Africa.
8 curriculum responsiveness in fet colleges


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chapter 1 9
The impact of South Africa’s racial legacy on access to trade apprenticeships
It is well known that South Africa’s particular racial history, which involved
racially based job reservation, led to the exclusion of black workers from oppor-
tunities for technical education and training. Lewis (1984: 24) shows that the
1922 Apprenticeship Act did not actually directly exclude black apprentices. It was,
rather, the high educational requirements set down in the Act and the requirement
to attend a trade school, when few existed for apprentices who were not white,
which effectively precluded and prevented most black youth from being able to
enter apprenticeships.
Job reservation and low levels of skilled black workers became an obstacle to
economic growth in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result of this, policies of
industrial decentralisation were actively pursued and employers were encouraged,
through incentives, to move their businesses to the ‘homelands’ or to adjoining
‘border areas’. Black workers were increasingly recruited to undertake work which
had previously been reserved for white workers, yet they were still given only
limited access to vocational education and training (DoE, 2001: 3–4). With the
promulgation of the Manpower Training Act in 1981, access to training by all
workers became an established right and many of the newer technical colleges
date back to around this time.
The decline of work-based educational routes
The deracialisation by statute, of apprenticeships, which happened in 1981,
coincided with dramatic changes in the social conditions that underpinned
apprenticeships. Originally the system was one in which almost all apprentices
were sponsored by industry, and in which apprentices had the status of employees.
Day- or block-release allowed them to attend off-job instruction at a college. This
system changed to one where most students now study full-time, with no
employer sponsorship and, therefore, little or no opportunity available for
practical, on-job training.

The trend towards longer participation in full-time study and a decline in work-
based educational routes is also evident in other countries (Howieson et al., 1997;
Maguire, 1999; Huddleston, 1999; Wolf, 2002). The difference in South Africa is
that this move towards longer full-time study has coincided with the
deracialisation of the college system (after 1994). Young black people now have
greater access to opportunities to prepare for intermediate and higher level
occupational categories, and yet they do not have access to the practical
on-job training which is deemed so necessary for occupational preparation
(Mosdell, 1995).
Vocational education as a remedy for youth indigence and delinquency
Although technical education and vocational education are usually linked together,
vocational education has a different origin to technical education. It is historically
linked to education for the poor, or indigent, and the ‘less able’ in many countries.


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In South Africa, the early beginnings of vocational or trade education for
adolescents were linked to the ‘relief of indigency’. The Dutch Reformed Church
established the first trade schools in the 1890s, the purpose of which was to train
poor white boys in rural areas in basic trade work and to prepare the girls for
domestic work. In their efforts to bring all white children within the scope of the
law on compulsory education for white youth, the South African government and
its provincial administrations created ‘certain special types of education to meet
the special needs of special children who, through indigency, delinquency, or some
other cause, could not be suitably dealt with in ordinary schools’ (Smuts, 1937:
77–78). Badroodien (2001) extends this theme in his analysis of how trade
schools were utilised as a solution for the problem of indigent and delinquent
coloured boys.

In this tradition, vocational education was considered a suitable track for making
‘difficult’ young people useful to society, by preparing them for some form of
productive work. Sultana describes the social control function of vocational
education and training in most countries in harsh terms.
The creation of separate educational spaces is often appropriated by mainstream
teachers, who use them as convenient ‘dumping’ sites for students they find difficult to
control. Thus, while the official discourse around vocational schools highlights their
utility to the economy, their real value to the educational system is their function as
holding pens for the unmotivated and resistant students. (Sultana, 1997: 344)
In South Africa, vocational education took on decided racial connotations but the
social control function of this form of education is also a more general
phenomenon.
Industrial education as a diluted form of technical education
The term ‘industrial education’ was strongly associated with preparation for an
industrious rather than an industrial life and was mostly used to refer to the
transmission of handcraft skill (Chisholm, 1992: 3). Hartshorne explains, for
instance, that even as late as the 1960s, terms such as ‘industrial’ and ‘vocational’
(rather than ‘technical’) were used to describe education for black people. His
interpretation is that technical ‘would have suggested a level of training and skill
that was not intended’ (1987, in Millar, Raynham & Schaffer, 1991: 119).
The practical focus of industrial education, once it was incorporated into the
college system, took on a racial bias. Chisholm (1992: 4–5) cites the example of
two technical colleges. In the historically white college, technical education
encompassed both theoretical and practical training in workshops and on-job. In
the historically black college, the focus was on the acquisition of practical manual
skill, which was aimed at the unskilled and semi-skilled end of the informal labour
market.
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Conclusions: learning from the past
It has been argued that a ‘curriculum of the future’ in further education and
training (FET) needs to be informed by an adequate perspective on a ‘curriculum
of the past’. A historical perspective shows that, from its earliest beginnings,
technical and vocational education has included three forms of educational
provision. Firstly, technical education referred to science instruction as found in
general education, where it functioned as a foundation for practical knowledge.
Secondly, vocational education referred to forms of compensatory education, with
a practical aim. Finally, industrial education focused on the imparting of skill in
some form of handcraft, as well as the inculcation of discipline, obedience and
regular work habits.
These traditions have converged, or combined, to set up two pathways in the
technical and vocational curriculum: the one that keeps knowledge and skill
together, and the other that separates skill from its formal knowledge base. The
intermediate level itself is thus characterised by a division between high skill and
low skill. This separation and demarcation figures prominently in the debates
explored in the following chapters, but here, it needs to be interpreted in relation
to the past, in order to serve as a warning that an integrated approach to education
and training may not be as easily attainable as the table presented in the opening
section of this chapter would have us believe.
What may result, in the quest for a closer ‘fit’ between formal knowledge and
everyday problems and the increased emphasis on application and use, is that the
practical curriculum is privileged over the theory-practice curriculum, in the sense
of being rated more highly. We need to eradicate the racial inequities of the past
but a complete break with the past may well lead to the erosion of the historically
central place of concept formation in the college curriculum. The following
chapters will show that such curriculum change would work against the

contribution that is required from education and training in the development of
knowledgeable labour.
Notes
1McKerron, quoted in Chisholm (1992), offers a related definition.
2Layton notes that ‘science and art’ would today be called ‘science and design’ (1984:24).
chapter 1 11


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12


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chapter 2 13
CHAPTER 2
Intermediate knowledge and
skill for employment
Introduction
It is commonly accepted that education and training, aimed directly at preparation
for the world of work, should serve defined and useful purposes in terms of what
people do or might do for a living. In this sense, the curriculum demand is
narrower than the demand on general education where issues of moral citizenship,
democracy and general ‘training of the mind’ have historically been the intention
of the curriculum. Although these issues are not excluded from the vocational
curriculum, current reforms of vocational and further education and training
systems in many countries stem primarily from a concern to make educational

supply more responsive to demand. The issue of ‘relevance’ is particularly
important for countries that are seeking or experiencing rapid economic and
social change. Fluitman (1998) argues that pressures to make education more in
line with economic demand stem from a number of sources, namely:
•Structural adjustment.
•New technologies.
•Competitiveness concerns.
•Attempts to promote labour market flexibility.
•Concerns with equity and discrimination.
•High levels of unemployment.
In this chapter, some of the debates, which lie behind educational policy reforms
in many countries, are explored in order to sketch a general picture of educational
change and the demands placed on educational institutions and their staff.
Intermediate knowledge and skill have traditionally been associated with practical,
technological capabilities. Currently, however, the division between high and low
skill is the issue that dominates debates about the relationship between modern
education and training systems and modern capitalist economies. This means that
the changing nature of the intermediate level has to be inferred or worked out
from that which lies above and below it. Labour market studies done in South
Africa show that the demand for artisans and other intermediate level employees
has not decreased.


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The ‘new global economy’
The relationship between education and training and economic performance has
been, and still is, much debated in the literature. Some see education and training
as the primary manner in which economic success is determined. These people

would then argue for an increase in the vocational content of all general
education. Others argue that a simple one-way relationship of ‘education spending
in, economic growth out’ (Wolf, 2002: xii–xiii) is a myth and that it is more
accurate to view the economy as simply having a determining effect on patterns of
participation in education and training. In the latter view, the relationship between
education and the economy is far more subtle and complex than a simple causal
link between levels of education or training and economic success (Brown & Keep,
1999: 22).
Despite the arguments presented by theorists, governments and policy-makers in
all parts of the world are increasingly viewing education and training as a central
feature of long-term, global, economic competitiveness. Changes in the nature of
both work and labour markets have given rise to people beginning to think
differently about the idea of a single job for life and an end to traditional ideas
about careers. The call, increasingly, is for labour that is more flexible. Castells
(2001: 2–3), who is one of the most influential analysts of the global ‘knowledge’
economy, argues that labour is the basis of any economy and that even in the new
global economy, labour is as much the source of productivity and competitiveness
as it was in previous economies. For Castells, the new global economy can be
defined as a combination of three interrelated characteristics:
•It is an economy in which levels of productivity and competitiveness are
brought about by knowledge and information, which is supported and
powered by information technology.
•It is global, but not in the sense that the whole world has one single economic
system, or that jobs are global. It can be described as global because most, if
not all, jobs are influenced by what happens in the global core or centre of
the economy. However, when it comes to the planning stage, most jobs are
still determined by local, regional and national labour markets.
•It can work as a single unit, in real time. This is true right up to the point of
the whole planet operating as a unit. In technological terms, this refers to
global telecommunications and informational systems. A result of this fact is

that firms and networks in the global economy also have the capacity to
organise themselves globally in terms of markets and supplies. At the
institutional level, trade deregulation and liberalisation have also opened up
the possibility for the economy to operate globally.
Castells believes that value is created, in these times of global competitiveness, by a
section of the labour market that he refers to as self-programmable labour.By this,
he means ‘labour which has the built-in capacity to generate value through
innovation and information, and that has the ability to reconstruct itself
throughout the occupational career’ (2001: 13). In other words, these are workers
who have the ability to be flexible and adapt throughout their working lives.
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Another kind of labour exists alongside this flexible and knowledgeable labour,
which Castells calls generic labour.Generic labour is that sector of the labour force
that has no specific skill apart from some basic level of education. Generic labour
co-exists with unskilled and semi-skilled labour and machines. The distinction
between the two kinds of labour, generic and self-programmable, rests on high
quality education. This is the same for the distinction between high-skill and
low-skill labour, that is, high quality education.
Lutz (1994) argues that these messages are not as new as they may appear. In the
decades after the Second World War, western world experts also put forward
arguments about the decline of traditional occupations; a growing need for a
minority of highly qualified scientists and engineers; and, a requirement for the
majority of workers to be able to adapt to new skills and processes in order to keep
pace with rapid changes in employment structures and in workplace practices. The
‘message’ sent out then was that mechanisation and automation of production,

administration and service activities would progressively reduce the need for
‘specific’ skill required in traditional occupations. It was, therefore, argued that any
consistent means of developing a strategy of modernisation and economic growth
should focus, above all, on the development of general education. In this way,
sufficient potential talent would be tapped to meet the rapidly expanding need for
highly qualified labour. A longer period of initial schooling was viewed as a
positive thing, as it would also promote the acquisition of sufficient ‘general skills’
to enable young people to cope with lifelong flexibility and mobility.
Those who argue against the promotion of a longer period of general schooling
produce evidence which shows that high levels of general education, and thus
workers with good ‘general skills’, are no lasting guarantees for economic
performance and/or competitiveness in the global arena (Lutz, 1994; Brown &
Lauder, 1996). Even those who at first promoted the idea of longer general
education acknowledge that youth unemployment remains a problem in all
countries. This is despite the fact that higher proportions of young people now do
complete a full upper secondary education with a recognised qualification, for
either work purposes or entry to tertiary study, before entering the labour market
(OECD, 2000).
Nowadays, given the current conditions of global economic competitiveness, the
‘message’ has shifted. An ‘either/or’ type argument (either specialisation or
generalism) has been reframed as a demand for both general and specific skills.
What this means, in terms of the supply of education, is that there is a demand for
a new type of educational institution that is neither vocational nor academic, but
rather, both. This argument is captured by the general propositions put forward in
a seminar organised by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the mid-
1990s. General agreement was given to the propositions that:
•In all countries, the labour market is likely to be volatile over the next decades
and a workforce educated for flexibility is the most important need.
•In most countries, the large proportion of unskilled youth with minimal

education is a serious problem. The requirement for these people is for a
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quality general education, which equips them for the transition to adult and
working life.
•Key vocational skills are problem-solving, the motivation to work and the
capacity to continue learning. Rote learning and the assimilation of facts are
no longer appropriate, and new approaches to teaching in both vocational
and general education are needed.
•Industry (both manufacturing and service) must play an important part in
preparing students for the transition to work and should be offered incentives
to do so.
•Universities, like schools, should see themselves as part of the transition
to work and should adapt their teaching, their curriculum and, where
appropriate, their research accordingly. (somewhat abbreviated from
OECD, 1996: 33)
Moja and Cloete, in their reflection on the implications that Castells’s analysis of
globalisation holds for higher education, make much the same point. They argue
that higher education seems to be facing what could be seen as three sets of
competing or contradictory demands:
•The ‘scholarisation’ of the general population has to be improved, demanding
a sustained focus on teacher education and school improvement.
•At the lower end of the high skill band, much larger numbers of students
must be better educated in terms of the use of technology, problem-solving
and social skills. This layer forms the backbone of the new technology and
social service occupations associated with globalisation; be it as data

processors or tour guides.
•At the high end of the high skill band, more knowledge-producing and
managing skills are required for global competitiveness. (2001: 263)
Similar demands are being made on technical education and training at the
intermediate level.
Wor kers in modern industry have to adapt their working methods to a diversity of
different production requirements and the continual renewal of technology … The
introduction of new technologies fails where the provision of equipment is not
matched by dissemination of know-how. Whereas traditional technical education
produced cohorts of specialists competent in specific production processes, many
employer bodies now call for a whole workforce with a level of general education,
which will ensure adaptability and the ability to benefit from frequent retraining. This
general education should include broad and transferable technological abilities.
(Medway, 1993: 16, author’s references in original text omitted)
While Moja and Cloete’s argument includes occupations such as data processing
and tour guiding at the lower level of high skill rather than at the intermediate
level, Medway’s description is perhaps closer to what is traditionally understood as
the intermediate artisan level. However, no matter where and how one draws the
boundaries between high, intermediate and low skill, it can be concluded that at all
levels of the education and training system there is a trend towards inserting the
general into the vocational.At the same time, there is a trend towards inserting the
vocational into the general.
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Schooling and higher education will be particularly affected by the demand for
more practical/vocational/technological components within the general

curriculum. Further, technical and vocational education and training institutions
will be equally affected by the demand for general education to find a stronger
place in the technical curriculum. This dual demand raises tough questions for
education and training systems. Some of the critical questions asked in an OECD
report highlight how there seem to be contradictions when one looks at this
demand:
•How is it possible to combine ‘general’ and ‘vocational’, ‘broad’ and ‘focused’
education within one institution?
•Ifpeople are to select education and training pathways for themselves, will
they not always aim to maximise their options by choosing broader and more
general courses?
•Ifan educational system focuses increasingly on the ‘broad’ track that the
future apparently requires, where will the narrower, but necessary, skills
training for today’s jobs be done?
•Ifit is to be left to employers to provide the narrower or more specific
training, what incentives or rewards should be offered to employers who train
and, then subsequently, lose their staff through ‘poaching’? What can be done
about the needs of firms too small to offer training?
•Are ‘modular systems’ of learning that break up knowledge and skill into
separate packages, or modules, that can be reassembled by the learner to suit
her/his vocational needs, the best way of developing truly versatile, adaptive
or ‘flexible’ people? Or, would it be better to return to the search for a
common core of principles, values and skill? Should one rather be searching
for a way of developing a rigid curriculum, which will produce a flexible
person? (Summarised from OECD, 1996: 33)
In many countries, the vocational or technical sector has traditionally been
separate from general education and it is intended that it should remain separate.
In other countries, including South Africa, more integrated approaches to
education and training at all levels of the educational system are viewed as an
appropriate reform measure. In the latter approach, ways of responding to the new

purposes and priorities of education include the adoption of outcomes and
competency-based approaches to qualifications. This happens at the same time as
introducing core/key skill and competencies (called ‘critical cross-field outcomes’
in the South African National Qualifications Framework, or NQF) as a way of
addressing the call for more general education. The need to recognise and
acknowledge knowledge based on experience and skill, through the formal
recognition of current expertise (or prior learning), is also high on the agenda.
This is seen as important because it is a way of recognising the capabilities of those
previously excluded from formal education and training. Life-long learning rather
than once-and-for-all skills acquisition is viewed as the pathway of the future.
While such reform measures have taken on the status of an ‘unquestionable truth’
in many policy texts, the logic is not as cast in stone as it may appear. Moore and
Trenwith (1997: 61), for instance, question the long-term impact of some of these
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measures. They argue that, while some countries are re-orientating their systems in
an ‘occupationalist’ direction, other countries are experiencing ‘academic shift’,
with vocational qualifications adopting an increasingly academic form over time.
In their view, more vocationally or occupationally orientated systems generally fail,
in the long term, to shift the perception that academic qualifications are superior
to more vocational ones and that they carry a higher social status.
Employer demand
High skill and low skill
Employers are not a homogenous group and it would be misleading to view public
and private, small and large, and local and international employers as having the
same needs. There is, however, some common ground, in that employers in many

countries complain that their country’s education systems do not supply them
with a labour force that has the skills they need. There are also continual
complaints about skills’ shortages.
1
Even though it would be inappropriate to see employer demands as uniform, this
does not mean one cannot look at some specific examples. In this regard, it is
useful to examine some of the British evidence about employer responses to
attempts to insert more general education into the vocational curriculum. In a
review of research on education and training in the United Kingdom, Brown and
Keep (1999) refer to numerous studies which show the distinctions made between
the skill required at different organisational levels. While key or core skills of
communication, use of number, information technology (IT) skills, teamwork and
problem-solving, which promote general education, are built into all National
Vocational Qualifications and Scottish Vocational Qualifications in Britain,
2
research done in 1998 by Dench, Perryman and Giles (described in Brown & Keep,
1999: 31–32) shows that demand for core or key skill is only strong if it is specified
at the lowest levels. Survey participants stated that higher levels of skill across core
or key skills are not required for the majority of their employees.
Wolf (2002) provides an important insight into the nature of such employer
demand. She explains how, in England, the business sector was an enthusiastic
promoter of core or key skill in the mid-90s. This was so even though, at the time,
there was confusion about what was meant by these terms. Despite this initial
enthusiasm, she claims that ‘the evidence on skills suggests that employers in the
brave new “knowledge economy” are after just those traditional academic skills
that schools have always tried to promote. The ability to read and comprehend,
write fluently and correctly, and do mathematics appears more important than
ever’ (2002: 37).
Sultana’s study of employer demands in Malta, a developing country where the
majority of employers are small, local, family-owned businesses mainly involved in

distributive activities, adds another dimension to Wolf’s argument about employer
preference for conventional academic qualifications. His study shows that on the
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higher level, employers are looking for ‘a package that might include academic
credentials, but are particularly anxious to find evidence in their future recruits of
such personal qualities as adaptability, a sense of responsibility and a willingness to
keep on learning’ (1997a: 49). In other words, rather than being aware of the
academic significance of formal qualifications, employers tend to use qualifications
as a kind of ‘short-hand’ (1997a: 55) for the assessment of personality traits.
At the lower occupational levels, employers in large, medium and small firms are
asking for more ‘trainable’ people. They say they want workers with ‘a sound
general education, that is literacy and numeracy, the ability to read and follow
simple instructions, convey messages accurately, understand simple diagrams,
perform basic calculations and have knowledge of such matters as wages, social
security, work books and trade unions’ (Sultana, 1997a: 48).
As far as levels of technical skills are concerned, Sultana reports that:
… despite the prevalent government rhetoric about Malta moving to a high wage, high
value-added production sector, there is more than convincing evidence that most
employers in this peripheral, post-colonial state do not require highly advanced
technical abilities from their workers. Many employees in the manufacturing sector,
for instance, are involved in what is termed ‘screwdriver technology’ industries, where
high-technology components produced abroad are simply assembled locally and
re-exported. Many employers in Malta, as in many developing and intermediately
developed countries, have therefore little incentive to exert pressure on education,
other than to ensure that workers with the right personality, as opposed to technical

skills, are available. (1997a: 40)
The HSRC baseline survey of industrial training in South Africa (Kraak, Paterson,
Visser & Tustin, 2000) confirms these trends. The management of small, medium
and large firms regards literacy and practical manual skills for on-job application
as the most important areas of need for lower-qualified employees (who would
normally be near or at the bottom of organisational structure which would be
pyramid shaped). Interpersonal skills and customer relations ranked second last
and last out of nine categories (Kraak et al., 2000: 68).
If,for the sake of argument, we generalise from these limited examples, it seems
that employers, when talking about the majority of their employees, appear not to
be asking for high levels of general education but rather for a sound educational
foundation. While this appears to contradict the messages coming from the
economy, it also makes us look very carefully at the assumption that employers
‘know best’ what the nature of skilled labour should be. Brown and Lauder (1996:
8–9) take the argument further when they refer to employers’ vision of education
and training as being too narrowly focused to meet the demands of changing
economic and labour market conditions. It is more likely that employers will
always opt for training that meets their specific and immediate needs.
There does, however, seem to be a new trend in terms of general employer demand
under conditions of global economic competitiveness. What is new is a call for a
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narrowing of the qualitative gap between the preparation required for professional
and management workers, and the preparation required for lower-level employees.
It is thus possible to speak of a reversal of the nature of demand.Whereas
previously, lower-end workers were traditionally deemed to require mostly only

limited manual technical skills, the demand for more general education for the
majority of the workforce has become stronger. Even though this demand for
general education is not at a high level, it shows the effect of changes in the
organisation of work and in the labour process itself.
At the higher end of occupations, the level of knowledge and skill required is both
more specialised and more generalised in terms of the capacity for flexibility and
knowledge-production. It is argued that at this level, over-education and/or over-
training will increasingly become the norm, with many people acquiring more
qualifications than actually needed for a particular job (Brown & Keep, 1999: 33).
Wolf (2002: 51–52) argues that while being over-educated for a job does not
necessarily make people more productive, it also does not necessarily make them
less motivated or worse at what they do. The one thing it does do is to make
formal qualifications a stronger labour market requirement, so that employers may
well believe that anyone without a formal qualification is not worth employing.
Intermediate skills
The emphasis on high versus low skill in the previous sections may have created
the impression that knowledge and skill at the intermediate level and, in particular,
in the traditional trades is no longer required. However, if we turn to the South
African context, Bhorat, Lundall and Rospabe (2002), for instance, point out
that long-run labour demand studies show an increasing demand for high-skill
workers that is similar to that experienced in most other countries. They argue,
that this trend was present long before the challenges of globalisation were
felt. Globalisation has clearly had some influence on the pace and intensity of
technological change, but technological change itself, rather than globalisation,
has been the main reason for skills-intensification across all sectors.
While the level of skill required may be higher, there is also continued demand at
the intermediate level. Both a projected forecast of future demand in the South
African labour market for the period 1998 to 2003 (HSRC, 1999) and a baseline
survey of industrial training in South Africa (Kraak et al., 2000) report on this.
There is a continued demand for a number of trades associated with traditional

mass production manufacturing, and an increased demand in ‘high-tech’ trades in
the more technologically-driven and automated sections of manufacturing. The
second report also extends this category to include technical personnel and skilled
operators, in addition to craft workers.
This trend, however, contradicts the very definite decline in the indenturing of
apprentices and the attainment of artisan status reported by the Department of
Labour in its annual reports. Kraak et al. (2000) compare the annual percentage
growth in the number of apprentices attaining artisan status with the annual
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percentage change in GDP for the period 1986–1999 to illustrate the existence of
‘training lag’. ‘Training lag’ is caused by the short-term and cost-driven nature of
employer decisions to train. They explain that, during economic boom times, the
demand for the indenturing of apprentices increases, but in economic downturns,
the demand for artisans declines and indenturing is cut back. It takes a minimum
of three to four years for an apprentice to qualify so that a lag occurs and an acute
shortage of skilled labour is experienced at the time of the next economic
expansion (2000: 15–16). What the authors find alarming is the serious decline of
apprenticeships in established sectors such as the metal and motor sectors. There is
further cause for concern in the lack of growth in recruiting apprentices in key
Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) fields such as building,
electricity supply and local government. What is also worrying is the slight
investment in artisans in key value-added industries of the future, such as the
textile sector (2000: 20–21). The introduction of learnerships may go some
way toward reversing this decline, but it can reasonably be anticipated that any
form of provision for intermediate knowledge and skill will need to include both

technological components and the broader educational elements considered
necessary for the future.
The impact on education and training
In this section, various issues are raised that show the impact that some of the
demand-side/demand-based debates explored so far have on education and
training.
A more market-driven approach to education and training
Whatever one’s views are on the links between the economy and education and
training it is clear that governments have to respond to market trends that include
local and global demands when determining policy about education and training.
OECD studies, which promote this change, anticipate, for instance, that consumer
demand will play a more important role than national planning in determining
the structure of supply. It is argued that attempts to influence learning patterns at
a national level will have to deal with both international and locally-based labour
supply. While curriculum will remain a national and domestic matter in each
country, children and adults will increasingly be aware of international or global
trends in knowledge. This will make it difficult for a nation-state to preserve
national norms and values. Governments cannot control or fight against the
international nature of knowledge networks or of educational services, nor can
they control the development of new technologies or dictate how they should be
applied (OECD, 1995, 1996).
Equity and social justice
While the idea of market-driven education and training has many supporters
social justice issues feature strongly in these debates. Even the OECD studies
quoted previously acknowledge that a more consumer-driven approach could
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