Question NW74 to the Minister of Higher Education and Training
16 February 2017 - NW74
Hadebe, Mr TZ to ask the Minister of Higher Education and Training
(1)On which date(s) were the various National Accredited Technical Education Diploma/Report 191 programmes’ curricula introduced; (2) has his department put any plans currently in place to revise the specified curricula; if not, why not; if so, (a) by what date will the curricula be revised and (b) what steps has his department put in place to ensure that there is a general acceptance and buy-in on the revised curricula?
Reply:
1. After the first democratic elections in 1994, the National Education Policy Act 1996 (No 27 of 1996) was developed, which made provision for the determination of national educational policy regarding curriculum frameworks, core syllabi and educational programmes. Through this Act, the Report 191 (2001/08) policy document “Formal technical college instructional programmes in the RSA” was published and replaced all the previous NATED 02-190, NATED 02-191 and 190-191 reports.
Throughout this time, changes to the programmes were made through “Conditions of Apprenticeship” regulations, normally upon request from industry as and when required. With the introduction of the Skills Development Act in 1998, the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) had taken over the updating of the conditions of apprenticeships. The Report 191 programmes were effectively replaced with learnerships and therefore no further updates were made to the Report 191 programmes.
The National Certificate (Vocational) [NC(V)] qualification programmes were introduced in 2007 with the intention to replace the Report 191 programmes. However, two years after the phase-out of the NATED programmes, I re-introduced the Report 191 programmes due to numerous requests from business and industry.
2 (a) Since the reintroduction of the Report 191 programmes, quality assurance for N1–N3 programmes have remained in the domain of the quality council, Umalusi. Quality assurance for the N4–N6 programmes have been allocated to the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) through the Skills Development Act.
To date, the examinations unit has developed a number of content frameworks to support the assessment of these qualification programmes as they had very limited curriculum statements.
The Department is at present developing a comprehensive foundational programme with the intention to replace the N1–N3 programmes.
In addition, QCTO has undertaken significant work around the N4–N6 qualification programmes and have started to revise the content of a few subjects by systematically reworking the qualification programmes to be occupational qualification programmes. Occupational programmes by definition in the Skills Development Act are qualifications with a compulsory theoretical, practical and workplace component.
QCTO aims to have all business studies programmes revised by July 2017 with the engineering programmes following there after.
(b) Consultation with industry is firmly embedded within the QCTO methodology of qualification development, including consultative sessions and the publication of new qualifications for comment before registration.
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QUESTION 74 APPROVED/NOT APPROVED/AMENDED
Dr BE NZIMANDE, MP
MINISTER OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING
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