Opinion Column
Report 191 or National Technical Diploma (NATED) which is another programme offered at TVET colleges alongside NCV (National Certificate Vocational) is set to undergo partial discontinuation in colleges. The programme, which was inherited from Apartheid technical colleges had always received less attention from the government which now intends to do away with N1 and N2.
The N courses were introduced in South Africa long before the democratic dispensation in 1994. It is designed in a way to allow students to alternate between college and the work place. 3 months in the workplace, followed by 3 months at a college and so on until a student completes his or her studies.
Many of the industries in this country are not only familiar with the programme but understand it from a historical point of view better as it gives companies an opportunity to measure their value for money every 3 months when students come back to the industry. The industry does not have to wait for 3 or 4 years for a student to complete his/ her studies before they benefit from the bursary awarded to the student.
From the 90s when the ANC took power the programme was poorly funded by the government in favour of NCV, some of the reasons provided are that NATED does not include practical work and more importantly, the programme is suited to students who already have an industry to practise their trade.
The removal of N1 and N2 comes as no surprise to TVET colleges because the government has for a long time now showed interest in NCV which has its own problems. The NCV training contains exposure to practical work but the practice rendered is often outdated and is not offered by the industry itself, instead it amounts to nothing more than academic simulation of the basic principles and applications.
Colleges struggle to get internship for NCV students in companies due to lack of knowledge on NCV by these companies. Companies find themselves having to deal with two strangers at the same time: Unknown students from a strange course not properly marketed. However, NCV students are said to be hands-on and practically useful from day one at work. This is unlike NATED students who have no companies to do internship and as a result leave the college blank: in need of in-service training before joining a host company s’ work force.
But the NCV is a global initiative with potential to attract money through funding to the government; for NATED to survive decimation from the scene, it has to bring home easy money to government. NATED belonged to the past, it served the former Afrikaner industrialization and now seem more like a displaced white elephant. It belongs to the same fate as the apartheid parliaments scattered throughout the country. We need parliaments, but not those that belonged to the past.
Whatever the educational decision taken should aid the country from deindustrialization that has caused low unemployment rates in years.