National attention on the role of
skills development has focused on the role of FET Colleges in providing skills
necessary to fuel the South African national development challenge. In
particular, attention has been focused on reorganization and rationalisation of
college structures; infrastructure (by recapitalization), on recurricularisation (by curriculum renewal) and boosting
learner enrolment (by targeting more than a million learners by 2014). The
changes pre-suppose that college lecturers are a well-motivated and effective
component of the college system ready to take on these challenges. Little
attention, until now, has been paid to the college lecturer, who has had to
bear the brunt of these changes. More importantly, recent developments
regarding their changing context of employment need some serious interrogation.
This paper examines the current context of lecturers at FET Colleges, their
nature, form and context of work and the changes necessary to respond to the skills
development challenges. It posits the view that very little is known about this
component of the FET college system necessary to achieve the envisaged skills
revolution.
Salim Akoojee
Education, Sciences and Skills Development
Research Programme
Human Sciences Research Council