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MechChem Africa
•
March 2017
An alternative
to matriculation
I
havea17-year olddaughter ingrade12 right now,
being prepared to write her ‘matric’ exam, amid
unbelievable amounts of pressure. As well as the
continual weekly cycle of tests, essays, projects
and exams, her after school timetable is blocked with
extra work: Master Maths for two two-hour sessions
per week; extra IT for an afternoon session once a
week; and advanced programme (AP) English, also for
two two-hours sessions, with the second timetabled
from 4:30 to 6:30 every Friday afternoon.
She is not often home from school before 5:00 pm
and twice a week, she arrives after dark. I don’t re-
member working nearly as hard in my final year at
school.
Matric is now a colloquial term unique to South
Africa. It was the original university entrance ex-
amination. My daughter iswriting herNational Senior
Certificate examinations. For her and her peers,
though, university entrance is still the focus. All are
anxiously striving for the grades required for entry
into their chosen university courses.
Yet by far the majority of students taking the
‘matric’ exam this year, including many of those at the
best schools, will not follow the academic university
route. And in the case of engineering, far less than half
the students whomeet the requirements and enrol at
universities will graduate with degrees.
The early exit points from the traditional South
African school system are mostly ‘failure points’.
There are numerous examples of people applying for
jobs with a Standard 6 or a Grade 10 school leavers’
certificate, from which we infer that the candidate
has ‘dropped out’ somewhere along the common path
towardsmatric. Anybody not going through theGrade
12 end-point successfully has ‘failed’ in some way.
IntheUKandassociatedCommonwealthcountries,
the education system’s first exit point is the General
CertificateofSecondaryEducation(GCSE).Atwo-year
GCSE programme is taken by learners in Year 9 and
10 of their schooling and is designed to accommodate
the full range of abilities. While it is not compulsory
to sit the exam, all children under the age of 16 must
attend school and, since learners are very seldomheld
back, almost all 16-year-olds reach this exit point at
the same time.
After completing GCSEs, education pathways
branch in several directions: towards school- and
college-based vocational programmes, (NVQs); into
traditional academic programmes targetinguniversity
entry requirements (A-Levels); to skills-based training
courses in traditional and modern trades; and into
direct employment. Simply put, most UK youngsters
choose their career path at 16.
Back in South Africa, there have been repeated
attempts to establish and promote technical and vo-
cational career pathways through the technical high
schools, Further Education andTraining (FET) colleges
and themore recentlynamedTechnical andVocational
Education and Training (TVET) colleges.
In producing
African Fusion
this month, I was
heartened to hear from the SAIW’s Etienne Nell
about a renewed commitment, particularly from
DeputyMinisterMananaof theDepartment ofHigher
Education and Training (DHET), with regard to the
TVETs. Manana’s plan is for the TVET colleges to be
the primary vehicle for the delivery of trade tests in
South Africa.
The implications of this are notable. First it indi-
cates recognition of the need for higher-level skills in
South Africa. It also recognises that, for our youth to
reach international skills standards, training need to
start at a much earlier age – learners can enrol at a
TVET college at 16.
The idea is that artisan training is administered
through the DHET; follows a curriculum based on
the new Curriculum Quality Council for Trades and
Occupations (QCTO); and has as its end point, a Trade
Test under the supervision of the National Artisan
Moderation Body (NAMB). Here we have the mak-
ings of an alternative exit point from the education
system, one that could result in school leaverswalking
directly into useful and well paid employment while
still in their teens.
Nell, whohas beenpart of a groupworking towards
establishing the QCTO curriculum for welding for
several years, says that the new QCTO welding cur-
riculummeets theBratislava International agreement
forwelder training signedbyabout 50countries across
the world. “So if a South African welder passes the
new QTCO-based trade test, he or she can secure a
job anywhere in the world. That is what is so excellent
about this new curriculum,” he says.
This means that a young learner exiting a TVET
college having passed a trade test could end up more
employable, nationallyand internationally, thanahigh-
achieving matriculant.
q
MechChem Africa
is endorsed by:
Peter Middleton