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As South Africa enters the Mbeki Presidency so the fortunes of the country are thrown into sharp relief. One of the central elements determining South Africa's short- to medium-term future will be the success of educational transformation, particularly when it is directed to addressing issues of equity and economic development. This paper explores the 1998 reforms of the further education and training system in the context of broader questions of educational and economic transformation in South Africa.

Abstract This article analyses the progress made in transforming the public further education and training college system in South Africa in the first decade of democracy. It charts the evolution of policy for the sector and how it relates to broader policy development in South Africa. It examines the extent to which policy has been implemented and highlights a series of remaining challenges for the sector. The article concludes that much has been done in transforming the college sector,...

Vocational education and training (VET) has returned to the list of policy priorities for education in Africa after an absence of a quarter of a century, yet there has been no new research that overturns the existing orthodox position that such provision, whether during or after schooling, is inefficient and ineffective. This paper addresses this apparent contradiction. It revisits the existing arguments against African VET to consider whether they have continued salience. It suggests that...

The current dominant account of aid to education focuses on schooling and official development assistance and talks in terms of policy work, donor harmonisation and, increasingly, budgetary support. However, this approach is limited in a number of ways. The return of international policy interest in vocational education provides an opportunity to take a look at whether the dominant paradigm is really a solution in all cases. Through an exploration of the evolution of the South African...

Abstract South Africa is going through one of the most thorough-going education and training reforms ever seen in Africa. This reform programme seeks to address the legacies of the past and build towards a policy for the new millennium based in concerns of both equity and development. However, this exercise has tended to place too little emphasis upon the realities within the institutions that will be expected to deliver on the change and lacks a coherent view of the possibilities for policy...

This study explores the relationships between globalisation and education and training through an examination of certain transnational corporations operating in the automotive sector in South Africa. The automotive industry is an important source of improvements in both the quality and quantity of skills in South Africa. This sector was the initial driver of much of recent changes in skills development in response to globalisation and has particular potential to be incorporated into global...

This introductory chapter highlights the nature of some of the major vocational education and training (VET) policy reforms that are underway in southern Africa, their origins and the likelihood of their success to show how VET is an important policy nexus between economic and educational policy, between the state and the market, and between concerns with poverty and growth. It also looks at both internal trends within Africa and international influences. The following key themes are...

As we move to discuss the nature of development targets post 2015, it is timely to consider what lessons can be learnt from 50 years of experiences of attempts to link education and development in Africa. This paper offers a historical account of key themes in African education and development and raises questions particularly about who sets targets and priorities and for whom.

In the run up to its first democratic elections in 1994, South Africa became one of the first countries to make a serious commitment to developing a qualifications framework-based lifelong learning system. This was intended both to prepare the country for its insertion into 'the global knowledge economy' after years of isolation and to provide a way of dealing with the legacy of Apartheid. Through an exploration of the most recent data on education and training in South Africa, this paper...

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC's 2004 election pledges, namely: halve unemployment; halve poverty; accelerate employment equity; and improve broad-based black economic empowerment. AsgiSA outlines a very different development path from the current orthodoxy of the Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction...

Written in the twilight of the Mbeki Presidency, this paper considers the role that skills development has in the sustainability of the South African political–economic project. It explores some of the disarticulations of public policy and argues that these both undermine public sector delivery and open up opportunities for private provision to be, under certain circumstances, more responsive to the challenges of national development. We argue that there is a possibility that the state could...

This book examines the challenges facing education in African countries, within the context of globalisation. It is suggested that developing a notion of learning-led competitiveness is a crucial part of any response to globalisation, as well as allowing the performance of education and training institutions to be monitored. Three areas of concern are brought together in this book: debates about the impact of globalisation on development thinking and practice; responses to globalisation in...

This article reviews the effects of globalization on South Africa a decade after the transition to a post-apartheid system. It brings together some of the recent literature of the performance of the economy and concomitant changes in education. It shows the pervasive force of globalization on South African education and training and explores in particular how this has affected the political imperative to establish a non-racial socio-political order. It argues that the twin processes of...

Publ ic and private provision of vocational education and training (or Further Education and Training in the South African usage) exist in a relationship with each other but are rarely cons idered togethe r. An analysis is provided of recent quantitative evidence on both sectors in South Africa in order to advance the case for further po licy and res earch work on the inter-connectivities of the two sectors. This particularly emphasises the need for better conceptions of quality and a more serious focus on equity in both sectors.