*ANC Today
Work Integrated Learning and the National Democratic Revolution* *Tshilidzi Marwala, ANC Today, Johannesburg, 25 June 2010* * *Professor Tshilidzi MarwalaThe National Democratic Revolution (NDR) is a process through which the National Democratic Society is achieved. The mechanisms through which the NDR is executed are called the motive forces. The motive forces are primarily those elements within society that have the most to gain out of the success of the NDR. The fact that elements within society have the most to gain from the success of the NDR does not necessarily make them effective motive forces. This is particularly so given the fact that to be an effective agent for the NDR, it is required that the motive forces develop the necessary fortitude as well as strategies and tactics, both as individual elements or as a collective, to effectively execute the NDR.
The tools needed to develop the strategy and tactics for the NDR are called the action forces. Effectively, the action forces are essentially the instruments whether cognitive or physical that the motive forces ought to implement to advance the NDR. One such action force, which is the subject of this paper, is Work Integrated Learning (WIL).
Work integrated learning is a process through which learning at tertiary institutions is conducted through both intensive theory and practice. Chairman Mao once said: "Learn from the masses and then teach them". On the contrary work integrated learning is based on the premise: "Learn by serving the masses". For example, a medical doctor is trained through both theory and practice. In South Africa government hospitals make space and resources available for students to be trained through work integrated learning.
To train technicians, technologists and engineers, in disciplines such as Quantity Surveying, Construction Management and Town Planning as well as Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Mining Engineering, also requires work-integrated learning. In South Africa, in the technical field as opposed to the medical fields, work integrated learning is designed to be supported by the private sector not by the public sector.
It turns out that in the last 15 years that companies have increasingly become reluctant to participate in work integrated learning. It is estimated that approximately 50% of engineering students requiring work-integrated learning do not get it at the appropriate time. Consequently, it is common to encounter a young student who has completed his/her theoretical training but cannot graduate because he/she has not completed a mandatory one-year of work-integrated learning.
This is happening when there is a dire need to increase the skills pool in our society. This contradiction, between the need to increase the number of skilled people and the willingness by companies to give students work integrated learning, needs to be resolved through the NDR. Moreover, the class dimension of this contradiction is that students from the working class background tend to be the ones who end up being denied the opportunities to engage in work integrated learning.
How do we then resolve this contradiction? One proposal which in some aspects seems un-revolutionary is to eliminate work integrated learning altogether from the curriculum of comprehensive universities and universities of technologies. Basically, this will give rise to graduates with minimal hands-on experience, a situation that is far reaching for the training of technicians and technologists and has colossal implications for economy of the country.
This will effectively reduce the readiness of students for the work force and the impact of this on the economy is quite significant. In fact this very proposal is rejected by a significant number of companies that are in the first place not participating in work-integrated learning. This paper proposes the use of Sector Education and Training Agencies (SETAs), National Service and Labour Laws to resolve the contradiction between the need for skills and the lack of support for work integrated learning.
*SETAs and Learnerships*The SETAs need to be re-oriented to ensure that they are sufficiently capacitated to participate fully in ensuring that students that require work-integrated learning receive it. There are some positive signs such as the merger of higher education and training into one department as well as the minister's vision to improve the objectives of the SETAs.
The reconfiguration of the SETAs should necessarily include the rationalisation of SETAs by merging them when necessary and instituting sound corporate governance as well as implementing monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. At the moment, there is limited understanding, both in theory and practice, of the relationship between learnerships and work integrated learning and how this relationship should evolve into the future in a synchronistical manner to the developmental trajectory of the country. There is a need to position work integrated learning within the core agenda of learnerships.
*National Service*Recently, there have been discussions on the need to introduce voluntary National Service by the Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans. This is good progress and should be encouraged and sufficient resources need to be invested into this initiative but the conversation needs to be broadened to include National Service outside the Military.
The medical profession has already introduced this through the compulsory community service that graduated doctors have to undergo for a year. This should be extended to the technical professions such as engineering to deal with skills shortages, particularly, in municipalities located in the rural areas where technical skills are in dire shortage.
National service can also be used to address the National Question by ensuring that young people conducting National Service are deployed at different parts to where they were born or brought up so that they can experience a different perspective.
*Labour Laws*Our Labour Laws make the issue of skills development by companies a voluntary activity. Yes, there are skills levies that can be claimed back but the administrative burden of the processes that companies need to engage in makes the participation in skills development to be below expectation, especially for small and medium enterprises.
We need to move to the establishment where skills development becomes a mandatory activity of every company and is monitored because it has a direct bearing on the long-term sustainability of the private sector. On moving forward government, industry and universities need to come together to come up with concrete strategies on how work integrated learning will be capacitated.
Our government on its part can begin to capacitate in-house work integrated learning infrastructures within universities and introduce work integrated learning requirements whenever possible in the tendering processes. A detailed thinking should go into how large public works projects such as the building of power stations will leave a strong legacy in skills development in the country.
Industry needs to commit itself to concrete targets as far as work integrated learning is concerned. Universities should engage industry when conducting enrolment planning so that the distribution of students is in line with industry's current and future needs.
In conclusion, work integrated learning is a critical action force for the development of the South African economy and needs to be viewed within the context of the NDR.
* *Professor Tshilidzi Marwala* is the Executive Dean of the Faculty
of Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of
Johannesburg
*From: http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/anctoday/2010/at23.htm#art2*
* *
--
You are subscribed. This footer can help you.
Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this
message.
You can visit the group WEB SITE at
http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options,
pages, files and membership.
To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't
have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in
the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat):
[email protected] .
<<image/gif>>
<<image/jpeg>>
