The recent Sunday Times article written by Isaak Mahlangu titled ‘Why TVETs are failing our youth’ paints a bleak predicament. The article paints a picture of a system desperately trying to find its footing with an 11% throughput rate, a pivot toward the German work-based model, and a minister appealing to industry for partnership. These are not new problems, and the proposed solutions, while well-intentioned, miss the most fundamental issue: the people designing, managing, and delivering technical and vocational education in South Africa largely have no meaningful industry experience.
As someone who has operated in accredited artisan and engineering trades training for many years, I want to offer a perspective that the article touches on but does not fully interrogate.
The consultation gap is structural, not incidental
The transition from legacy N-qualifications to Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO) occupational qualifications has generated genuine anxiety across the sector. Some of that anxiety is warranted. The accreditation pipeline for replacement qualifications has been slow. Replacement qualifications are, in some cases, not yet ready. And critically, there remains a significant disjoint between the QCTO and the National Artisan Moderation Body (NAMB), the two bodies that should be speaking with one voice on trades qualifications, but which frequently work at cross-purposes.
