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WHICH MINISTRY SHOULD HOUSE TVET?

12/10/2020 00:17:00 BY NTOMBI MHLONGO

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MBABANE - Is the Ministry of Education and Training the right unit to house the country’s TVET institutions?

TVET is an acronym for technical vocational education training and locally, it is offered by the Eswatini College of Technology, Gwamile Voctim and the National Handcraft Training Centre.

Despite that most policies geared towards employment creation for the youth acknowledge the value of TVET in the economy, glaring gaps in the manner in which the local institutions are coordinated have been pointed out.

The gaps have been identified in the Mapping of Existing Labour Market Information and Skills Anticipation Practices in the Eswatini Draft Report, which was presented last week.

One of the recommendations contained in the report is that there is a need for the support and facilitation of a TVET coordinating agency.

Autonomous

Such an agency, it was mentioned in the draft report, should be autonomous and take charge of all TVET activities in the country including harmonising curriculum and providing TVET regulation through sector training authorities.

“The TVET coordinating agency should ideally fall under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. It could consolidate and provide a lot of data that is currently unavailable to support the functionality of the Labour Market Information System (LMIS),” reads part of the report.

During the workshop for the presentation of the draft report, some attendees debated the issue and in particular enquired if it made logical sense for the TVET to be under the Ministry of Education and Training. In noting the gaps, the draft report stated that stakeholders observed that there was no coordinating body for the TVET and as such, its data was sitting in different departments. It was mentioned that such a scenario presented difficulties when looking for data on TVET such as learning outcomes, progression rates, failure rates and drop-out rates etc.

It was mentioned that when the study was conducted, data on the total number of students enrolled in TVET institutions enrolment was not readily available on public domains except for two private colleges. Also, it was highlighted that since there was no national TVET coordinating body, different TVET providers used different approaches and there was no harmonisation of skills offered.

Additionally, it was stated that there was no mechanism of transferring or crediting courses or modules passed from one TVET centre to another and vice versa, which could be achieved through the national TVET coordinating body.

“Respondents emphasised that the lack of a centralised records on labour demand means it is not possible to guide TVET colleges and students on the needs of the industry. TVET colleges also mentioned that regarding data collection, there was no way of telling what skills were on demand in the industry and that the ESHEC is yet to provide a framework to standardise TVET curriculum and allow students to carry credits from one institution to the next and vice versa, which makes it difficult to align local TVET provision with national priorities,” it was mentioned in the draft report.

The consultants of the study noted that TVET (both formal and informal) was an important factor for developing skills, enrolling more high school leavers in the country than the university system every year.

“The consultants revealed some of the challenges facing the TVET sector. Not only are TVET colleges unable to keep pace with the skills needs of the industry, they are ridiculously underfunded and their management fragmented,” it was mentioned in the report.

Reluctant

It was also stated that whereas stakeholders were reluctant to prescribe the best model, other ventured ideas ranging from the use of sector training authorities that will regulate quality, drive curriculum and harmonise skills development in the sector including in informal centres while others felt one body could do all the work, given the size and structure of the country’s economy.

Consultant Dr Thula Dlamini, who presented the draft report, mentioned that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security was the one that funded skills development.

Sharing his view on the matter, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Thulani Mkhaliphi said he noted the recommendation but first highlighted that when handling issues related to the labour market, it was important to consider that they were governed by a tripartitism in such a way that all the stakeholders involved, including government and workers, had to work together for collective responsibility.

He did not deny the fact that there were gaps in the manner in which TVET was coordinated, but revealed that there were ongoing discussions on the issue.

Discussions

“There have been discussions between the Ministries of Education and Training, Commerce, Industry and Trade and Labour and Social Security. I have been informed that even that of Tinkhundla Administration and Development has been involved. The office of the prime minister has been engaging us on where the institutions could be placed so we are adamant that a collective recommendation will be made,” he said.

He mentioned that his ministry did not have a problem with a TVET policy being placed under its wing but that certain functions needed to be separated.

“When you talk of TVET, there is the coordination part and then the operational aspect. Because of that, the institutions cannot be placed under one unit. TVET will find its operational aspect in several facets within the economy. Most importantly, we need to realise the whole continual process of TVET and segment it so that we understand that operationally it will rest with a certain entity,” he said.

Centralised

Elaborating, Mkhaliphi said for coordination and data collection, TVET would have to be centralised. “We are somehow getting closer to that there needs to be an organised engagement so that we take firm resolutions on how we take TVET forward,” he emphasised. In neighbouring South Africa, TVET is administered by the Department of Higher Education and Training and is referred to as ‘post-school’ training. Worth noting is that in the neighbouring country, the only age restriction for a person wishing to study the TVET level is that they should be 16 years or older.