HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION IN SOUTH AFRICA
5.3. The transformation of the architectural profession in South Africa
5.3.3. The impact of national imperatives on the architectural profession in South Africa While the HEQsF, the CAA and other international benchmarks influence professional standards,
146 | P a g e thinking, scientific and technological competencies in the graduates. The reality, as confirmed in interviews with the various heads of the ALSs, is that there has not been any intense collaborative discussion amongst all the heads of the ALSs in order to develop an appropriate strategy moving forward. In an interview with the SACAP Registrar, O’Reilly (2014), SACAP felt it necessary to facilitate such discussions with regard to the new professional and educational frameworks within which the practice and training of architectural professionals is situated.
5.3.3. The impact of national imperatives on the architectural profession in South Africa
147 | P a g e very comprehensive and relevant to the needs of democratic South Africa. However, although significant progress has been made since 1994, there are serious shortcomings in the implementation of the RDP as many poor South Africans have not realised the anticipated benefits;
millions of people remain unemployed and many of these are youth and young adults. This led to the development of the NDP (www.npconline.co.za).
The NDP was developed by the National Planning Commission, and published in June 2011 (www.npconline.co.za). One of the key priority areas of the NDP is to develop an economy that will create more jobs. Two of the key proposals under the key priority areas most pertinent to this research, are:
Improve the skills base through better education and vocational training.
Increase investment in social and economic infrastructure to lower costs, raise productivity and bring more people into the mainstream of the economy.
The improvement of the skills base through better education and training has particular significance to higher education as the demographic representation of historically disadvantaged people in the economy is still seriously lacking. The architectural profession is characterised by a dire lack of professionals from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, especially in the
‘Professional Architect’ category. While the ALSs are making an effort to recruit more students from these backgrounds, the impact on the demographic statistics has a time lag of at least eight years, due to the training required for professional architects.
On the other hand, there is a significant number of historically disadvantaged persons practicing in the lower categories of registration; this presents a challenge and also an opportunity to SACAP to find alternate methods of ‘up-skilling’ these practitioners to higher professional registration categories. The process of Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) is vital, and in this regard, SACAP is currently developing a rigorous RPL strategy (refer to interview with O’Reilly) (ANNEXURE B).
The problem of the lack of professionals from historically disadvantaged backgrounds is exacerbated by the second key proposal listed above. The national government’s commitment to investment in infrastructure, particularly social infrastructure, will require the supply of even more professionals from historically disadvantaged backgrounds; this places further pressure on institutions of higher learning and professional regulatory bodies such as SACAP.
148 | P a g e SACAP, as a regulatory body, is accountable to the DPW which has established a policy framework that defines the key strategic national imperatives for the development of the built environment including human settlements; this emanates from the alignment with the NDP. The DPW Strategic Plan 2012-2016 was presented by the Minister of Public Works, Mr TW Nxesi in 2012, outlining the key programmes and strategic objectives of the DPW. The critical objectives pertaining to this research, extracted from the Strategic Plan 2012-2016 are:
Sub Programme: Projects and Professional Services - Objective statement: Creation of training opportunities for 500 built environment graduates over the next 5 years
Programme 3: Expanded Public Works Programme
Strategic objective 4: Promote an enabling environment for the creation of both short and sustainable work opportunities, so as to contribute to the national goal of job creation and poverty alleviation.
The two strategic objectives above, extracted from the document, has significant implications for the built environment disciplines at institutions of higher education. With regard to the first of the listed objectives, providing training for 500 graduates over a five-year period; the training of these graduates has to prepare them to enter work-based training programmes, as suggested by the DPW.
Furthermore, the nature of training of these graduates has to equip them with the skills and knowledge to perform in complex multi-cultural environments in order to contribute to nation- building, job creation and poverty alleviation. Nxesi further iterated the endeavour to train young professionals in his document titled ‘Rebuilding the Department of Public Works’: Five Year Policy Statement and Vision for 2014-2019, which was published on 20 June 2014. Reference is made to Outcome5: Skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path. This outcome of the document confirms that the DPW has set a target of 3128 beneficiaries of the national ‘skills development programme’, including 675 in the ‘Young Professionals Programme’.
The implications of this on higher education institutes, is immense and it is an opportune time for the built environment professions to take the opportunities that this initiative offers.
The initiatives of the DPW, supported by the commitment of the Minister of Public Works, shows a serious concern for relevant skills development that are necessary for economic redress, job
149 | P a g e creation and poverty alleviation – all towards nation-building and spatial transformation. This requires that the institutions of higher education transform their curricula and graduate attributes in order to respond to the respective imperatives; the training of architectural professionals is thereby directly impacted. The foci of curricula and projects have to be situated within this framework in order to be beneficial and responsive to the broad national imperatives.
The national imperatives/agenda presents many opportunities for architectural education at universities of technology, which have historically established strong engagement with communities and have focused on industry partnerships and technology transfer. This again places universities of technology in a unique strategic position to address and respond to the national imperatives, more specifically those of the DPW with regard to the built environment disciplines.
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Chapter Summary
The chapter outlined the origins of formal architectural education in South Africa, which it traced back to the 1923 Conference on Architectural Education which was held at the Technical College in Durban. Among the delegates were representatives from Wits, UCT and the Natal Technical College. The main outcome of the conference was the formalisation of a Federal Council on Architectural Education, which developed ‘curricula’ and monitored standards of architectural education.
Wits was the only university that offered an architectural course at that time. Subsequent to the conference, UCT established its architecture programme. Wits assisted in developing the Natal University College (formerly the Natal Technical College) programme and later the UP architectural programme. Later, UP established its architecture programme. The first meeting of the Federal Council on Architectural Education, held in 1924 in Cape Town, agreed to recognise two standard models for courses in architecture, namely, the Diploma and the Degree. The Diploma course of Wits and the Degree course of UCT defined the standards for each model. Each of the universities had a particular leaning; either an engineering / science based model of the Wits Diploma, or the academic and artistic model of the UCT Degree. The architectural profession in the form of practitioners and the South African Institute of Architects were key role players in the development of architectural education.
The Federal Council changed to the Central Council, which determined that universities would be the ideal sites for architectural education and consequently, the university-based curriculum became the prevalent model of architectural education. This initiated much concern from Government and Technical Colleges, as well as the architectural profession which had vested interest in the training of architectural assistants through the second level training offered by technical colleges.
After 1994, Democratic South Africa realised broad level transformation of educational and professional frameworks, which changed the system of architectural education and the architectural profession in South Africa. Revisions to Acts of Parliament led to the formalisation of the Higher Education Act 101 of 1997 and the Architectural Professions Act 44 of 2000. The Higher Education Act initiated the development of the Higher Education Qualifications Sub- Framework (HEQsF) while the Architectural Professions Act regularised the profession by
151 | P a g e establishing SACAP, which introduced new categories of registration inclusive of draughtspersons and technologists. The recognition of categories of registration of professionals, other than the professional architect, could further allow such professionals to articulate to higher levels of professional registration via the RPL process. In this regard SACAP is unique and has set a new benchmark and precedent for public protection, redress and professional articulation.
The HEQsF and SACAP structures afforded articulation between levels of different qualifications and professional categories. This meant that mobility and portability of qualifications became possible. Together with the increase in demand for higher education from the previously excluded historically disadvantaged population, this posed challenges, while also presenting the opportunity for curriculum revision at lower levels in order to allow for mobility and vertical articulation of qualifications and professional registration. The former technical institutes have also changed over time, becoming universities of technology. The new legislative frameworks governing architectural education and the architectural profession, have positioned universities of technology in an opportune position for curriculum transformation, and also afforded them the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications.
While there is no explicit resistance to universities of technology offering higher degrees towards professional architects’ training, the major concern is how the universities of technology are going to upgrade their existing qualifications and offer new higher qualifications while developing a distinctly different identity to the traditional academic universities. While there seems to be an obvious perceived threat to the traditional universities, the need for a distinctly different model of architectural education, albeit at the same academic and professional levels of the traditional universities, is a valid argument especially with regard to government’s need for capacity building towards spatial transformation and socio-economic redress. In this regard the universities of technology have the opportunity to define a relevant niche in architectural education, through pedagogic transformation.
The chapter concluded with a brief discussion on the national imperatives and the strategic objectives of the NDP and the DPW. It was posited that universities of technology are strategically positioned to respond to the national agenda. The next chapter will analyse a key sample of universities of technology in South Africa in order to determine how these institutions may have transformed under new legislation and their respective current states of architectural education.
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