CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE SURVEY
2.9 THE NEED FOR CHANGE 86
A key criterion for the appointment of external College Council members should be their ability to promote a responsive and entrepreneurial ethos in colleges, to bring about the transformation of colleges in accordance with the values and objectives of a democratic, non-racial South Africa to assist colleges in formulating their strategic missions and plans, and to oversee the management of the college and its financial affairs (Further Education and Training Act 16 of 2006:52). The Further Education and Training Act 16 of 2006 also stipulates that specific attention should be given in the appointment of College Councils to race and gender representivity.
Given both the inequalities and inequities of the past, and the inability of the previously fragmented FET band to respond in a coherent and effective manner to the social and economic needs of the country, strong emphasis should be placed on institutional as well as human resource development and capacity- building. This study will determine how the college managers use their authority to motivate diverse employees with the prospects of promotion and increased responsibility within the chain of command. This study will therefore explore how public FET colleges use organisational structures to prevent differential treatment and the steps managers take to ensure that diversity, in all respects, is effectively managed for the good of all college stakeholders.
citizens to unleash the maximum creative energy. This will require a decisive shift away from its apartheid inheritance as a low-skill, low-quality economy to a high- skill, high-quality alternative which is competitive on global markets and which meets the basic needs of all of its citizens (Green Paper on Further Education and Training 1997:95). This can only be attained with the development of human resources.
South Africa is a complex, multicultural, multiracial country, where traditional beliefs and socio-cultural practices live side-by-side (Cloete 1996:4). Although great strides have been made in dealing with the legacy of apartheid and the ideological differences it planted amongst the different population groups, there is still a long way to go in terms of nation-building. It is therefore important to acknowledge that cultural differences and tensions still exist and to work with these in the creation of a non-racial society in which unity is the result of an acceptance and understanding of diversity.
The FET system is well structured and positioned to deal with the challenges of building unity within diversity. For example, the new democratic FET system has ushered in participatory models of governance, promoted nation-building and introduced radical societal change. In addition, it could be ensured that a life skills programme, which fosters an understanding and acceptance of diversity as the foundation for unity and democracy, forms part of curriculum of any FET qualification (Young & Gamble 2006:13).
It is for this reason that management should assume a new importance, as an instrument not only of effective management and administration, but of systematic and institutional change. Change should be focussed on the building of new learning pathways, and new, more meaningful linkages and relationships between FET, the world of work, Higher Education, community and private life.
Accordingly, as an instrument of change, management needs to give concrete expression to the concepts of participation, responsiveness, cooperation and
diversity management (Young & Gamble 2006:14). Management needs moreover to bring together the education and the training elements of a national human resource development strategy. Technical colleges have been legally changed into Further Education and Training (FET) institutions. Furthermore, the 24 colleges in KwaZulu-Natal have been merged to form nine FET Colleges with a specific mandate to provide skills in response to the Skills Development Strategy of South Africa. It was the political urgency and expediency prior to the incorporation of FET colleges, which brought colleges together to form these nine new colleges (DoE 2001:17). The Education Departments, national and provincial, considered this to be the way to go within a tertiary framework.
These merged colleges were not a consensual creation. While there was no active and organised opposition to the mergers, there was a considerable minority who was cynical about it (Green Paper on Further Education and Training 1997:3). The creation of these new colleges was organised and imposed by the national and provincial education authorities as part of a vision of a unitary Further Education and Training System. As such it was politically defined rather than being educationally or economically led (Green Paper on Further Education and Training 1997:5). No obvious economic or business criteria drove the mergers of the colleges. While conflicts that may arise can be approached in many ways, the colleges need to understand the processes of structural development of each college before particular solutions will be found.
The colleges must draw on its cultural learning experiences and formalise these into decision-making processes. These processes in effect will become the rules of the colleges and strategic behaviour of the new culture. Formally participating in co-ordinating the rules and policies will be an important determinant for colleges to develop their own strategic agenda. The college management teams need to use their managerial capabilities to move into a new environment and this requires time. Colleges need to adopt an internal funding formula, which recognises the different starting positions of the campuses and does not try
immediately to impose further constraints. However, the supply-side model needs to give way to the demand-led model of funding.
The researcher is of the opinion that there has been no radical reform of FET institutions in KwaZulu-Natal. The merging of different technical colleges may not have considered the different starting positions of the campuses, thereby addressing accordingly the problems of redress and equity between the previously advantaged and disadvantaged campuses. The researcher has a strong suspicion that the following challenges still exist in the merged campuses
Widely varying quality, with a number of excellent providers, and excellent departments within colleges, co-existing with some poor and much mediocre provision among the different campuses. There might have not been sufficient emphasis on standards, access rates, and the development of excellence, more particularly because too much management time has been spent chasing and accounting for funding and not enough on raising standards, relevance of teaching and learning and management of diversity.
The negligence of the workforce‟s skills and careers‟ development within the sector. There is no clear evidence of healthy levels of actualisation, as well as sufficient emphasis on improving professional skills, on updating subject or occupational knowledge or developing leadership skills for the future.
A legacy of under-investment in the capital infrastructure, with too much learning still taking place in unattractive and inefficient buildings in the previously disadvantaged campuses. In these campuses there has also been a lack of available capital to invest in updating vocational training facilities to match changing industry expectations and technological change.
Against this background it seems imperative for a manager to nurture and foster the social dynamics of democracy and decentralisation during the process of transforming the public FET colleges in order to remove inequalities, provide equal access, distribute resources equitably among the different campuses and thereby improve the quality of service in all campuses. The challenge would be for college administrators to extend democracy at institutional level, allocate resources in a manner that would truly redress the imbalances of the past that might still exist among the campuses, and to resolve the ideological differences that may be found among the employees who come from different historical and educational background.