Abstract
M.Ed.
Education has become so academic that students are no longer adequately
prepared for the world in which they have to exist meaningfully (Dekker &
Lemmer, 1993:251). Education and training are key activities in our society and
are of vital interest to every family as well as to the health and prosperity of our
national economy. The Department of Education (1995:32) indicates that
education and training in South Africa has tended to operate separately for many
Years in terms of provision, curricula, examination and qualification structures.
There is a limited integrated approach to the structures for education and training,
and limited provision for linkages between education, training, business and
labour although when suitably modified certain elements of the structure could be
used to develop an integrated approach. Education curricula are devised at a
central level and bear no relation to the requirements for vocational training
(National Training Board, 1994:59). The only formal link occurs within technical
colleges and technikons where academic education is strongly associated with
vocational training requirements.
Education is seen to provide the entry-level qualifications, which in turn allow for
on-the-job experience or training to take place. Schools provide entry into the
training system but are not in any way integrated to it. The education and training
system plays no meaningful role in integrating the school-leaver into the world of
work (National Training Board, 1994:69).
A vast majority of the adult population of many countries still has no qualifications
at all. Even today, one in three of the working population in the United Kingdom
has no qualifications of any kind (Inter-Ministerial Working Group, 1996:22). In
South Africa a breakdown in terms of the level of education of the population
aged 20 years and older reveals that 13% hold no educational qualifications; 24%
of the population have only completed primary education; 52% have completed
secondary education (up to grade 12 or National Technical Certificate 3), while
the remainder holds one or other post-school qualification. According to the
Department of Manpower (1994), South Africa's lowest-level human resources
appeared to be in the order of 52% of the total labour force, while the high-level
human resources are in the order of 15%. Over the last thirty years progress has
been made to improve the skills level of the labour force (Gerber, Nel & Van Dyk,
1998:411).
Table 1.1 indicates in 1994 that only 8,7% of the economically active population
of South Africa had no education. Almost a quarter of the potentially economically
active population had only primary education, while 35,3% are regarded as
functionally illiterate, that is having an education level of less than grade seven.