Abstract
M.Comm.
Public Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges are governed by a College
Council, which need to perform actions in order to govern the Public FET College.
(RSA, 2006:9).
In order to discuss the governance role of the Public Further Education and Training
Council, a historical perspective of Public Further Education and Training Colleges
was firstly discussed. Extensive literature reviews of Public FET Colleges and
Businesses were undertaken in order to provide a solid foundation for further
quantitative research.
An existing questionnaire developed to measure good corporate governance was
used as a measuring instrument for the research. The questionnaire was designed
within the framework of corporate governance applicable to Public FET Colleges and
can be used for future research studies.
The approach adopted for this study is of a quantitative nature, where data was
obtained in the form of scores, which were tabulated, analysed and displayed in a
graphical format.
The primary objective of the research was to investigate the role of the College
Council of Public FET Colleges in Gauteng. The secondary objective of the research
was to investigate the following research questions:
· determining if members of the College Council at Public FET Colleges are fully
aware about their roles and responsibilities;
· making meaningful recommendations on how to improve the perceptions of
members of the College Council at Public FET Colleges, based on literature and
empirical results obtained from this study and
· make meaningful recommendations to the provincial government on capacitating
Public FET College Councils in their roles and responsibilities.
The results of the study indicated that members of Public FET College Councils in
Gauteng are not fully aware of their roles and responsibilities and as a result thereof
govern and manage Public FET Colleges ineffectively.
The recommendation is that members of Public FET College Councils in Gauteng
need to be capacitated in their roles and responsibilities and orientated properly in
order to apply good corporate governance and add value to the College.
There is a need for a follow-up study to be conducted on members of Public FET
College Councils in South Africa to determine the perceptions of the role and
responsibilities of College Councils and the conflicting roles of a College Council
member and the Principal, should both be employed by the state. The clarification of
roles will add to good corporate governance.
The need to do research on the accountability of the members of College Councils
and the consequences in the event that mismanagement occurs is further identified.
Research is also needed to determine if an Activity Based Costing (ABC) method
could be used effectively at Public FET Colleges in order to manage costs.