MechChem Africa March 2017

An alternative to matriculation I havea17-year olddaughter ingrade12 right now, being prepared to write her ‘matric’ exam, amid unbelievable amounts of pressure. As well as the continual weekly cycle of tests, essays, projects and exams, her after school timetable is blocked with extra work: Master Maths for two two-hour sessions per week; extra IT for an afternoon session once a week; and advanced programme (AP) English, also for two two-hours sessions, with the second timetabled from 4:30 to 6:30 every Friday afternoon. Peter Middleton

traditional academic programmes targetinguniversity entry requirements (A-Levels); to skills-based training courses in traditional and modern trades; and into direct employment. Simply put, most UK youngsters choose their career path at 16. Back in South Africa, there have been repeated attempts to establish and promote technical and vo- cational career pathways through the technical high schools, Further Education andTraining (FET) colleges and themore recentlynamedTechnical andVocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges. In producing African Fusion this month, I was heartened to hear from the SAIW’s Etienne Nell about a renewed commitment, particularly from DeputyMinisterMananaof theDepartment ofHigher Education and Training (DHET), with regard to the TVETs. Manana’s plan is for the TVET colleges to be the primary vehicle for the delivery of trade tests in South Africa. The implications of this are notable. First it indi- cates recognition of the need for higher-level skills in South Africa. It also recognises that, for our youth to reach international skills standards, training need to start at a much earlier age – learners can enrol at a TVET college at 16. The idea is that artisan training is administered through the DHET; follows a curriculum based on the new Curriculum Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO); and has as its end point, a Trade Test under the supervision of the National Artisan Moderation Body (NAMB). Here we have the mak- ings of an alternative exit point from the education system, one that could result in school leaverswalking directly into useful and well paid employment while still in their teens. Nell, whohas beenpart of a groupworking towards establishing the QCTO curriculum for welding for several years, says that the new QCTO welding cur- riculummeets theBratislava International agreement forwelder training signedbyabout 50countries across the world. “So if a South African welder passes the new QTCO-based trade test, he or she can secure a job anywhere in the world. That is what is so excellent about this new curriculum,” he says. This means that a young learner exiting a TVET college having passed a trade test could end up more employable, nationallyand internationally, thanahigh- achieving matriculant. q

She is not often home from school before 5:00 pm and twice a week, she arrives after dark. I don’t re- member working nearly as hard in my final year at school. Matric is now a colloquial term unique to South Africa. It was the original university entrance ex- amination. My daughter iswriting herNational Senior Certificate examinations. For her and her peers, though, university entrance is still the focus. All are anxiously striving for the grades required for entry into their chosen university courses. Yet by far the majority of students taking the ‘matric’ exam this year, including many of those at the best schools, will not follow the academic university route. And in the case of engineering, far less than half the students whomeet the requirements and enrol at universities will graduate with degrees. The early exit points from the traditional South African school system are mostly ‘failure points’. There are numerous examples of people applying for jobs with a Standard 6 or a Grade 10 school leavers’ certificate, from which we infer that the candidate has ‘dropped out’ somewhere along the common path towardsmatric. Anybody not going through theGrade 12 end-point successfully has ‘failed’ in some way. IntheUKandassociatedCommonwealthcountries, the education system’s first exit point is the General CertificateofSecondaryEducation(GCSE).Atwo-year GCSE programme is taken by learners in Year 9 and 10 of their schooling and is designed to accommodate the full range of abilities. While it is not compulsory to sit the exam, all children under the age of 16 must attend school and, since learners are very seldomheld back, almost all 16-year-olds reach this exit point at the same time. After completing GCSEs, education pathways branch in several directions: towards school- and college-based vocational programmes, (NVQs); into

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