The advent of sectoral education and training has resulted in significant developments for workers, particularly at factory level.
This is the experience of one such company, Control Instruments.
This Steeledale company is now in its third year of providing Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET) to its workers.
“Some of the workers are now doing level 3,” says Patrick Peters ABET manager. Currently there are about 20 workers attending three hours a week, all during working hours.
“ABET is a school for adult people,” says Herman Mokhela, one of the ABET learners. “The school motivates us and teaches us something that we were not aware of. I’m gaining a lot.”
“It is very wise to learn and to know how to write, I encourage every adult worker to join ABET,” says Makhela.
Another learner is a single mother with one child. She says that ABET helped her “a lot in spelling English, filling in forms and in understanding the meaning of every English name” she comes across. She encourages others to follow her.
Father of six, Johane Masondo, is doing level 1. “I never went to school. I grew up on a farm. We started by learning about the alphabet, “A” is for apple,” says Masondo.
Patricia Ntsele, a mother of 3, also sees the advantage of ABET. In her second year of training she now feels “good in English”. “I can even read and write letters for myself and apply for a job” and just as important in her role as a mother, “help my children with their homework!”
Why do workers need ABET?
ABET stands for adult basic education and training. There are different levels of ABET. Most cover numeracy (mathematics) and communication (reading, writing and speaking).
Apartheid deprived many workers of education. And many Numsa members fall into this category.
In 2002, government statistics said that almost 35% of African people over the age of 20 had less than grade 7. When Numsa did a survey of its members in 2000, it found that 22,6% of those surveyed had less than grade 7.
We don’t know whether this number has fallen now. But we do know that often when workers are retrenched, the first to go are those with less education. We also know that people gain a lot from ABET.
Numeracy and communication can be a key to open doors. Once workers have these, they can go on and do other courses at work that will help them get jobs at higher rates of pay and stop the doors closing on them.
If you know of anyone in your company who was deprived of ABET, encourage them to come forward and ask for ABET in your company. It will change their lives.