Ike Abrahams * looks at the new training system to see whether our initial vision is being met. He argues that it is not.
As Cosatu we called for a new dispensation in education and training in South Africa . We wanted a system that would provide a path for workers to move from being sweepers to engineers. We wanted training that was quicker and easier than the system of the past. We said for all of this to be achieved, we had to drive transformation of the education and training system. But the outcome is not what we envisaged 10 years ago. We were caught with our pants down.
National Qualification Framework (NQF) principles are not delivering outcomes identified. Education and training issues have been taken away from us. The system has changed us from being an opposition to becoming an “equal†partner.
The problem with what we have is that the focus is on individual progression. The need of the individual is put before the needs of the collective. In fact, the NQF puts the needs of the individual at the expense of the collective.
The NQF system is becoming a system of gate-keeping; who goes in and who stays out. “Everything is in place all you need to do is to go for the training. If you are lazy you are outâ€. For the last 10 years, I battle to see what we spoke about.
We said workers will be assessed and receive recognition for their skills – the famous RPL concept. We said we will have more power and control as management structures get flattened. We also said that if workers decide to do accredited modules, they will be on their way to become engineers.
All I see is workers becoming sweepers. The new system is not producing artisans. Instead, the job of an artisan is broken down into small chunks of learning. Our entire vision is becoming a pipe dream.
The new education dispensation in the country is putting some serious challenges to the trade union movement in the country.
Setas are taking away our political power
Worker control over education and training has been compromised. It gave way to negotiations around education priorities that are not worker-biased. The name of the game is workplace training versus workers' education.
It is about individual versus the collective interests. The only real activity in Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas) is getting access to millions of rands. It is about keeping intact a capitalist market. Within the Setas there is also talk about learnerships.
In my opinion, organised labour committed a blunder when it agreed with the learnership system. Learnerships enhance the capitalist system. Learnerships support a system of having small core permanent workers with the bulk of workers on the periphery as contractors and casuals. If you are successful within the system, you will get a qualification in the capitalist labour market. If you are not, then you will swim in the sea of what is called atypical workers.
Again a system of gate-keeping. All along we thought that the new training system was a step to restructure the economy. It looks as if we are restructuring ourselves out of the economy.
Where to now?
The new training system favours state and business. It was to control and direct workers as consumers of training. We need an alternative and a tool to shift things in favour of the masses. Education and training can be that tool; but then it must become a collective bargaining issue and not a tunneling process.
Education and training should be linked to the social purpose of the trade union. We need to change the slogan calling for “education and training for economic growthâ€.
We must also revise the talk of “from sweeper to engineerâ€. The owners of the means of production clearly do not need that many engineers.
* Abrahams is Numsa Western Cape 's regional education officer. He is one of the comrades who participated in the early 1990s in the development of the union's training strategy.
Source
Numsa News