Educational policy changes and their effect on the performance of the FET Colleges.

Abstract

ABSTRACT South Africa saw a far-reaching change of administration and policies post-1994. Looking back it is clear that a new legislative framework has been created and resource investment has taken place in the sector, but there is limited knowledge of the effects policy has had on the performance of colleges in terms of teaching and learning. The prime purpose of this research project is to describe the effects of educational policy changes on the performance of Further Education and Training Colleges (FETCs). Semi-structured in-depth interview schedules have been used to collect data from various stakeholders, namely a Further Education and Training College (FETC), None Profit Organizations (NPOs), Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and Gauteng Department of Education (GDE), while secondary data from various sources has been used to complement the qualitatively collected data. The research project found out that policy was developed in a hurried manner, which contributed to undesirable effects, namely neglect of implementers and other stakeholders, discontent and sector instability. There is a need for a concerted effort at meaningful stakeholder engagement to enable the system to become fully functional. It is clear that government has neglected the most important people that it could have prioritised, viz. the implementers. The Department of Education needs to acknowledge the challenges at hand and respond to them accordingly, thus stabilising the system, which should be multi-faceted.