ATC160824: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training on its Oversight visit to Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Colleges in the Western Cape, dated 24 August 2016

Higher Education, Science and Innovation

REPORT OF THE PORTFOLIO COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING ON ITS OVERSIGHT VISIT TO TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (TVET) COLLEGES IN THE WESTERN CAPE, DATED 24 AUGUST 2016

1. Introduction

Parliament derives its powers from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. Section 55(2) empowers the National Assembly to provide for mechanisms to maintain oversight of the exercise of national executive authority, including the implementation of legislation.

 

One of the functions of oversight listed in the Oversight and Accountability Model is to ensure that policies announced by government and authorised by Parliament are actually delivered. This function includes monitoring the achievement of goals set by legislation and the government’s own programmes.

 

In compliance with the above, the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training undertook an oversight visit to the West Coast (Atlantis Campus) and Northlink (Bellville Campus) TVET colleges on 17 – 18 September 2015 as part of the Committee / Oversight Period of Parliament. The main objective of the oversight visit was to assess the performance of these colleges particularly on governance and administration. The purpose of this report is to highlight the key issues raised by the colleges, to list the findings and observations made by members, and to make recommendations for consideration by the Minister of Higher Education and Training.

 

2. Background

The college sector consists of 50 public TVET colleges with 256 campuses spread across all the nine provinces of South Africa. The main purpose of colleges is to train young school leavers and adults, providing them with the skills, knowledge and attitudes necessary for employment in the labour market. The college sector is central to the provision of post-school education and training, and it primarily provides training for the mid-level skills required to develop the South African economy. The National Development Plan (NDP) sets a target for the country to produce 30 000 artisans per annum by 2030, and TVET colleges are critical role-players for the achievement of this target.

Given the afore-mentioned context of colleges, the Committee undertook an oversight visit to the West Coast and Northlink TVET colleges mainly to assess:

• Governance and administration;
• Transformation;

• Finances;
• Academic performance of students in relation to national targets;
• Administration of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) bursaries and loans;
• Infrastructure expansion and maintenance; and
• Partnerships with industries for work based exposure.

In addition to the above mentioned focus areas of the oversight visit, the Committee invited college stakeholders such as Councils, Student Representative Councils (SRC) and Unions to make inputs on behalf of their constituents particularly on transformation, relationship with management, challenges and turn around-strategies. The Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), National Skills Fund (NSF), National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and the Office of the Auditor-General South Africa (AGSA) officials were also part of the meetings.

3. Delegation

3.1 The delegation comprised of the following members:

Mr D Kekana: Whip (ANC), Ms J Kilian (ANC) Ms S Mchunu (ANC), Ms M Nkadimeng (ANC), Ms Y Phosa: Chairperson (ANC) and Prof B Bozzoli (DA).

3.2 Support staff:

Mr A Kabingesi: Committee Secretary, Ms M Modiba: Content Adviser, Ms T Majone: Committee Assistant and Mr L Komle: Researcher.

 

 

4. Summary of presentations

4.1 West Coast TVET college

4.1.1 Management

(i) Background

The College serves the largely rural West Coast region, with a central office situated in Malmesbury. The College had five campuses, namely; Atlantis, Citrusdal, Malmesbury Vredendal and Vredenburg. The average distance between the five campuses was 133 kilometers. The College was established from a merger of different small satellite colleges in 1999 and officially declared a Further Education and Training College in 2003. It offered programmes in the National Certificate Vocational NC(V), Report 191, Occupational Skills and higher education programmes. The programmes ranged from engineering, business studies and utilities and services.

(ii) Governance and management

The College had a legally constituted council with the following sub-committees: Audit and Risk, Executive, Human Resource and Remuneration, Finance and Resource and Planning. There was also a functional management structure which was centralised, with a decentralised campus structure. The management believed in regular communication to internal and external stakeholders through meetings, reporting, workshops, newsletters and electronic media.  The College would be audited by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) in 2016.

(iii) Admission policy

The admissions policy of the College enabled access to people of all ages, backgrounds, and races to enroll for courses and engage in learning, and ensured that students were placed in appropriate programmes. The College provided students with career guidance and support at the point of entry with the aim of placing students within the most suitable fields of study. The College administered assessments to identify student’ literacy and numeracy levels as well as to identify students potentially at risk and interventions required to support them.

 

(iv) Student enrolment and academic performance

The actual headcount enrolment for 2015 was 9 105 students and this was expected to increase to 11 893 students by 2019. The West Coast region was largely dominated by Coloured people, and Coloured students were in the majority at 54 percent, followed by blacks 44 percent and whites 2 percent. Female students were in the majority, at 62 percent in comparison with 38 percent males. The College experienced a decrease in the enrolment of the National Certificate Vocational NC(V) programme, from 3 044 in 2014 to 2 891 in 2015. This was attributed to changes in the Department of Higher Education and Training TVET College Bursary Scheme Guidelines, which affected the intake in beneficiaries of bursaries. The Nated N1 - N3 and N4 - N6 programmes had recorded significant increases in enrolments from 695 in 2014 to 1 335 in 2015, and 1 768 in 2014 to 2 464 in 2015 respectively. The increase was due to post-matric students who could not gain access to higher education institutions.

The certification rates for the National Certificate Vocational NC(V) programme in 2014 for Level 2 was 56 per cent, Level 3 was 57 per cent and Level 4 was 53 per cent and the College’s average was 56 per cent. For the Nated programme, the certification rates for N4 was 38 per cent, N5 was 46 per cent, N6 was 34 per cent, and the college’s average was 41 per cent. The reasons for the low certification rate in the Nated programmes were attributed to the delays in the registration of post-matric students who enrolled at the College when they failed to secure admissions at universities, and the challenge of learners who failed mathematics in high schools. 

(v) Staffing

The College had a staff complement of 455 employees with lecturing staff being the majority (257) in comparison with the support staff (193). The ratio between lecturing and support staff was 1:0.77. Vredenburg and Atlantis campuses had the higher number of lecturers at 82 and 70 respectively. The College recruited foreign national academic staff mostly from Zimbabwe to strengthen the engineering and mathematics programmes. All foreign staff were English speaking. The representation of persons with disabilities at the College was below 1 per cent for both males and females. The College received additional funding for training from the Education, Training and Development Practices (ETDP) SETA, Chemical Industries Education and Training Authority (CHIETA) and Public Service Education and Training  Authority (PSETA), DHET and National Skills Fund (NSF) during 2014 for a diverse number of staff development interventions.

(vi) Transformation

The College was committed to the national agenda of transformation, through increasing access for black and female students as well as people living with disabilities. Though the College was located in a region largely dominated by Coloured communities, it had ensured that there was equity of access in terms of student enrolment. The College Council adopted a language policy which ensured that English was a medium of instruction at all the campuses and an official language of the communication. There had been an increase in the enrolment numbers of black students in the student body, especially at Citrusdal and Vredenburg campuses where there were no black students four years ago.

The College made all the buildings at all campuses disability friendly, and it received funding from the Department of Higher Education and Training for enrolling students with disabilities. In ensuring that there was an equitable distribution of access and opportunity for students and staff along all racial lines, gender and class, the Council appointed senior management of colour.

 (vii) Partnerships

The College had good national and provincial partnerships with nearby industries for placement of students in work-integrated learning (WIL) and lecturers for work exposure. The partnerships included; the South African Institute of Welding (SAIW), the South African Oil & Gas Alliance (SAOGA),  the Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT), the Saldanhna Bay Industrial Development Zone Licensing Company (SBIDZ) etc. The College had 350 host employers on its database to ensure that work based experience targets were met. The College established a dedicated Placement and Work Based Exposure Unit to facilitate placement of staff and students within the College.

Besides the national and provincial partnerships, the College also had partnerships with European Colleges such as Blackburn College in Blackburn, Stockport in the United Kingdom, Magdeburg Gastronomie Fachschule in Germany and Kierkeparken School in Norway. These partnerships were for student exchange programmes, development and sharing of best practices. Graduate placement at the College dropped from 76 per cent in 2014 to 44 per cent in 2015. There were no funds from the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) to fund stipends, and students were not willing to take work placement opportunities without stipends.  The College aimed to place 65 lecturers in industry to undergo workplace exposure, however, only 37 lecturers were placed.

(viii) Infrastructure

The College had been expanding on its infrastructure since 2012.  The infrastructure development projects that were completed included: student residences, new classrooms, laboratories, ablution facilities, student centre, central office and workshop. There were also various building projects underway across campuses. Expansion of infrastructure for 2015/16 included: new Hospitality School (R9.7 million funded by the Western Cape Education Department), new classroom block at Vredenburg Campus (R6 million funded by WCED), Skills Centre Building at Vredendal Campus (R2.3 million funded by the Construction Education and Training Authority) and an additional eight classrooms and computer laboratories at Malmesbury Campus that were funded by the DHET.

The college residences had a total capacity of 1 398 beds collectively. The residences were oversubscribed due to rural locality and mobility of students from urban areas, and limited private accommodation facilities in the community the College served. In addition to these challenges, students lied about their residential addresses to the extent of buying addresses to secure a space in the residences.

(ix) Finances

The total budget of the college for 2015 amounted to R132 million. In terms of the new norms for funding of colleges since the migration process, the DHET retained 63 percent of the college’s allocation for compensation of employees. The total reserves of the college in 2014 amounted to R28 million, of which the overwhelming majority was invested in the building of new infrastructure. The total allocation of DHET National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) bursary for 2015 amounted to R37.7 million. With regard to the budget expenditure, 60 percent was for goods and services linked to student support (students materials, consumables, textbooks and residence expenses), 40 percent was committed expenditure for student transport.

 

(x) Transport

Due to the NSFAS funding shortfall, the College could not allocate transport allowances. The College sourced and funded student transport owing to lack of local public transport in the areas located nearby the College campuses. The total annual transport costs amounted to R12.7 million, consisting of the West Coast College (WCC) transport bursary of R7.1 million and a subsidy expense of R5.5 million. The College had a serious challenge of maintaining its transport support to students from its own budget, and a decision to discontinue with the WCC transport bursary allocation in 2016 was made, and communicated to all stakeholders.

4.1.2 Council

The following issues emanated from the presentation of Council:

• Council’s role in the college was to ensure efficient and effective corporate governance to carry out the fiduciary responsibility with great care and in an accountable manner, and to meet the transformational challenges in being part of the higher education system.
• Council provided strategic direction, fulfilled an oversight role, and ensured that policies were in place for effective management of the institution.
• Council adhered to the legislation and policy framework for colleges, and supported the vision of the Minister for colleges as set out in the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training. Council had its own standard statutes and established Committees with a clear terms of reference. The Committees of Council included: Finance, Planning and Resource, Audit and Risk and Conditions of Employment.
• Council participated in various activities of the College such as, the appointment of staff and filling of vacancies, attending strategic planning sessions and involvement in dispute resolution processes between the College, lecturers and staff.
• Council was concerned about the challenge of running a rural multi-campus college with resource implications in that regard. Council requested the DHET to make a provision in the funding model for rural colleges as they had unique challenges arising from the socio-economic profile of their regions and the students they catered for. 

 

 

4.1.3 Student Representative Council

The following issues emanated from the presentation of the SRC:

• The SRC had a good relationship and communication with the CEO and management, and believed that there was an opportunity for improvement with regard to communication at the campus level.
• The SRC understood its roles and responsibilities, especially in representing student needs to management and council respectively.
• Academic support for students in the College was a concern since it was not well structured, and it required attention.
• Transport for students to reach the College was a challenge owing to the rural locality of the College and its campuses. Inaccessible daily public transport further exacerbated the situation. The economic status of communities where students lived did not allow them to find their own way to reach the College.
• Insufficient infrastructure and equipment in some campuses was a challenge, and there should be an equal share of resources among all campuses of the College.
• The College’s residences and sport programmes were not sufficient for students, and management did not give adequate attention and visibility in residences at some campuses.
• The DHET changes in the funding for colleges posed a serious concern to the College’s operational budget, and this would impact negatively on the ability of the College to render transport in 2016 for students to reach the College daily.
• The SRC was satisfied that its leadership was recognised by management, food was guaranteed to students in residences and top achievers were given awards
• The SRC had the following proposals for improvement of the College’s performance, namely; management should increase campus facilities, the number of competent lecturers should be increased, communication and transparency of information at campus level should be increased, SRC elections should be conducted fairly and transparent, and there should be more surveys to improve teaching and learning.

 

 

4.1.4 Unions

The following issues emanated from the presentation of the National Education and Health Allied Workers Union (NEHAWU):

• The union had a good relationship with management, which recognised its role. The union interacted with management on all staff related matters, and management updated the union on the latest developments in the College.
• The migration of staff to DHET process was managed well by management which updated staff on all matters related to the migration process.
• The College was making progress with regard to transformation and it was an ongoing process.
• Lack of qualified lecturers in mathematics and engineering courses was a challenge for the College.
• The funding of colleges by DHET needed to be reviewed since the migration process had resulted in a decline in the funding of the college operational expenses.

4.1.5 Site visit

The Committee undertook a site visit of the Atlantis Campus and visited the following:

• Computer laboratory.
• Electrical workshop.
• Tool-making workshop.

The laboratory and the workshops were well equipped to provide students with practical work they needed for their qualifications.

4.2 Northlink TVET college

4.2.1 Management

(i) Background

The College serves the northern suburbs area of Cape Town and it was the biggest TVET College in the Western Cape. The College had seven campuses situated in: Belhar, Bellville, Goodwood, Parow, Protea, Tygerberg and Wingfield. The campuses were situated within a 15 kilometre radius from each other. The total number of programmes offered in the College was 79 in the following broad areas: Civil, Building and Construction and Electrical Engineering, Business, Utility and Social Services, Mechanical and Automotive Engineering. 

(ii) Student enrolment 

The headcount enrolment for 2015 was 19 547 students with 14 215 students registered in the Nated programme. The College was expanding on its distance learning programme which enrolled 2000 students in 2015. With regard to gender distribution of the student population in 2014, male students were the majority at 58 percent in comparison with females at 42 percent. In relation to the equity profile of students, the majority of the students in the College were black at 48 percent, followed by coloured 46 percent, white 5.8 percent and indian 0.2 percent. In terms of the DHET future targets, the headcount enrolment of the college was expected to increase up to 40 000 students by 2019. Based on this projected growth, the college would incur a budget deficit of R135 million.

(iii) Academic performance

The overall College certification rate for 2014 of the NC(V) programme was 50 percent, Report 190/191 N1 – N3 was 46 per cent and N4 – N6 was 61 per cent. The attendance rate for both the NC(V) and Nated programmes in 2014 was 80 per cent.

(iv) Finances

The total income of the College in 2014 amounted to R302 million. The total income was made up of the DHET allocation (R181 million), College’s own revenue (R102 million) and other income including the NSF (R19 million). The total expenditure for 2014 amounted to R299 million. The total expenditure was made up of R200 million for compensation of employees, R15 million for capital expenditure and R84 million for operations. The allocation of the DHET / NSFAS bursaries for 2015 was R62 million to assist 9 742 students.

(v) Staffing

The College had a staff complement of 970 employees, with administration and support staff being the majority 532 as compared to 439 lecturing staff and 152 interns. The majority of the staff in the College were coloureds at 59 percent, followed by whites 21 percent, blacks 19 percent and indian 1 percent. All lecturing staff had been issued with laptops and the college was in the process of installing data projectors in all its classrooms.

(vi) Partnerships

The College had national and international partnerships for work-integrated learning (WIL) and work-based exposure (WBE) for both students and lecturers. The national partnerships were with: Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDT), City of Cape Town (CCT), Department of Public Works (DPW), National Tooling Initiative (NTI), Transnet, South African National Defence Force (SANDF), Western Cape Education Department (WCED) for career guidance, Early Childhood Development (ECD) and Educare – 720 placement arrangements with different ECD centres and other various companies. The College had 24 Trade Test Centres that were accredited by 19 Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs). Two students of the college qualified to participate in the recent World Skills Competition held in Brazil in August 2015. With regard to international partnerships, the College partnered with countries such as: Wales in skills for employment project, renewable energy curriculum and capacity building; Netherlands for senior experts - capacity building for enhanced training, the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation (GIZ) for sustainable greening projects, United Kingdom for joint projects, conferences, competitions, study tours and exchanges and Norway for staff and student exchange as well as oil and gas projects.

(vii) Student housing

The College had two student residences in Belhar and Tygerberg with a total capacity of 322 beds. The majority of the students resided within a walking distance from the College campuses.

(viii) Infrastructure and equipment

The College had infrastructure development projects underway ranging from: refurbishment of the student residences, replacements of stoves and microwaves, refurbishment of practical workshops for Wingfiled campus and training kitchens, expansion of the Open Learning Centres, replacement of student seating, whiteboards, hairdryers, hospitality stoves, sewing machines, engineering machinery and equipment, replacement of utility trucks and the student bus.

 

4.2.2 Student Representative Council

The following issues emanated from the presentation of the SRC:

• The relationship between the SRC and management was good, and there was an open door policy for the SRC for direct contact with management. The SRC had quarterly meetings with the CEO and this platform allowed the SRC to interact directly with management for consideration of issues affecting students.

• Lecturers should be up-skilled by subject experts who have experience in industry or related fields, and they should research new and innovative ways of implementing subject matter.
• The College should promote the use of technology to disseminate information.
• Practical projects must be designed to improve student’s ability to compete in the workplace.
• Students should be trained in end user computer programme to improve their computer literacy skills.
• Wi-Fi access should be expanded in all campuses of the College.
• The NSFAS application process and feedback should be more efficient.
• The curriculum for both NC(V) and Report 191 programmes should be updated according to industry needs.
• The College should consider developing a feeding scheme per campus to eliminate student hunger.
• The ablution facilities of the College should be closely monitored to improve their hygienic conditions.
• Management should speedily respond to student grievances, and management should be involved in SRC activities such as outreach projects and events.

 

 

 

 

4.2.3 Unions

The following issues emanated from the presentation by the National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa (NAPTOSA):

• The Executive Management of the College managed the transfer of staff to DHET in an effective manner, and regular meetings were held with staff to explain the migration process.
• The staff members of the College were represented by a duly democratic elected staff member on the College Council and the Academic Board.
• Staff were given the opportunity to attend strategic planning sessions with management, including workshops, conferences and to participate in the review of policies.
• The union had a good relationship with management and the CEO.
• The annual staff satisfaction survey outcomes were used for quality improvement.
• The College should appoint a dedicated training officer to assist with the training needs of staff.

5. Committee observations

The Committee, having interacted with the West Coast and Northlink TVET Colleges made the following observations:

5.1 West Coast TVET College

• The College was under good management and a functional council, which contributed to its expansion and successes.
• The academic performance of students in both the NC(V) and Report 191 programmes was above the national average.
• The College had been receiving unqualified audit opinions since its inception. From 2016 onwards, the College would be audited by the AGSA for the first time and it was working closely with the AGSA to ensure compliance with the new reporting requirements of the AGSA.
• In 2014, the College dismissed two employees who contravened the supply chain management policies for their own benefit. A fraud prevention policy was in place in the College to limit the incidents of fraud and corruption.
• The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) post was vacant, and the College employed its financial manager to fill the post temporarily. The College was unable to fill the post since the DHET was responsible for the filling of vacant posts in colleges. The DHET indicated that the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) were qualified Chartered Accountants. However, they were appointed at Deputy-Director level in Colleges and were paid less than their counterparts in the private sector. The DHET reported that it had conducted an evaluation and grading of the posts for retention purposes. The recommendations of the job evaluation process were submitted to the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) for consideration. The implementation of the job grading process was also subject to funding approval by the National Treasury.
• The College did not have an adopted transformation plan, however, it made transformation interventions.
• The College had a good relationship with NSFAS and submitted 100 percent of the claims for bursary recipients in September 2015.
• The NSF partnership with the college amounted to R68 million with a particular focus on artisan development and infrastructure expansion.
• The College offered transport to students from its own budget (R7 million in 2014). The rural locality of the College posed a serious challenge given the absence of daily public transport. The NSFAS transport allowance was unable to assist all the needy students. The changes in the funding norms for colleges since the migration to the DHET had implications on the budget of the College, particularly on rendering transport to students and other operations.
• The good relationship between management and all the other stakeholders of the College was commendable.
• The migration process of employees to DHET was managed effectively by the College. The College was granted permission by DHET to convert temporary staff to permanent staff.
• To improve the quality of results, the College sets a benchmark of 80 percent subject pass rate for lecturers and, each campus accounted on its performance at the end of each examination cycle.

5.2 Northlink TVET college

• The College governance and management, and the relationship between management and stakeholders of the college was commendable.
• The College was among the first phase of colleges audited by the AGSA and it experienced challenges with the audit and accounting interpretation required by the AGSA. The College was unable to publish its 2014 Annual Report owing to difficulty in fulfilling all the AGSA reporting requirements. The College used to pay R400 000 to the private auditors and since the AGSA took over, the audit costs increased to R4 million.
• The College did not track the progress of students after completing their qualification and it did not have scientific data of students placed in workplaces.
• The College experienced a challenge in the throughput of students in Nated 1-3 programmes which was 40 percent. It emerged that the quality of exam papers for the N1 – N3 Engineering programmes was poor and the curriculum was outdated, and the only resource for lecturers were textbooks. The DHET noted that the Nated programme curriculum was under review and an Examination Task Team had been established to review the cumbersome exam cycle of colleges.
• It emerged that the College had an outstanding claim of R27 million from NSFAS owing to the delay in issuing of results by the DHET. The DHET was investigating examination irregularities for certain subjects, hence the results had not been released. The delayed results had implications for the College, since students had been allowed to progress to other levels and subject modules, though the results had not been published.
• The staff demographics of the College did not complement the student body which was dominated by black (African) students.

 

 

 

6. Summary

The oversight visit afforded members an opportunity to assess the West Coast and Northlink TVET Colleges, particularly on governance, administration and teaching and learning. The interaction with the Colleges stakeholders was very useful to understand the main challenges faced by students and workers.

It was important to note that both Colleges were well governed and had good management in place. The good relationship between the College management and stakeholders was commended by the Committee. The Committee noted the improvement in academic performance of students, particularly in the NC(V) programme which was above the national average.

As of 1 April 2015, all public TVET Colleges migrated to DHET and this process brought changes in the funding norms for colleges. The budget for compensation of employees was retained by the DHET since the migration process, and this budget was previously allocated to colleges. The Colleges raised concerns with the revised funding norms by the Department, since they had implications on their operational budget. The Colleges had to revise their business plans to supplement the reduced budget. Furthermore, the funding norms did not take into account the rural locality of colleges and this had implications for students to access the College on a daily basis owing to absence of daily public transport as well resource implications for administering multi-campuses. Colleges in rural areas had to find alternative measures of ensuring that students had access to learning through the provision of transport from their own budget.

7. Recommendations

The Committee recommends that the Minister of Higher Education and Training considers the following:

7.1 Auditing of TVET Colleges

• The auditing costs of colleges should be reviewed so that colleges spend more money on core delivery functions than auditing fees.
• The DHET and AGSA should conduct a workshop with all colleges to explain the new accounting and reporting requirements for auditing.

 

7.2 Funding of colleges

• The funding of colleges should take into account the rural locality of colleges, and additional funding should be allocated to rural colleges to improve access of students.
• The funding formula for colleges should be reviewed so that it does not impact negatively on operational budgets of colleges.
• The Department and colleges should review the projected enrolment targets that may not be adequately funded.

7.3 Filling of CFO posts

• DHET should work closely with the DPSA for the speedy finalisation of the review of CFO posts in TVET colleges so that they can be filled.

7.4 Delayed results

• The DHET should speedily complete the investigation into examination irregularities at the Northlink TVET College to release the outstanding results of students.

7.5 Curriculum review

• The DHET should accelerate the review of the Report 191 curriculum to ensure its relevancy to the needs of the industry.

7.6 Fund raising

• Colleges should consider fund raising with nearby businesses in the area to supplement the funding shortfall for operational budget and bursaries.

Report to be considered.