Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college programmes are receiving considerably less funding than public university programmes, setting them well behind schedule in achieving the targets set out in the National Development Plan (NDP).
Currently, the state only has the budget to fund 480,686 TVET enrolments. The planned TVET enrolment for the 2023/24 academic year is 556,415, meaning that over 13% of these enrolments will not come from the baseline funds provided by the state. Therefore, the balance of these enrolments will need to be collected via student fees or written-off by the relevant TVET college.
There has been a decline of almost 5% in TVET enrolments since the 2021/22 academic year. This is largely due to two main factors;
- the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the state budge, and
- budget cuts by the National Treasury on the TVET budget allocation
The Department has the aim to increase TVET college enrolment to 2.5 million by 2030, but the decline over the last the financial years, as well as the gap in funding between universities and TVET colleges, puts them far behind schedule if they are to meet the NDP targets.
In order to achieve this target, a Task Team made up of senior managers and leadership from the South African Colleges Principals Organisation (SAPCO), has been established to work on the following potential expansion strategies:
- assessment of the available excess infrastructure, such as classrooms, to accommodate additional enrolments
- assessment of the capacity of colleges to offer hybrid teaching and learning or distance learning
- acceleration of initiatives for digitising assessments and online digital content development
- assessment of the human resource (lecturers) capacity to accommodate the growth of the sector
The Department notes that this is both costly and time-consuming with regards to physical infrastructure and human resources. This approach will likely result in delays in the NDP's timeline.
At this time, the Department is currently working on developing a digitisation strategy and its initial phase will be funded through reprioritisation from the current infrastructure budget. The Department will then submit the Budget for Infrastructure (BFI) proposal to National Treasury to fund the full phase. The initial phase will take place during the 2023 academic year, while the full phase will take place during the 2024 academic year.
The Department also realises that not only should they focus their efforts on the funding and expansion of the TVET sector, but also on the quality of education they aim to provide. This integrated approach should include, among others;
- ensuring that there are costs and operational efficiencies regarding the utilisation of current resources by colleges
- improving governance processes at colleges to attract external funding
- accelerating the curriculum transformation process
- Institutionalising skills levy funding for skills programmes offered by colleges
- strengthening relationships with private colleges
- exploring opportunities evident from the gap created by Universities of Technologies, as several are currently operating as traditional universities
This project includes both TVET colleges and CET (Community Education and training) colleges.
