(Vocational) and - Umalusi

are of a practical nature and should prepare students for the workplace. Currently, this is
not the case. Forging links with relevant industries could alleviate this problem.
7.2 HUMAN RESOURCES
The lack of suitably trained and qualified staff is of grave concern. The fact that such a
high percentage of staff members are not trained in the subject matter they teach will
have a detrimental effect on the quality of curriculum delivery. Add to this the fact that
the majority of lecturers at the sites visited were not trained in teaching methodology and
it becomes evident that this matter needs urgent attention.
The lack of exposure to relevant industries and the workplace environment compounds
this problem. Support and guidance for lecturers without practical/industry experience
and for those with industry experience but without the necessary educator training must
become a national priority if the delivery of these programmes, intended to address the
shortage of artisans in this country, is to be strengthened.
7.3 INTERNAL ASSESSMENT POLICIES AND SYSTEMS
Even though the majority of colleges provided evidence of assessment policies and
systems, these documents were either incomplete or not fully implemented. Remedying
this would improve the quality of assessment.
7.4 LECTURER FILES
Lecturer files across the board were of a poor-quality. Of particular concern was the
absence of syllabi from a large number of files. As so many lecturers are not trained
educators, colleges should make it a priority to train them in the interpretation of a syllabus
to ensure that all the learning content is covered adequately.
7.5 ASSESSMENT
Each assessment task should be designed to test content competencies, skills, values and
attitudes embodied in a particular subject, and to provide students, lecturers and parents
with results that are meaningful indicators of what students know, understand and can do
at the time of assessment. All question papers should be of a high technical standard. The
poor quality of some assessment tasks points to the fact that the majority of lecturers lack
the ability to develop high quality tasks. Reliance on previous question papers and
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