Inspecting the Foundations - Umalusi

5. RecommendationsThe signifi cance and role of ABET as a formal part of the South African education and trainingsystem was recognized by its inclusion in the structure of the NQF from its inception. Thisincorporation of the needs of disadvantaged adult learners is a remarkable achievementwhich takes cognizance of the legacies of South African history, and South Africa’s ideal of fullparticipation in the global economy. There is a need now to take all the strong points of thisfl edgling project forward by reviewing aspects which need refi nement or reconsideration.5.1 QUALIFICATIONSOne of the fi rst areas in need of re-evaluation is that of qualifi cations. An isolated adult qualifi cationat NQF Level 1 has not served the needs of adults well. In its Qualifi cation Framework policy forGeneral and Further Education, Umalusi proposes a more compact 80-credit general educationqualifi cation at Level 1, which can become a 120-credit vocational qualifi cation through theaddition of at least two vocational subjects. These Level 1 qualifi cations should form a sturdyplatform for the proposed matric-equivalent qualifi cation being developed for adults and outof-schoolcandidates at NQF Level 4. These proposals will require a re-working of the currentqualifi cation.In the interim, however, and up until 2012, the new GETC: ABET qualifi cation must serve its purpose,and to do so, the qualifi cation needs to be regulated in order to clear up some of the uncertaintiescreated by the qualifi cation itself. Such regulations are urgently required since many candidateswho have studied under the requirements of the earlier ABET qualifi cation may now be eligible toqualify under the new rules of combination. Already Umalusi is fi elding requests of this sort.While the Ministerial Committee Report on Adult Education proposes a shift away from ‘focusingonly on the formal provision of education and training to adults to an approach that includesprogrammes, offering learning opportunities to adults, which are formal, informal and non-formal’(DoE 2008, p. 5), it is clear that South Africa’s formal system of delivery of adult learning could,and should, deliver more sustained learning, based on national qualifi cations and their associatedcurricula. While Umalusi supports the notion that relatively informal, non credit-bearing but relevantcourses of varying lengths should be encouraged and supported, it would argue that mainstreamforms of delivery can help to provide properly quality-assured assessment leading to recognizablequalifi cations. There may be instances in which such short courses need to be accredited or qualitycontrolled through, say, recognized professional associations, but Umalusi supports the idea thatthere is also a need to create an enabling and supportive environment for courses which do notneed to be accredited, quality assured, or certifi ed.5.2 CURRICULUM ISSUESBased on the multiplicity of ABET curriculum documents evident in the documentary review;the expressed diffi culty of creating learning programmes from unit standards; and the needfor comparable appropriate curricula across provinces and within industry sectors, this reportrecommends that National ABET curricula are created for all GETC learning areas and electives, bythe National DoE in collaboration with provinces, subject experts, and representatives of business,labour, and civil society. These curricula should be modeled best practices for good syllabuseslocally and internationally. A single, dated curriculum document for each learning area should bedeveloped, and made readily available – from the National DoE through to the PALCs.Umalusi has developed guidelines which it uses for the evaluation of curricula, and these guidelines(see Appendix C) can provide pointers to some of the main issues that each curriculum shouldcover. These guidelines could be used to support the efforts of curriculum-writing teams.44