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Members of skills-universe who have been with us a long time will know that I have a personal opinion that the educators (all highly qualified and professional) sometimes make decisions without realising the realities of the real world of work.
I fully understand and have read the original Presidential Commission Report, commissioned by President Mandela, on Restructuring the South African Labour Market (1996). I do also fully understand the concern of organised labour that there had been a lack of portability of the training that workers receive. p109.
Clearly, there is a need for formal qualifications.
However, I suggest that such qualifications should not exist exclusively.
Phasing out of short, staged programmes of learning has negative consequences. Providing only a 4 year full time programme quite clearly excludes many - by virtue of time and cost. Only the already privileged are able to participate. Entirely contrary to everything that we are trying to achieve.
Why am I raising this now? Because into my inbox this morning came an email Newsletter of our local private emergency health service - CMR. Explaining how COVID-19 has exposed the implications of the decision to remove short paramedic programmes - substituted only with a full-time 4 year programme.
I quote:
"Another perennial problem that Covid-19 has brought to the surface is the lack of qualified EMS personnel in South Africa. It remains a major crisis countrywide, as over the past four to five years the traditional paramedic phased-training courses have been stopped. All new paramedics must now do a full-time, four-year tertiary course, and the small numbers of people able to do and afford the course, and then graduate from it, have radically reduced the pool of new paramedics. The lure of much greater remuneration overseas has reduced numbers further."
Quoted with permission from Darren Zimmerman, Managing Director CMR.
I have copied the newsletter onto a Word document and attached, should you wish to read it in full. The newsletter explains the stresses placed upon the service, amongst others, having to drive around looking for a hospital to take the patient.
My point is, that this is not the only example, this is simply one example in one economic sector, which potentially has serious consequences for the health of the community.
In all areas of the economy, we need short programmes of learning, enabling people to build at their own pace, to their own ability, and according to their own circumstances. In our fast changing environment, that is even more essential. How much has changed in the last 4 years? How much will change in the next?
