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Imagine yourself as the Captain or crew member of a sailing vessel in years long gone, sailing on uncharted seas, when suddenly land is spotted. The men don’t know what awaits them on land. (Of course, there may have been women present, but we don’t know because women were rarely, if ever, mentioned in history books. They would need to have done something momentous, like rise to a position of power challenging male dominance – indicating to us that there must have been other women present.) The arrivals from lands of the printing press, assumed and published that they had discovered “new” lands, uncharted territory. Now as we know in South Africa, people were already on the “new” territory, unbeknown to, or unrecognized as, relevant.
Why this introduction? Well it seems quite an apt metaphor for our current South African arrangements. We are in uncharted territory, we have not had a national coalition before, there are the people who were already here, and now we have new arrivals – or at least arrivals in a new position of power – not to mention a women in a leadership position. Of course, once again there are other women present. The territory is unknown, new relationships are forming, but old relationships still exist. In this position, it behoves all of us - and all of those in positions of power – old and new – to be cautious with their language.
Now this scenario applies equally to the Post-school Education and Training (PSET) domain
including the divisions of occupational qualifications, and skills development implementation.
While there is no doubt that there are individuals of mal intent operating within this territory, it is important to recognise that not everyone should be tarred with the same brush. Not dissimilar to the political scenario, we are in new territory with occupational qualifications – a territory it is clear, not everyone entirely understands.
The authorities may cite a list of dates of published Government Gazettes (GGs)
containing information on new occupational qualification formats and content. But no matter what one’s religious beliefs or non-belief, there is no known divine power that automatically transmits knowledge, learning, and understanding – or even awareness – of the content of those GGs, to the various practitioners implementing skills development qualifications. Theories of agency and learning are appropriate reading.
The authorities rail against so-called “fly-by-nights” operating from unregistered institutions, offering non-qualifications
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhXl5fE7Dts
or an alleged “middleman” misrepresenting information.
But against these individuals are many original practitioners, who have served the industry well advocating for the implementation of skills development. No doubt there are frustrations, a personal pet peeve is those who attempt to sell training material, for which they hold no intellectual property rights, often proven by poorly edited documents that retain the original document properties.
The Higher Education and Training Department (DHET) https://www.dhet.gov.za/ and the multiple skills development institutions the department oversees have not covered themselves in glory, nor even been particularly competent, in implementation of the expanded National Qualification Framework (NQF)
https://www.gov.za/documents/national-qualifications-framework-act
and replacement of legacy qualifications with the new occupational qualification format.
https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/202406/50742gon4920.pdf
Within skills development there are many well-meaning, experienced, competent, practitioners – many with relevant qualifications. There are: Skills Development Facilitators, Skills Development Providers, Assessors, Moderators, Verifiers, members of Professional Bodies and Industry Associations, who know and understand their sector workplace territory; Material and Qualification Developers, and Pedagogic and Andragogic academics; and media covering skills development. They are offended, and alienated by ill-chosen language of public officials – language that becomes magnified and exacerbated by the style of social media debate.
In our current era, the one thing we really need to learn is how to demonstrate respect for each other and work together, whether we agree, disagree, or are indifferent. Our words matter.
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