An evaluation of the roles of CHE and the SETAs in the accreditation of NQF Level 5 learning programmes

[摘要] The Further Education and Training (FET) and Higher Education and Training (HET)bands in South Africa are characterised by major challenges resulting in the high rate ofunemployment in the country despite the promulgation of a plethora of transformativepieces of legislation post-1994. These challenges include failure by post-matricapplicants to meet minimum university requirements for admission; unemployedgraduates; and tension within the higher education and Training (HET) band amongvarious quality assurance bodies and explicit mutual doubt about each other's capacityto perform quality assurance of HE learning programmes. In an endeavour to findsolutions to these problems, the researcher contemplated whether the cause could notbe the current system of quality assurance in South Africa. This perception hasdominated the current discourse on quality assurance, which has warranted a need forresearch in this area to find concrete answers to the current problems, as well aspotential solutions.In this study, the Council on Higher Education (CHE) and Sector Education and TrainingAuthorities (SETAs) are used as units of analysis to determine the veracity of thearguments pervading the current quality assurance discourse that there are unevenlevels for quality and different and presumably inconsistent varying capacities for qualityassurance in the current education system.The objective of the study was to test the veracity of this hypothesis for the purposes ofmaking recommendations informed by concrete and scientific empirical data.The major findings of this study are that the South African Qualification Authority (SAQA)policy, requiring CHE and the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) to coordinatethe entire HET band, has not been implemented as envisaged. The degrees ofquality assurance and capacity for quality assurance in South Africa vary dramaticallybetween the SETAs and CHE and also among the SETAs when compared with oneanother, and there is a lack of consistency and co-ordination at National QualificationFramework (NQF) Level 5. Furthermore, the current legislative framework underpinningthe SETAs and CHE is fundamentally contradictory.On the basis of these findings it is recommended that the current quality assurance andaccreditation system be overhauled by bringing about one council responsible for thequality assurance and accreditation of all workplace and vocationally orientated learningprogrammes in line with international best practices. CHE should concentrate onlearning programmes that are academically orientated. Lastly, the current legislativeframework governing the operations of SETAs and CHE should be amended.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University