Technical and vocational education and training students are fed up with being treated like second-class citizens and want to be prioritised.
But who’s listening to their cries and paying attention to the multiple grievances they have raised so they can be attended to?
Seven colleges have been shut down, six others are not operating at full steam while the remainder, 37, are faced with a similar fate.
Students have bemoaned the shambolic state of the colleges.
The challenges are multifold, feeding into a vicious cycle that condemns many of the students to the poverty they expected to escape by enrolling at these institutions.
The studies of students in the technical and vocational education and training sector are not adequately funded, many lecturers are poorly trained and most colleges lack the equipment needed to make training a success. This defeats the purpose of the colleges.
When President Jacob Zuma split the department of education into basic education and higher education and training seven years ago, his decision was broadly welcomed.
At the time, SA was deemed to be too obsessed with the business of producing university-ready matriculants to the detriment of developing the artisanal skills base required by a developing state.
The departmental split was bold, necessary and correct. It was an elegant solution to an education conundrum facing the country: oversubscription for places at universities. Technical and vocational education and training colleges are meant to be a viable alternative to ease pressure on SA’s universities and redirect student traffic to institutions that can develop a skills base that matches economic needs.
However, as things stand, only the truly desperate enrol at the colleges.
What makes the situation worse is that the few students who successfully navigate the chaotic system often do not get their statements of results or trade certificates in time, leaving them in the lurch when searching for work. No employer in this country is willing to take on anyone who cannot produce proof of their qualifications.
Many lecturers are poorly trained and most colleges lack the equipment needed to make training a success
It is a nightmare situation that needs urgent attention, as has been highlighted by both students and unions.
The Department of Higher Education and Training has been forced to be candid about the shameful state of the colleges. But contrition has to be followed by redress, which goes to the heart of the problem.
Acknowledging the problems without action will not help the hundreds of thousands of students whose studies will be fully funded in 2017 and in years to come. Mere admission of faults will not help students who have been waiting for several years to get their statements of results and trade certificates. Words that are not matched by urgent steps to tackle problems, some of which are not especially complex, will not calm students’ jitters.
Students have every right to call for a shutdown of colleges. It is their destinies that hang in the balance — not those of the officials responsible for fixing the mess in the sector.
Band-aid remedies will not cut it either. The situation is untenable and points to further tension as the higher education calendar is about to get into full swing in coming weeks.
The fact that the students have had to take up the cudgels is an indictment of the department, which violates the spirit and letter of what higher education is supposed to represent.
For most, that piece of paper represents their only hope of being able to put food on the table.
• Phillip is news editor
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