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The UNESCO International Commission on the Futures of Education imagines a positive future in which skills development can be harnessed for the benefits of people and planet, in line with the loftiest vision of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, skills systems often remain marginalized within educational debates and plans, with vocational learning often dismissed as low quality and low status.

Reflecting on the work done for the commission on future skills, this article considers the nature of the challenges of the present in building better skills futures for Africa. It argues that we must be clear-sighted regarding the failings of past theory and practice if, together, we are to construct better futures for learning, working, and living. Only then can we develop institutions, programmes, and curricula that can meet the challenges and realize the opportunities of the future.

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Vocational education and training (VET) has returned to the list of policy priorities for education in Africa after an absence of a quarter of a century, yet there has been no new research that overturns the existing orthodox position that such provision, whether during or after schooling, is inefficient and ineffective. This paper addresses this apparent contradiction. It revisits the existing arguments against African VET to consider whether they have continued salience. It suggests that what is needed is a new approach to thinking about VET in Africa that takes account of innovations in theory, policy and practice about VET in other regions and in the wider field of African development theory. It offers a discussion of three areas in which a new approach might develop: reviewing the international evidence on VET reform; reimagining the purpose of VET; and revisiting the head-hand division and its implications for vocationalism in schools.

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This book examines the challenges facing education in African countries, within the context of globalisation. It is suggested that developing a notion of learning-led competitiveness is a crucial part of any response to globalisation, as well as allowing the performance of education and training institutions to be monitored. Three areas of concern are brought together in this book: debates about the impact of globalisation on development thinking and practice; responses to globalisation in educational development; and national experiences in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. An analysis of the intersections between education, training and enterprise development is given, and possible future approaches for policy, practice and research are identified. Show less

The current dominant account of aid to education focuses on schooling and official development assistance and talks in terms of policy work, donor harmonisation and, increasingly, budgetary support. However, this approach is limited in a number of ways. The return of international policy interest in vocational education provides an opportunity to take a look at whether the dominant paradigm is really a solution in all cases. Through an exploration of the evolution of the South African further education and training, this paper illustrates the importance of looking at where a country wants and does not want to learn from. It points to the need to gaze beyond official development assistance to examine the way that dimensions such as cultural diplomacy, commercial interests and solidarity play a role in policy learning. It also draws attention to the often-varied national institutional resources for learning and the complex interplay of individuals, both local and foreign, in the learning process. Finally, it hints that many apparently minor instruments such as exile, study abroad and structured exchange visits may contribute to a far more complex web of policy-related learning than is captured in conventional accounts of policy borrowing/learning that focus on the official level. It may be that a more meaningful discussion of the effectiveness of international cooperation, rather than the more narrow notion of aid, would ensue if such perspectives were taken on board.

Published abstract reprinted from 'International journal of educational development', copyright 2010, with permission from Elsevier. Show less

In July 2005, President Mbeki announced the launch of the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA), a new development strategy designed to help the South African state meet the ANC’s 2004 election pledges, namely: halve unemployment; halve poverty; accelerate employment equity; and improve broad-based black economic empowerment. AsgiSA outlines a very different development path from the current orthodoxy of the Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers in spite of the common commitment to halving poverty. This difference in approach encompasses the education and skills sector, where post-basic provision is given considerable attention. This paper seeks to explore why South Africa has taken this different approach, especially in education and skills development. It examines what the current evidence tells us about the strategy’s likely success. Finally, it briefly considers the implications this case might have for the dominant model of African education and development.

Published abstract reprinted from ‘International journal of educational development’, copyright 2007, with permission from Elsevier. Show less

The Third International Conference on TVET (technical and vocational education and training), held by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Shanghai in 2012, resolved that growing research on TVET had to be an integral part of the overall strategy to strengthen the sector. Historically in South Africa, much of the targeted TVET research has been conducted by agencies outside of the university, but the last ten years have seen an increase in the number of TVET studies being undertaken by postgraduate students at universities, largely due to national policies that have encouraged higher education to take a greater interest in TVET research and development.

Given the policy focus on TVET and the increased support for research in the field, this article reflects on the growth of postgraduate research on TVET in South Africa in the past ten years. Government targets for postgraduate outputs have prioritised doctoral studies, and, while TVET-related doctoral graduates are relatively few in number, there are signs of an emerging community of researchers and also of an expanding, though localised and highly contextual, knowledge base on TVET. The authors identify a number of aspects observed across the research outputs which could aid further reflection on the kind of contribution that postgraduate TVET research is making. Finally, attention is drawn to the nascent cadre of TVET intellectuals who can - indeed, must - provide much-needed supervisory capacity in this field.

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Summarizing the arguments of the book, this chapter reviews the effort to expand the social ecosystems for skills model. It considers some limitations to this approach. It then considers implications for vocational education and training (VET) policy and practice. Finally, it points to a new language for thinking about VET policy and practice. Published abstract.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 151.257. Show less

Written in the twilight of the Mbeki Presidency, this paper considers the role that skills development has in the sustainability of the South African political-economic project. It explores some of the disarticulations of public policy and argues that these both undermine public sector delivery and open up opportunities for private provision to be, under certain circumstances, more responsive to the challenges of national development. We argue that there is a possibility that the state could work more smartly with both sets of providers. Crucially, however, this would necessitate working more smartly within itself. This was a major plank of the Mbeki strategy but it has failed conspicuously with regard to the education-labour relationship. Whether a new President can achieve a radical reworking of this relationship may be an important indicator of the viability of any new development project.

The article concludes with reflections on the renewed international interest in skills development as a way of responding to the real and imagined pressures and opportunities of globalisation. Given the limited success of South Africa in pursuing skills development, we ask whether other African governments are any more likely to achieve a genuine combination of political, social and economic sustainability. The sustainability of national development projects in Africa is likely to continue to be problematic, and skills development will only ever be able to play a limited role in addressing this challenge. Nonetheless, governments can do more to support the sustainability of these skills development systems and need to pay attention to both public and private provision in so doing.

Published abstract reprinted from ‘International journal of educational development’, copyright 2008, with permission from Elsevier. Show less

The current decade has seen a significant return of interest in vocational education and training (VET) amongst the international policy community. This rise in policy and programmatic interest in VET’s role in development, however, stands in contrast to the state of the academic debate. Whilst there have continued to be both policy and academic developments in VET in OECD countries; in the South there has been a paucity of VET research and little in the way of theoretical exploration. Rather, the academic orthodoxy in the international education and development field is dismissive of VET’s possible contribution. Given the return of the policy interest in VET for development, and the possibilities of a broader vision of education-development relations beyond 2015, when the [Millennium Development Goals] MDGs end, it is time to revisit the role of VET in development from an explicitly theoretical stance. In this article, I argue that the current approach to VET is grounded in an outmoded model of development, whilst the academic critique of VET in developing countries is clearly long outdated. In contrast, I examine the implications for VET of recent trends in thinking about development through the exploration of three particular theoretical approaches: human rights, capabilities and integrated human development. I conclude by considering the purposes, natures and possibilities of VET as a means of human development.

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