Higher Education and Training Minister Dr Blade Nzimande on Thursday said there was “nothing" in the memorandum submitted to the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) by the South African Further Education and Training Student Association (Safetsa) that could not be resolved with “a bit of goodwill and determination”.

Safetsa on December 31 handed the DHET a list of grievances, in which it also stated that it would shut down the country's technical and vocational education and training (TVET) colleges if its demands are not met.

Admitting that the country had placed a greater, disproportionate focus on its universities, “instead of giving appropriate attention to the TVET colleges”, Nzimande said while Safetsa’s demands were not unrealistic, many of them could not be rectified in the short term.

One of the issues raised by Safetsa was the competence of lecturers. “You find someone with an N6 diploma teaching N6 students, as well as lecturers with no practical experience whatsoever,” said Nzimande, adding that an attempt to rectify this is being made with the DHET partnering with some universities to start offering dedicated lecturer qualifications for TVET college staff.

South African College Principals Organisation (Sacpo) president Hellen Ntlatleng pointed out that colleges needed a “very rare combination” of lecturers. “You need someone who is an artisan, but at the same time, someone who has [a teaching] qualification.

“There are provinces that have relaxed measures, allowing colleges to employ a person with a trade test and an N6, but only for workshop purposes, not to be standing in a classroom to lecture. This is where the disparity came,” she explained.

However, Ntlatleng pointed out that Sacpo had received funding from the Education, Training and Development Practices Sector Education and Training Authority to train lecturers that were not qualified through the University of South Africa. “This is ongoing,” she said.

Another issue was a lack of infrastructure, including the issue of student accommodation. In the past five years, no additional capital infrastructure grants had been made available to TVET colleges, owing to a budget shortfall.

Nzimande said this had led to a poor state of lecture halls and little or no maintenance at these institutions. However, the DHET would again submit capital bid requests to the National Treasury during this year to overcome this constraint.

“Although we have started with the three new TVET colleges that are opening this year, there are also eight more in the pipeline. That is far less than what we really need,” Nzimande pointed out, noting that this would be an issue that he would raise at the African National Congress’s policy conference later in the year.

Further, the department was implementing a programme to fast-track the delivery of student accommodation, with feasibility studies at 12 institutions – ten universities and two TVET colleges – currently under way to develop financial models that would enable the funding of affordable student housing.

The department aims to add 300 000 beds over the next ten years to tackle this problem.