Imminent changes to employment conditions of lecturing staff at technical colleges are eliciting alarm about the ability of these institutions to meet the country’s skills needs.
The alarm centres on how many lecturers at further education and training (FET) colleges will be removed from their positions by changes to their contracts that the government is intent on making. At present all FET lecturers are employed by the state, but the new FET Act, passed late last year, requires all lecturers to choose whether to have their contracts retained by the state or transferred to their colleges.
What is a stumbling block in negotiations between the education department and unions in the Education Labour Relations Council (ELRC) is the fate of lecturers who decide to remain employed by the state.
The National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa (Naptosa), which represents about two-thirds of the 6 000 college lecturers, says the government is not guaranteeing that those who choose continued employment by the state will remain in their posts.
New government proposals tabled in the ELRC failed to do so, Naptosa president Dave Balt said. The proposals say that such employees have to apply for posts in provincial education departments.
The union has calculated that 50% of staff in some colleges and up to 90% in others want to remain with the state. But if these people are lost to the colleges, how will they function, he asked.
Even staff who did transfer their contracts were secure in their jobs for only a year under the new proposals, said Kobus Pieterse, executive officer at the Suid-Afrikaanse Onderwysers Unie. ‘Nobody can tell us what happens after that,†Pieterse said.
Lucy Losaba, vice-principal of Goldfields FET College in Welkom, said staff were being forced to choose with no information. ‘People are in a flat spin,†she said. ‘We’re already losing good staff to the private sector, since they can’t stand the uncertainty and insecurity any longer.â€
Penny Vinjevold, Deputy Director General of FET in the national education department, said the government hoped all staff would transfer their contracts to the colleges. ‘The nature of vocational education is that it should be responsive to the needs of the economy and communities,†she said. If colleges are the employers, they can better meet these needs by offering more flexible teaching times.
She confirmed that staff who did not choose this option could apply for posts in provincial departments.
The unions have until this Friday to decide whether to sign the proposals in the ELRC.