Integrating the World of Work Into Initial TVET Teacher Education in South Africa

Abstract

South African Policy on Professional Qualifications for Lecturers in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (2013) provides a framework of professional qualifications for lecturers in the TVET system, which requires work-integrated learning placements in both education and industry settings. South Africa, however, does not have a convention of industry placement for vocational lecturers. This absence led the Department of Higher Education and Training, with the European Union, to co-fund a research and development project, the ‘effective delivery of the work-integrated learning (WIL) component of TVET and adult and community education and training lecturer qualification programmes’. The key output of this project was the development of a comprehensive curriculum framework for the industry-WIL component of the qualifications. This paper provides a reflective analysis of the multiple institutions, the national process through which the curriculum framework was developed and the knowledge generated through it.