The National Qualifications Framework and Higher Education in South Africa: Some epistemological issues

Abstract

This article describes the structure and implementation of the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in South Africa, indicating its distinctiveness with respect to qualifications frameworks in countries such as Scotland and Australia. Opposition to the NQF among South Africa higher education institutions, especially universities, has been significant, and the reasons for this opposition are sketched out. While this opposition is often regarded by advocates of the NQF as a conservative defence of elitism, the article suggests that the South African National Qualifications Framework (SANQF), designed to meet the needs of non-compulsory, pre-tertiary industrial training, is at odds with formal education and training, which rests upon a different social base and generates different knowledge structures. This makes common membership within a single qualifications framework of the South African type ultimately unworkable.