Category: skills development

Adrienne Bird’s Book Published

MERSETA has now published Adrienne Bird’s book, From Sweeper to Engineer. You can access it via the front page of their website or down load it directly from this link.

It is a phenomenal piece of work but it does have an unfinished feel to it.

Darryl Mclean who was largely responsible for Chapter 12 made the point that, “Adrienne would never have published (it) as is.  She got to version 2.0, needed 4.0 before she’d have been happy. She did the baseline research, never fully got through analysis.”

In my last meeting with her, just a few weeks before she died we discussed some of the issues that are currently bedevilling the recognition of learning in and for the workplace. We couldn’t complete the conversation at the time and were going to discuss it at a later date, as I’m sure she would have done with the other people who contributed.

New BEE Codes for employing young people

The Codes of Good Practice for the Youth Employment Service (YES) were published on Tuesday.

You can download them from here

Companies can lift their levels of BEE recognition by meeting targets as laid out in the gazette.

The purpose is to create jobs for young black people.

[4.1 Only individuals who meet the below criteria are eligible for participation under the Y.E.S Initiative:
4.1.1 are between the ages of 18 and 35; and
4.1.2 meet the definition of “Black People” as defined in the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53 of 2003 as amended by Act 46 of 2013]

You can find out more about the YES campaign here.

Call for Comment on National Skills Development Plan 2030

DHET has a history of releasing important documents late in the year when so many are out of office. They’ve done it again with a call for comments on the proposed National Skills Development Plan 2030. The document was published on 15 December 2017!

It’s a long and intricate document with much to take in and digest. Seems SETAs still have a future.

—More to come, I’m still working through it. —

You can download it from: http://www.gpwonline.co.za/Gazettes/Gazettes/41332_15-12_HighEducation.pdf

Comments are due by 31 January 2018.

 

Demand Driven Training Toolkit Launch

Background

Over the past year Making Cents International has collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation‘s Digital Jobs Africa (DJA) Initiative to conduct research and develop resources to support the successful adoption and scaling of Demand-Driven Training (DDT) for employment programs. This work is designed to address the mismatch between employer needs and youth skills by strengthening the capacity of youth training providers and institutions in South Africa and globally, and follows over 5 years of effort under DJA to catalyse new jobs for youth.

Toolkit

As a result of this work they have now released their Demand-Driven Training Toolkit. The toolkit provides how-to information, tools, and resources so that education and training providers can better align education and training programs with employer needs. The Toolkit was developed with input from leading South African and global institutions which tailor their interventions to address employer needs. It is an easy-to-read, practical resource that can help institutions and their partners become more effective. The Toolkit is intended to support workforce education and training providers in adopting more labour aligned programs through a practical approach.

Download the toolkit

You can download the tool here or here.

The toolkit is an interactive PDF with clickable links. There are also links to many additional resources.

Contact us

We and our partners are launching a programme to promote the Toolkit in South Africa and perhaps even beyond.

If you want to discuss it further, feel free to contact us here – DDT Toolkit Response Form. You can also email ddt-toolkit at xasa.co.za.

Launch

The global launch of the toolkit took place on Thursday 19 October at Emoyeni Conference Centre, Parktown, Johannesburg.

See more here:

Photo: Liz Moore
DDT Toolkit Launch

ESCO – the European OFO

The EU has launched ESCO V1.

This is the first full version of the European classification of Skills, Competences, Occupations and Qualifications (ESCO).

It identifies and categorises skills, competences, qualifications and occupations relevant for the EU labour market and related education and training. It systematically shows the relationships between the different aspects.

This what we (Dept. of Labour Task Team) envisaged the OFO could become when we started developing it in 2005/6. We were ahead of the curve then. We were sharply criticised at the time for trying to create an alternative NQF (i.e. an alternative to the NSBs and learning fields).

The EU tool shows what  rigorous development can achieve. ESCO is  based on ISCO ’88, as was the OFO from version 2010 onwards. It seems to have been developed at unit group level (4 digits) rather than at occupational level (6 digits). So each group contains quite lengthy lists of related occupations and specialisations

What seems to be really well done is how the skills, competencies, knowledge etc have been cross- referenced across occupations and how it deals with transversal skills.

For those who are interested in skills development this is an immense source of information. The should speed up the development of occupational qualifications –  Qualification Development Facilitators and working groups can use this as one of the starting points.

20 years ago – wrappping up the EMP project

20 years ago we were doing a roadshow on the outcomes of the NQF Pilot project for Engineering & Manufacturing Processes. Funded by the Department of Labour it’s goal was to try and provide a test bed for the proposed conceptual basis of the National Qualifications Framework – in this case primarily unit standards.

It had been a stressful process involving many stakeholders who had not engaged previously, professional bodies, unions, business – mostly in the form of trainers, education institutions (what we later started to call education and training providers) and an examination body (the Independent Examination Body).

From time to time I bump into one the alumni of that process – alumni because we all graduated from there having learned so much.

I often run a workshop exercise which asks the question – what was your most powerful learning experience. I always choose this one although it’s touch and go between that and eventually mastering the kink at the end of the main straight at the Lichtenberg race track. A story for another day.

What I learned during this project was to facilitate processes. There were no hand books or guidelines for facilitation. The World Wide Web was new. There was no Google, in fact very few search engines at all. I had to transition from WordPerfect to Microsoft Office, from DOS to Win 3.11.

We had two sets of working groups. One started on a Monday and worked through to 19:30 and then finished up shortly at lunch on the Tuesday. The next set arrived on the Thursday and left Friday pm after a similar long Thursday. Wednesday was recovery day.

I had to learn to manage conflict, steer people in the right direction, recognise when groups were headed for the edge of the cliff. And lead the development of taxonomies for essential embedded knowledge, skills and assessment criteria .

But what a rush – it was learning to race motorbikes all over again, switching from driving to racing.

We focused on learning in the workplace. So it was a pity SAQA never had any real interest in what we learned and achieved. And sadly they still haven’t got the message today, 20 years later. They still haven’t realised their first objective: create an integrated national framework for learning achievements

They still confuse teaching and learning. Poor benighted fools

Mindfulness

Yesterday I was having a conversation with a a highly stressed young professional. I suggested using mindfulness to reduce stress levels and described a few techniques she could try.

This, in turn, triggered a memory of a workshop that ‘went wrong’ in the early 2000s.

Freddy had attended a mindfulness ‘bosberaad’ -a meeting in the bush to discuss weighty matters-  and couldn’t stop talking about it. The concept was new. So, too, were the concepts of skills development & workplace learning. I used a pause as Freddy caught breath to get back to group work. I couldn’t get my head around the cognitive dissonance of mindfulness and a bosberaad. So I asked the groups to consider how mindfulness could be applied to workplace learning and skills development.

Initially the groups stuttered along. A couple of groups asked Freddy to explain a point or two and then, suddenly, the groups were firing on cylinders.

By the end of the session the groups were so enthusiastic and eager that each report back became an extended larger group discussion.

The overall conclusion was that skills development and workplace learning were a form of mindful practice. You, the novice,  had to give up thinking like “Blooms taxonomy” and start to pay attention to what was around you. You had to focus on the people, the processes, the interactions and other situational cues and clues. You had to let go of theory and take on a non-judgemental attitude and be present in the moment. During your work experience you had to learn to take in information with your senses.

Then someone asked, “What about reflection?” It was one of the fashion terms of the time (it could still be). At first it was a show-stopper question. But within a few minutes the responses started bubbling up – the energy levels were high and the creative juices were running strong.

Without being present in the moment what could you later actually reflect on? Mindfulness was a precursor to reflection. Without focusing on the “theories-in-use”, as opposed to the “espoused theories” taught in the classroom, you would never be able to decode actual practice.

The discussion shifted the goal posts so far that I couldn’t return to the workshop programme.

Nor did I need to.