Pathways through the education and training system: Do we need a new model?

Analyses conducted by ESSD reveal major obstacles in the education pathway system. The majority of learners entering FET colleges, nursing training institutions and learnerships have already achieved a National Senior Certificate prior to enrolment. Higher education (HE) is seen as the only viable option for further learning, contributing to the inverted triangle phenomenon in which a small FET college system plays second fiddle to a much larger HE system struggling to retain inadequately prepared students.­

There is similar misalignment at the education-labour market interface. ESSD studies have revealed that similar percentages (around a third) of FET college graduates are employed, unemployed and not economically active (NEA), that nearly a third of grade 12 learners are unemployed or NEA a year after school, and that 18% of university and university of technology graduates and 37% of students who drop out of the HE system are unemployed three years after leaving university.­ Against this backdrop, Michael Cosser will propose a new paradigm for student progression that broadens learning opportunities at the intermediate level.­
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