Progress Report on FET College Recapitalisation

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Progress Report on FET College Recapitalisation

• Presentation to NCOPs Select Committee on
  Education by Eastern Cape Department of Education
  on 21 June 2006

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Presentation Outline

• Overview
• Progress Report
• Plans for Current Financial Year
• Challenges
• Successes
• Conclusion

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Overview

• There are eight (8) colleges namely
• - Buffalo City FET College
• - Eastcape Midlands FET College
• - Ikhala FET College
• - Ingwe FET College
• - King Hintsa FET College
• - King Sabata Dalindyebo FET College
• - Lovedale FET College
• - Port Elizabeth FET College

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Overview continued

• The recapitalisation budget allocated to the
  Province R255 500m over three years
• The conditional grant for the current year
  R61m
• - Buffalo City FET College R14m
• - Eastcape Midlands FET College R 9m
• - Ikhala FET College R 6m
• - Ingwe FET College R 2m
• - King Hintsa FET College R 2m
• - King Sabata Dalindyebo FET College R 5m
• - Lovedale FET College R10m
• - Port Elizabeth FET College R13m

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Progress Report

• Transfers
• R30 500m was transferred to the Province by the
  National Department of Education as the first
  tranche on 13 April 2006
• This amount was transferred to the colleges on 21
  April 2006
• Colleges confirmed receipt of the funds on 26
  April 2006
• Certificates of transfers sent to the National
  Department of Education on ..

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Progress Report continued

• Provincial workshops
• - Training of colleges on Supply Chain
  Management done in February 2006
• - Training of colleges on Infrastructure
  Development done in February 2006
• Colleges assisted in the development of activity
  plans (example attached to hand-outs)
• Provincial recapitalisation project team
  established consisting of
• Acting Chief Director Vocational Education
  Services
• Provincial Project Manager (Director Level) and
  an SES
• Eight college principals and college project
  managers

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Progress Report continued

• Colleges held information session to apprise
  staff on progress on recap project
• Project management plans for all areas written
• Management structures established (Project Teams)
  consisting of
• Principal of the college
• Project managers appointed by council
• Senior managers
• Council representative
• Monthly reports submitted to the Province on 15th
  of each month (example attached to hand-out)

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic Area 1 Curriculum Development
• - Lecturers to teach new programmes have been
  identified
• - Committees for Sub-fields are being appointed
  
• - List of resources have been drawn up
• - Task Teams have been appointed to develop
  programmes with colleges that are in partnership

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic Area 2 Human Resource Development
• - Lecturers to teach new programs are
  identified
• - Identification of Staff Training Needs
  according to requirements of new programs in
  progress
• - Training taking place in soft skills (project
  management, computer training, assessor
  training, language proficiency)

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic area 3 Development of systems and
  procedures
• - Procurement Systems reviewed and adapted to
  SCM requirements
• - SCM audit documents drafted
• - Meeting with IT Departments on linking and
  upgrading of campuses held (partnership on this
  matter is established)
• IT requirements to upgrade system identified
• Preparation of Bid Documents in progress
• Preparation of scooping and business design in
  progress

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic area 4 Upgrading/refurbishing/
  alterations etc
• - Architects to advise on buildings advertised
  and to some appointed
• - Bid Documents drafted and to some finalised

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic area 5 Upgrading of sites
  (landscaping)
• - Formulation of Bid Documents in the process

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic area 6 Buying/building of new
  classrooms
• - Meeting with Municipalities to discuss
  approval of plans and purchase of land held
• - Bid documents in progress

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Progress Report continued

• Strategic Area 7 Purchase of equipment
• - List of items and training aids in certain
  sub-fields finalised
• - Equipment already purchased by some of the
  college (Lovedale, Buffalo City) and in the
  process of being purchased by the others

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Plans for Current Financial Year

• Monitoring and evaluation
• Operational plans form basis for monitoring and
  support
• Colleges submit monthly reports to Province (15th
  of each month)
• Province to submit quarterly reports to National
  Department of Education
• Monitoring started on 29th of May and to end 22nd
  June 2006 (Visitations to colleges by Province)
• Repeat visits to risk colleges to start on 6th
  July

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Challenges

• Unskilled educators Province is engaging
  provincial HEIs to address this problem
• Staffing - Province making sure that vacancies at
  colleges filled as a matter of urgency
• Under funding Acting Superintendent General
  looking into this matter
• Increasing enrolment to 100 000 by 2014
• Low enrolments
• - Colleges asked to develop strategies
• - Need for more effective articulation between
  senior GET phase and FET programmes
• - Address negative attitude of learners and
  parents to FET colleges in particular and
  society in general

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Challenges continued

• Better alignment between ABET and FET college
  programmes
• Pivotal role of FET colleges in Local Economic
  Development and Provincial Government Procurement
  initiative
• Time constraints for infrastructural components
• Availability of educators for re-skilling and
  up-skilling in terms of teaching time
• Getting all engineering workshops equipped
  according to minimum requirements
• Slowness in expenditure

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Successes

• Transfers made on time by Province to colleges
• Programmes for 2007 identified
• Educators being trained
• Buy-in by college stakeholders
• College connected to the internet (particularly
  rural colleges)
• Appointment of a provincial project manager
• Manufacturing of gas stoves for the SNP
• Twinning arrangement with Lower Saxony Education
  Department in Germany
• - Servers donated to colleges
• - Assisting with roll-out of eLearning in
  colleges

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Conclusion

• FET colleges in Eastern Region of Province, where
  ? of population reside, are under-resourced and
  face serious backlogs
• - Workshops not well-equipped
• - Educators under-qualified
• - Low enrolment, but also lack of commerce
  industry
• Twinning with better resourced colleges in
  Western Region
• Twinning arrangement with Lower Saxony in Germany
  affords opportunity to leapfrog technological
  divide in FET programmes

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End of Presentation

• Thank You
• Questions?