Technical and Vocational Education and Training – Costing

From 2010 to 2014, enrolments in TVET colleges grew by 95% (from 358 393 to 702 383), faster than in any other sector of the post-school education and training system. Colleges receive over 85% of their funding from government, primarily from DHET (about 60%), bursary and loan funding from NSFAS (20%), and project-specific funding from the NSF (5%) and SETAs. During this period, state subsidies grew from R4 billion to R5.8 billion, whereas NSFAS funding increased from R300 million to R2 billion. However, as growth in enrolments outstripped growth in funding, government expenditure per student dropped sharply from R11 130 to R8 950 in real terms. In addition, throughput rates remain low. In 2013, the estimated throughput rate for the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) was just 10.6%; this means that for every ten students that enrol in an NCV course, only one completes the course after six years. This undermines the efficiency of the system and leads to excessive costs per graduate. Part of the reason for lower throughput rates lies in how NCV and NATED programmes are delivered in colleges. Although vocational and technical programmes with a large practical component should be relatively more expensive, the analysis shows that spending per full-time equivalent student does not differ substantially between different programmes at the same college. This implies that individual colleges spread their funding across more students to meet enrolment targets. This hampers their ability to equip their students with the right skills for the workplace, especially in technical and vocational disciplines such as engineering.