Training policies under late apartheid: the historical imprint of a low skills regime

Abstract

This chapter analysis the industrial training system that operated under the former apartheid state, specifically during the period between 1980-1994. The analysis will highlight the distinctive "low skill: characteristics of the enterprise training regime in that period, most importantly, the predominance of narrow and employer-led conceptions of skill; a weak institutional regime; racially-exclusionary labour market and education and training (ET) institutions; and the predominance of an antiquated "craft" model of apprenticeship. It also sheds light on the reformist attempts by the late apartheid state to transform the skills regime by moving the system away from its apartheid "low skill" origins towards a reformist framework based on free market regulation; employer voluntarism; a revives apprenticeship system; and a new institutional environment structured around Industry Training Boards (Its). These reforms were primarily in response to economic difficulties but they were also in response to the rise of mass political opposition to the apartheid regime from both worker and student movements across the country.