Phantom ship or ferryboat? Understanding the mystery of learnerships and assessing the realities

Abstract

More than 18 months after the launch of the National Learnership Programme, considerable mystification and ignorance still prevail in Faculties of Education at South African universities and technikons with regard to learnerships as a mode of delivering learning programmes. This article attempts to elucidate this confusion. From the evidence presented, it would appear that learnerships, as a mode of delivering a learning programme for the training of educators in South Africa, offer exciting, fresh and innovative possibilities to all stakeholders and roleplayers in education. The article furthermore indicates how the concept of a learnership for the training of educators may apply within faculties of education at universities or technikons and how these institutions may position themselves strategically so that they may also be able to offer learning programmes through, inter alia, the medium of learnerships. Although the principles underpinning the South African government’s skills development efforts are mostly transparent, equitable and non-discriminatory, the implementation of the government’s national equity and redress targets nevertheless seems to be burdened by a number of contentious dilemmas. Some attainable alternatives to these quandaries are suggested.