Vic wrote
Just a comment.....if you are referring to Universities of Technology (UoT's) in this country ? I can assure you that that is not the case. The old "National Diplomas" and the very few certificates they used to issue are still in place. All Higher Education institutions in SA (trad universities,comprehensive universities and UoT's) are currently engaged in the same process of recurriculating their exisiting qualifications to align these with the new HEQF/HEQC qualifications framework....inter alia...to standardize qualifications and increase mobility between HE institutions.
The trad degrees (BTech, MTech, and DTech, MEd, etc) offered by the ex-Technikons (now the UoT's) are still in place but will soon be renamed to standardize nomenclature.
Well I'm glad to hear that - but with some qualifications (bad pun)
1) A couple of years ago I employed a guy who had a degree from such an institution. He couldn't program his way out of a paper bag. And I don't mean just he wasn't up to speed in VB (which is what he was hired to do), he couldn't program - had no idea of good structure, little idea of what a database was and not much more about how to access it. There were so many fundamentals he had no idea about. We had his qualifications checked out very carefully in case he'd lied on his CV, but it all panned out - he'd said in that exam hall and written the exams. Just a mess. OK... egregious example and a small sample, but generally when I've interviewed youngsters from the likes of Wits or UCT they've displayed better skills and knowledge. Maybe those universities get to cherry pick the best potential students.
2) Governments like to dumb down education systems. They promise the voter that more kids will have a shot a university, but they can't make the kids smarter. So they mess around with standards and they "curve" marks so that more kids will pass. And where they control a university they will intervene in admission processes as well as the exam so the kids have a better shot at getting something they can call a degree. This has been a big problem in the UK. I recall driving around there a few years ago following a then current story on the radio. In short, kid gets A levels, is rejected by Oxford but goes to a newer Uni (used to be a polythechnic), gets a degree, can't find work, Dad writes a stinking letter to a paper condemning the attitudes of employers and also Oxford for their elitism. This gets one of Blair's cabinet worked up and he starts making noises about the snooty old Universities who won't give the kids a break and are obsessed with old school ties. Cut to the chase: Oxford defend themselves by pointing out that the A-level pass rates had risen consistently for over a decade . That wouldn't happen in the normal course of things, they'd fluctuate, not keep on going in one direction. Conclusion: Government is either dumbing exams down or manipulating results so that the pass rate increases ("See, we told you that your kids would get a better education"). It was so bad, they said, that they wanted to set up a bridging course so that young people who sought a degree would be sufficiently literate and numerate and used to not being spoon fed that they would have a decent chance of making it all the way through. This comes back to my earlier point - once you know this is going on you will raise your standards for entrance, if you can (which you can do if you are not under government control) and effectively cherry pick the best high school students so that you can maintain the standards in your own university.
