REPORT ON VISIT TO CANTERBURY COLLEGE -...

MLT/FM-MAN-Report: Visit to Canterbury College UK 2016-11-25 i VEM/met

REPORT ON VISIT TO CANTERBURY

COLLEGE:

Letho TS, Chechile F, Mabena VE, Tsotetsi ME and Tsomo MS

25/11/2016

MLT/FM-MAN-Report: Visit to Canterbury College UK 2016-11-25 ii VEM/met

REPORT ON VISIT TO CANTERBURY COLLEGE by

Mabena VE, Tsotetsi ME and Tsomo MS Letho T and Chechile F

MALUTI TVET COLLEGE FLAVIUS MAREKA

COLLEGE

25/11/2016

MLT/FM-MAN-Report: Visit to Canterbury College UK 2016-11-25 iii VEM/met

Table of Contents

Summary ..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1

2 The visit ................................................................................................................................ 3

3 Progress made on the project ............................................................................................. 33

4 Opportunities to venture into ............................................................................................... 34

4.1 From the meeting of 15th ............................................................................................... 34

4.2 From the engagements of 16th November: .................................................................. 36

4.3 From the engagements of 17th ...................................................................................... 36

5 From general interactions .................................................................................................... 36

6 Management plan: ............................................................................................................... 36

6.1 Linked to the project ...................................................................................................... 36

7 Recommendations............................................................................................................... 37

8 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 38

9 References ............................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

MLT/FM-MAN-Report of visit to Canterbury 2016-11-25 1 VEM/met

1 Introduction

In September/October 2014 there was an invite from the British Council for South African TVET

Colleges to apply for partnering with the UK colleges. The college applied as requested and a

positive reply was received in December 2014 that Maluti TVET College had been selected

through the British Council processes to participate in the project. The UK College was identified

as New College Stamford and arrangements had to be made for the visit by the UK College to

Maluti. This procedure took place from 09 to13 February 2015.

The aims indicated in the extract from the application form stated that the “British Council

international skills partnerships bring together UK organisations with leading counterpart

organisations around the world in order to deliver innovative output-led projects that focus on

enhancing approaches to skills development internationally. Partnership projects are pre-

commercial and have at their heart the exchange of knowledge and expertise. Partnership

projects cover a wide range of sectors, from fashion to engineering, and a number of themes

including employer engagement, quality assurance, entrepreneurship development and

progression routes. Partnerships are supported financially by British Council to deliver projects,

typically funded for one year with a view to becoming self-sustaining thereafter. In certain cases,

strongly performing partnerships may be eligible for further funding beyond that period”. Maluti

TVET saw these aims as very relevant to it and to the sector hence the application.

Further to that the benefits of this partnership were outlined as the British Council partnerships

offering a range of benefits including:

nurturing innovative approaches to skills development, including in the area of curriculum

development, quality assurance and employer engagement, across a range of thematic

areas and sectors

enhancing the culture, profile and reputation of participating organisations

building relationships with other organisations including employers


offering unrivalled staff and student development opportunities

helping participating organisations build a presence in the partner country

enabling the organisations to identify new business opportunities and

informing the development of national skills strategies in ways that impact positively on

the skills and employability of millions of people”.

The advantages outlined above tally perfectly with our existence as of the colleges in the

country. The route of internship, WBE, WIL and artisan development seeks to expose students

and staff to the workplace during or post study which in due course facilitates employability. The

area of curriculum development, quality assurance and employer engagement is at the heart of

our deliverables. Management is duty-bound to keep abreast with the rest of the world on latest

trends. This is the reason why we saw it fit to participate and reap the above values.

In 2015 Maluti TVET College partnered with New College Stamford to deliver the employability

skills and the project, which was a success, moved from the foundation phase to the advance

phase in 2016. Maluti was expected to continue with the New College Stamford in the advance

stage and bring in another college that would be mentored in the British Council partnerships

and then in the next phase the much mentored college would be expected to start its own

partnership through the same initiative hence Flavius Mareka College came on board. Part of

this advance phase was the Leadership Exchange Programme (LEP) where senior managers

are expected to spent ten days in UK College with a special focus area and reciprocate the visit.

The New College Stamford pulled out of the partnership due to the Ofsted audit that was

prioritized and Canterbury College came on board as a lead college in UK in the partnership.

Canterbury College official visited the two South African colleges from the 1st- 5th August 2016

to look at the programme offerings and areas of collaboration. It was out of the visit that the

three college sat down and work on a proposal to the British Council. The proposal was

approved with the areas of project plan being:


Implementation of the employability skills

The implementation of the enterprise competition

The active Links Recruitment Service and

The Solar energy

It was on the basis of the above project plan objectives that the two South African College had

to visit Canterbury College, with in mind of the above objectives and also to spot-check the

extend of implementing the project.

The delegates left South Africa on 13 November 2016 to interact with Canterbury College with

the view of looking at the viability of the project and came back on 19 November 2016.

2 The visit

The delegates arrived late on the 14th November 2016 with only time to refresh and prepare for

the following day.

The following day on the 15th November 2016, the delegates had a welcome tour at the college.

The first place visited was the Students

Information Centre (SIC). The Centre is divided

into sections for general advice on course

information and fees, funding, bursaries, career

information etc. Web based marketing strategy

is used to market the college. Information on all

programmes offered at the college is uploaded

as webpages on the college’s website.


From the course information desk, a student can proceed to get information about funding.

Information on funding is handled by the funding desk within the Centre. Funding provided to

students range from tuition, meals allowance and transport or travelling. Traveling allowance

includes using public transport like bus or train. It can also be extended to cases where students

uses their own cars. However each case is treated individually depending on the circumstances

surrounding the individual student.

It was interesting to realize that for transport, students are provided with bus tickets and the

college give students these tickets instead of giving them cash. Like in our country, students

who meet the criteria (whose household income is falling within the specific category/ threshold)

are supported financially after submitting the supporting documents with their applications for

financial assistance.


It is at this Centre where students also collect their meal allowance tickets that could be used at

the college cafeteria for meals.


Once the prospective student have been given information about the college, the next step

followed will be to register for the course. We moved to the next department of the college where

student registration is done. The

Registry Information Point (department)

has three sections namely, admissions,

student records and examinations. All

examinations of the college are handled

here including online examinations.

Student’s marks for all assessments are

captured and stored at this section

(point). Having completed their courses,

student’s results are processed at this department. The certificates are then claimed from the

awarding bodies and issued to the students.

Canterbury College, like other colleges/ campuses visited provides students with support in

many forms. They have an atmosphere that encourages students to be at the college at all

times. This college has fully functional library that have books, resources and laptops for their

students. The library also

make provision for students

who do not have access to

laptops by way of borrowing

laptops to the students.

Laptops are stored in cabinets/

lockers that can be opened

using student cards and each

time student borrow a laptop,

his information is automatically

recorded by the system for the

specific laptop until the laptop is returned. These lockers also have cables inside for charging

the battery of a laptop. After using a laptop, a student connects a laptop to a charger that is

located in each laptop drawer of the cabinet to ensure that the next student to use the laptop


finds it with a fully charged battery. Every student can use his or her student card to borrow a

laptop that can be used in the library and laptops are returned after use.

The most common findings on emotions or emotionality and achievement are negative

associations between situational or dispositional anxiety and school outcomes (such as test

performance, course grades, and high school completion; Duchesne, Vitaro, Larose, &

Tremblay, 2008; Seipp, 1991).

In addition to the academic support, students are

having a place where they are given the emotional

support. At this place student are given are given

counselling and have rooms that can accommodate

different religions for students to pray and worship

according to their faith and beliefs.

The meeting with two officials dealing with Active Links Recruitment Service took place later that

day. The active links like the name says, plays an important role of linking students with


employers. The college uses active links to place students for apprenticeship with the

employers. The active link department has two arms or divisions. Students are recruited for the

employers by the college’s recruitment arm of the active links department. The second arm of

the active links department of the college ensures that students are supported throughout the

apprenticeship period by developing support programmes for the students in the apprenticeship

programmes. This is achieved because there is a team of administrators. They are all

responsible for the paperwork of managing and keeping track record of each individual student’s

progress taking part in the apprenticeship programme. In addition to the team there are 03

support officers of which one is responsible for additional learning support. Two support officers

are responsible for risk apprentices. Risk apprentices ranges from those at the risk of losing

their jobs to those having mental problems. Also students who misses their exams falls into the

risk apprentices’ category.

The successes of the programme:

Income is generated for the college.

Over 90% of their students are still with the same employer after 05 years.

High employment rate of students.

Teaching and learning is linked with the needs of employers.

Good relationship between the college and employers because employers assess the

progress of students and give feedback to the college.

Students’ progress well in their next level as they have more understanding of their

courses because they have had practical at the employers.

About 600 of their students are taking part in different apprenticeship programmes this

year this means more employers are involved with what is happening at the college.

Employers trust the college in terms of providing them with students who will complete

the programme. The college has systems or assessment tools that helps in identifying

correct students for the different apprenticeship programmes.

Introduction of a high quality work experience programme for students doing the

vocational programmes that require students to have workplace experience. The same

as our NCV and Report 191 students requiring WBE in South Africa.

Employers are invited to talk to students.


Active links team work closely with the curriculum team. The active links team is business

oriented and have knowledge of what employers want, where else the curriculum team

focuses on students. This creates a gap between the two teams that could only be closed

by working closely together.

Canterbury College performed well during their last Ofsted inspection for apprenticeships.

Recruitment team members are all industry qualified and are members of the Recruitment

and Employment Confederation (REC) and it becomes easy for them to approach

employers.

Having looked at the job descriptions stated by the employers during their meetings with the

active links team, the recruitment team decides on the type of apprenticeship programme that

will suit the employer’s needs. Then the college advertise for the apprentices and screen the

applications. Candidates for apprenticeship programmes are sourced from outside the College

and they ultimately become students of the Canterbury College. This exercise contributes to the

number increase of the students at the college. During interviews their employability skills are

assessed and honest feedback is given to each individual.

Where gaps are identified, the team helps the candidates with advises for future applications

and sometimes in assisting them with curriculum vitae (CVs) preparation for those who do not

have them. In so doing they increase the employability skills of the youth or community.

Canterbury College’s active links provision team have introduced the concept of work based

assessors. The role of these assessors is to monitor the progress of students at work places

during their apprenticeship journey. They use checklists and the list of responsibilities to track

the progress and to report back to the team. In improving the quality of their work, they also

introduced the concept of smarter assessor for all programmes at the college.

The next stop was with the Deputy Head who outlined the curriculum activities at the college.

According to her, Further Education (FE) in the United Kingdom (UK) was reformed five years

ago when the study programmes were implemented at the colleges. Study programmes were

developed to give colleges the flexibility to have a number of elements to a student’s experience.

To deliver experience to student that will prepare him or her for work. Work experience is the

fundamental of study programme. In a study programme, a student is expected to do a minimum


of 30 hours work experience and more where appropriate. Where possible this experience

should be done externally with an employer. Active links engages with an employer to ensure

that student will fit requirements of that employer and the outcomes within the work experience

supports that student’s development.to

be able to get employment. The study

programme also caters for students

with lower grades in mathematics and

English. Before these students can

enroll for vocational qualifications, they

first have to do Mathematics and

English to develop their skills further as

the vocational qualifications sits on

mathematics and English. Vocational

staff at Canterbury College is expected

to embed mathematics and English as

part of their development. Throughout

the academic year the college talks to

the students about their future

destinations, whether they will further

their studies at universities or join

companies for employment or become

apprentices after completing their

courses. Students in the UK are

encouraged to become apprentices so

that developing a framework of skills

that will enable them to survive in the industry. The government supports apprenticeships.


The present challenge experienced by the colleges in the United Kingdom is English and

Mathematics. Currently 48% of students enrolling at the Canterbury College have low pass rate

in English and Mathematics. From discussions around challenges in mathematics and English

mentioned above, it can be concluded that students in further education and training institutions

face the same challenges no matter where they are in the world. Things that influences their

learning are the same e.g. language usage in texting and social media.

During the discussions the issues around students absenteeism was touched and Canterbury

College approach is to create an environment where teaching and learning assessment is

improved by reviewing from time to time the following:

What the college is delivering to the students.

What the students are interested in,

What is going to enable them to get employed,

Constantly reviewing the planning to ensure that they deliver the right curriculum.


These help the college in getting teaching and learning assessment right, and there will be less

problems on learner behavior, there won’t be issues on attendance and hence there will not be

problems with learner achievements because students are engaged. Where teaching and

learning is weak there will be problems. Poor attendance is viewed as a symptom of something

going wrong in a particular class and if a strong teaching team can be developed and teaching

and learning skills are developed, then student attendance will improve. The concept of flipped

classroom has also been introduced at Canterbury College. They utilize social media like

Facebook to ensure that students do a bit of a research before they come to a classroom.

Students’ prior knowledge is developed before sessions so that they will have questions to ask.

They try to make things relevant to what is happening in the media. In some classes this concept

works very well.

When conducting class visits, their interest is not to look at the lesson plans but to see that the

lessons have been planned.

Plumbing workshop where the training on gas and also solar installations was visited next.


In the plumbing workshop, students are training in different aspects from installation of baths,

toilets and basins to the installation of gas pipes and water pipes. Our interest was on the hot

water solar installations as this forms part of our project with Canterbury College. Before

students can enrol for courses in solar energy geyser installations, they should have completed

the basic training in plumbing.


The delegates travelled to Folkestone Campus on the 16th November 2016 where they tour

through the campus and activities explained. They were also taken to the partnership place used

or training of students in collaboration with the local council.


They travelled back to Canterbury College for the meeting with Employability home-grown

course. Later the same day a follow-up meeting in the solar energy workshop where learning

material was also dealt with took place. Finally the same day a networking session with

employers was held which gave an insight on how the college handles the employers and also

making sure that the college is accessible to them.

The Start my Biz Project done by Canterbury City Council was attended to on the 17th November

2016.


At the end of project the delegates rushed to travel to Broadstairs where they toured through the

college hotel that is run in collaboration with the students. A debriefing of the visit was concluded.


The flight departure was scheduled 18th November 2016 at 20h00 UK time and arrival on 19th

November 2016 at 16h30 SA time which happened as planned.

3 Progress made on the project

To date the following has been achieved through this project:

Mr VE Mabena, Mr Letho, Mrs Chechile, Mr MS Tsomo and Mr ME Tsotetsi travelled for

site seeing and engagement with Canterbury College in UK on the project plan.

The project targets reviewed through the visit

The project platforms set-up


The pipeline activities are:

1) A trip to Jordan on Bringing Learning Home Conference

2) A visit within January-March 2017 to train the trainers on Solar energy.

3) To train the LO lecturers on employability skills

4) Regular update of the platform

4 Opportunities to venture into

4.1 From the meeting of 15th

Share resources on active links

Share resources on organizing events for employers to meet.


Create student friendly environment by purchasing sports and recreation equipment at

campuses.


4.2 From the engagements of 16th November:

Share resources on starting commercial branches of the college.

Share resources on employability skills programmes.

4.3 From the engagements of 17th

Student participation in college commercial branches for placement. Establishment of

cafeterias at campuses so that hospitality students can do their practicals and where

business studies students will also be placed.

5 From general interactions

1) The Canterbury College is ready to exchange partnership project plan resources with

Maluti and Flavius Mareka Colleges.

6 Management plan:

6.1 Linked to the project

ACTIVITY ACTIONS TIMEFRAMES

& RESPONS.

1) Trip to Jordan

1) One rep from Maluti, one from

Flavius Mareka and one from

Canterbury Colleges.

26 Nov 16 – 01

Dec 16

2) Train the trainer on solar energy

1) Sent an expert from Canterbury to

train the trainer on solar energy.

2) SA colleges to procure relevant

material for the training.

Jan 2017 –

March 2017

3) Train the LO lecturers on Employability

skills

1) Training Flavius Mareka and Maluti

staff on employability skills

Jan 17 –March

17


4) Virtual platforms 1) Create the virtual platform where all

project information is shared.

2) The outlook platform opted as the best

to use.

24 Nov 16

5) Enterprise Competitions To be dealt with in the 3rd quarter as per

the guideline provided.

April 17 – June

17

6) Publicise the project on all websites All activities of the project be publicized

in the college websites. Maluti was noted

that its website was under construction.

Nov 16

onwards.

7) Benchmarking report 1) A monkey survey in place.

2) All colleges to allow students to

access and complete the survey.

3) Mr Tsomo avail collated reports for a

final report to British Council.

4) Maluti TVET College completed the

survey. Survey results sent to

Canterbury College to be included in

the partnership report.

5) Canterbury and Flavius Mareka to

conduct the survey with their

students.

21 Nov 16

7 Recommendations The SA colleges visited the UK College and were convinced that the proposals were actually

implementable.


7.1 The timeframes of the project be adhered to

7.2 The target envisaged in the employability skills be reduced

7.3 The SA Colleges ensure the relevant resources are in place for the solar energy training.

7.4 Time made available for the training of the lecturers on the employability skills

8 Conclusion The visit to UK was indeed beneficial for the partners and through it a lot was shared. The

plans were executed quite well and the UK College put a lot of effort in the planning session

for the success of the trip. The Yarrow Hotel owned by the UK College was an eye opener and

such initiatives are of value to the actual vocational and technical education and training due to

the arrangements and the implementation of hotel processes using students and the College

hotel.

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