Available from UMI in association with The British Library.
This thesis undertakes the collection, analysis and evaluation of information concerning the development of vocational and technical education in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Tracing the history of vocational education from 1900, the work emphasises the separate racial provision of education, including vocational, until both countries approached their respective Independence periods.
Six years after Independence, vocational and technical education in Zambia occupied a focal point in the country's attempt to firstly achieve an economic transformation and secondly, absorb the growing number of unemployed school leavers from the system of general education. After abolishing the system of apprenticeship, government vocational institutions became the major point of training for formal sector employment skills. Yet this inner reform has been diluted largely by an economy unable to sustain the high recurrent costs required by institutional training.
The most striking feature of vocational and technical education in Zimbabwe is how little the structure has changed from the pre-independence period. Whilst the racial balance of trainees has moved in favour of Africans, early political rhetoric in favour of changing the approach to skill training has failed to materialise.
Conservative forces in both countries have managed with assistance from external aid programmes to retain a formal system of vocational and technical education very similar to that which existed before independence. Educational provision for those who have dropped out of school or are unemployed is grossly deficient.
In conclusion, the thesis proposes three action areas; emphasising a closer partnership of public and private sector training institutions which will tackle the issue of making better use of existing institutional capacity and expanding more directed opportunities for skill training, linking national development goals with well-researched and developed national vocational curricula rather than the perceptions or overseas examination systems; ensuring better coordination between the education/training system and the ongoing requirements of the employment system and making training more sensitive to sectorial needs, particularly towards the majority of people who live and work in rural areas.
