Inside a South African TVET college: why engineering graduates struggle to turn skills into stable jobs

A new evaluation of an engineering programme at a public Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) college in South Africa’s Eastern Cape has found a striking paradox: students, lecturers and employers all consider the curriculum broadly relevant to industry, yet the college’s own records and participant accounts reveal chronic infrastructure shortfalls, limited exposure to modern engineering software, and a labour market where contract work overwhelmingly dominates stable employment. The study, published in Frontiers in Education, offers a rare institutional-level look at how capacity constraints inside a single college shape the employability of the engineers and artisans South Africa says it urgently needs.

South Africa’s 50 public TVET colleges operate under a mandate that goes far beyond teaching. Policy documents, from the Further Education and Training Act of 1998 to the National Development Plan’s target of producing 30,000 qualified artisans annually by 2030, cast these institutions as engines for closing critical skills gaps and reducing youth unemployment. Yet the sector has struggled to deliver on that promise. A 2020 tracer study of 4,000 graduates across all 50 public colleges found that roughly 52.2 percent were unemployed, and TVET graduate unemployment has historically far exceeded the roughly 7 percent recorded among university graduates in 2017.

The new research, conducted by Zolile Mqotyana of Ikhala TVET College and the Department of Higher Education and Training, used a convergent mixed-methods design to examine the engineering programme from multiple angles simultaneously. Structured questionnaires with both open-ended and closed-ended questions gathered quantitative and qualitative data from 57 participants: 26 engineering students, 5 graduates, 20 lecturers and 6 host employers, drawn by convenience sampling from a total population of 289. Quantitative responses were analysed with descriptive statistics and chi-square tests in SPSS version 32, while open-ended answers underwent inductive thematic analysis. Institutional records on certification rates and lecturer qualifications provided a third strand of evidence.

The quantitative findings paint a picture of a programme seen as relevant but under-equipped. Students rated their lecturers favourably, with a mean score of 3.84 on a five-point scale, and 77.4 percent said the skills they acquired were relevant to their career paths. Among the 20 lecturers, 80 percent reported relevant industrial experience and 70 percent believed the curriculum matched industry expectations. But only 25 percent reported using engineering-related software and technologies in teaching, just 30 percent said the programme embraced Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies, and only 30 percent felt the infrastructure met industry demands. Overall, lecturers rated the engineering infrastructure a middling 3.00 on a five-point adequacy scale.

Host employers largely reinforced the positive view of curriculum content. They rated the alignment between curriculum and industry demands at a mean of 4.17 out of 5, with 66.7 percent saying graduate competencies matched industry expectations and all six confirming that graduates represented their institutions well. Yet on technology exposure the six employers split exactly down the middle, half reporting that students had adequate exposure to engineering-related technologies and half reporting the opposite. That divergence, the study notes, suggests employers distinguish between the relevance of curriculum content and the degree to which modern industry tools and software are actually integrated into teaching.

The qualitative interviews put flesh on those numbers. A senior lecturer in electrical engineering described a workshop that was never designed for the purpose: the electrical heavy current workshop lacked space for construction and installation cubicles, and the equipment in use was not current. Civil engineering lecturers reported non-functioning machines and empty workshops, and pointed to the absence of modern surveying instruments such as theodolites and total stations. On the employer side, one host employer said students reported never having been exposed to software packages such as AutoCAD, CAM, CAD or JIRA, and recommended that practical construction work, from setting out to plastering and brickwork, occupy a much larger share of assessment.

Perhaps the most consequential finding came from integrating the two data strands. While perceptions of curriculum relevance were consistently positive, evidence of practical and technological alignment was consistently thin. The study interprets this as a divergence between what the curriculum intends and how it is delivered: theoretical content appears aligned with industry requirements, but the practical component depends on traditional pedagogical approaches and outdated infrastructure. In other words, curriculum relevance on paper does not guarantee that graduates leave with hands-on competence in the tools their future workplaces use.

Institutional records added objective context. During the 2022 academic cycle, N3 engineering programmes in civil, electrical, mechanical and water treatment engineering recorded certification rates of only about 23.6 percent and 24.3 percent in the first and second trimesters, while N6 programmes in the 2025 cycle recorded 37.1 percent and 51.9 percent. The college also offers a limited Programme Qualification Mix, confined to mechanical, electrical, civil and water treatment engineering, with low enrolment and certification rates. Lecturer qualifications showed incremental progress: the number holding professional teaching qualifications rose from 16 in 2022 to 18 in 2025, and those with artisan qualifications increased from 1 to 8, though some lecturers remain underqualified against government prescripts.

The employment data underscored how precarious the transition to work remains. Among 31 student and graduate respondents, contract employment was the dominant outcome at 54.8 percent, with just 6.5 percent securing permanent positions. Equal shares, 32.3 percent each, said their employment was relevant or not relevant to their training. A chi-square test found a statistically significant association between employment relevance and employment type (chi-square(4, N = 31) = 23.073, p < 0.001), but because many cells had expected frequencies below 5, the researcher confirmed the result with a Fisher-Freeman-Halton exact test using Monte Carlo estimation, which remained significant (p < 0.001). Cramer’s V of 0.610 indicated a strong association. Notably, nine of the ten respondents whose work matched their training were on contract, and none held permanent posts.

The author recommends that the college broaden its engineering qualification offerings, upskill lecturers, upgrade infrastructure and equipment, and integrate tools such as CAD and CAM software, surveying instruments and project-management packages. The study’s limitations are explicit: convenience sampling, low participation among students and host employers, and reliance on the college’s existing industry partners may have introduced selection and institutional bias, so findings reflect the sampled participants rather than the full population. Still, within those limits, the message is sobering. In a national labour market where unemployment stood near 32 percent in 2024, and near 45 percent for youth aged 15 to 34, even a curriculum judged relevant by employers cannot, on its own, convert engineering training into stable employment without matching investment in the workshops, technologies and lecturers who deliver it.

Subject of Research: Institutional capacity, curriculum responsiveness and employability in a South African TVET college engineering programme

Article Title: Evaluating a public college's engineering programme: institutional capacity, curriculum responsiveness and employability in the eastern cape, South Africa

Article References: Mqotyana, Z. (2026). Evaluating a public college's engineering programme: institutional capacity, curriculum responsiveness and employability in the eastern cape, South Africa. Frontiers in Education, 11, Article 1862019. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1862019

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1862019

Keywords: TVET, South Africa, engineering education, curriculum responsiveness, employability, Eastern Cape, Fourth Industrial Revolution, vocational training, infrastructure, lecturer capacity, labour market, contract employment