Article 2021

The legacy imprint of apprenticeship trajectories under conditions of segregation and Apartheid in South Africa

GJ
Gamble, Jeanne
Journal of Vocational Education and Training
Journal · Vol. 73 · Issue 2 · pp. 258-277
Abstract

In many countries, the contours of skills formation systems are traced back to early struggles over control of apprenticeship. This paper uses a curriculum lens to examine two distinctive policy moments in the history of formal apprenticeships in South Africa and to trace the legacy imprint of direct and indirect race-based exclusion as well as the imprint of educational deprivation in social class terms. The policy trajectory shows how an apprenticeship curriculum that had to cater for White working-class youth with low educational credentials led to a steady erosion of the formal knowledge component of the curriculum in favour of practical workplace experience. Alongside race-based exclusion, a neglect of science-based knowledge emerges as a lasting curriculum legacy of apprenticeship trajectories under conditions of segregation, Apartheid and their colonial precursors. © 2021 The Vocational Aspect of Education Ltd.

Keywords

Author Keywords

Apprenticeship curriculum Social class racial discrimination educational deprivation

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations
School of Education, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Funding & Acknowledgements
No funding information
References 10 References
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6 Changing Class Education and Social Change in Post Apartheid South Africa, (2004)
7 Race Class and the Changing Division of Labour Under Apartheid, (1997)
8 South Africa A Modern History, (1991)
9 Davies, Robert, Capital restructuring and the modification of the racial division of labour in south africa, Journal of Southern African Studies, 5, 2, pp. 181-198, (1979)
10 Industrial Colour Bar in South Africa, (1961)
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