Customers’ perception of the quality of apprentice training provided by Transnet School of Engineering in Durban.

Abstract

The artisan development institutions are working in an environment that is highly turbulent which requires many stakeholders to work together for the desired results to be achieved by the whole nation. When the employers are complaining about the quality of artisans they are only pointing fingers towards the skills development institutions and not towards them as major stakeholders in the training of artisan from a point when an artisan is an apprentice till he passed trade test. The artisan development landscape needs to improve for the country economic to realize the desire benefits. One of the challenges are the weak foundational background of most of our learners and the language that artisan development is taught in. The biggest challenge the learners and tutors are faced with is changes on machines that are being utilized in the modern economy. When you visit the apprentice schools only old and some obsolete equipment that are being used to teach apprentices. When visiting manufacturing organizations they have the latest machines fitted with latest technology as operating systems, when the artisan apply for an employment he is confronted with an equipment that he never touched and is like retraining him completely from the scratch. Against this background the study investigates the perception of customers on the quality of artisans getting produced by the School of Engineering. Apprentice model has been identified as the best approach for the artisan training. It is a good method to build capacity for future human capital. It also provides the good perspective of the development of quality artisans. The survey questionnaire was used to collect data on this study. The results of the research revealed that there was a need to improve technology if we want to improve the quality of our artisans. The findings revealed that the majority of the participants felt that the framework of training quality artisans was available in the School of Engineering, but there were areas of improvement as covered by the recommendations. It is important to note that Transnet School of Engineering Durban and Transnet Durban operations were used for the whole research.