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Mr Renier Schoeman MP, Deputy Minister of Education, today addressed the Annual General Meeting of the Technikon Lecturers Association in Pretoria.

He emphasised that if the manpower needs of South Africa are to be met in the short to medium term, it will be vital for there to be further development of the technikon sector in South Africa. Referring to the very real financial constraints which face the South African Government, Mr Schoeman stressed that technikons would more than ever before have to depend on participative partnerships with business in order to meet their financial needs. He pointed out that the essential character of technikons should not become blurred by the tendency to offer courses which were ever more academic in character, and argued strongly for better articulation between various institutional types in the higher education sector. Referring to the imminent establishment of a Commission on Higher Education, Mr Schoeman welcomed the thoroughgoing investigation of the higher education sector which the Commission would be undertaking, and expressed the hope that its recommendations would provide a basis for the further growth of the higher education sector in general and technikons in particular. Mr Schoeman encouraged lecturer staff associations to become actively involved in their labour dispensation by ensuring that they were fully representatives and that they participated in all aspects of labour relations affairs affecting the technikons.

In reviewing the growth of the technikon sector in the past twenty-five years, Mr Schoeman emphasised the indispensable contribution which the sector had made to economic growth and progress in South Africa.

PROVINCIALIZATION AND EFFECTIVE PERSONNEL UTILIZATION

Mr Schoeman also commented briefly on the process of creating provincial education departments, and in that context expressed his concern about the continued insistence of at least one students' organisation that only black teachers be employed to teach black pupils. Mr Schoeman pointed out that the redeployment of educator personnel from more-privileged to less privileged sectors should take place within the context of negotiated personnel agreements in order to ensure that expertise was retained within the system. He expressed the view that it would not be possible to move forward if racist thinking remained characteristic of the education system, and called on all concerned to approach the issue in a reasoned manner.

"We need to explore in connection with all concerned every possible avenue to ensure that we retain all the skills we can within the system, while systematically re-deploying personnel in an orderly and agreed manner."
Schoeman (w) Sep - 27/12/94