The Director: Curriculum, Academic Staff and Teaching Development of Vaal University of Technology, Dr JJAC Smit, postulates that the new Higher Education Qualifications Framework (HEQF) affords Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) the opportunity of making their curricula "more viable than mere co-operative education as was implemented in the past".
I believe Smit is mistaken. A comparison of imperative literature (Download cooped_synopsis.doc) and practice a decade ago, rather suggests that the then technikons failed to fulfil their mandate.
To my knowledge the Council for Higher Education (CHE), Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC), Criteria for Institutional Audits and the CHE, HEQC, Criteria for Programme Accreditation stand as imperatives. Smit does not make mention of either of these documents. The exclusion of the criteria stipulated in these two documents is an oversight and a possible flaw in Smit's argument. My understanding is that the gazetted HEQF reinforced the HEQC's imperatives.
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