Introduction

South Africa's transition from the apartheid system to a post-apartheid democratic system began in a historical moment that coincided broadly with the ‘collapse’ of the Soviet Union and the ushering in of a new global order of capitalist economic domination often referred to as the ‘unipolar’ world system. This moment was followed by large-scale global capitalist restructuring which pressured many developing countries to embrace neoliberal economic policy reforms.

The post-apartheid state ushered in a period of wide-scale reform of public policies, amongst which were reforms to the country's education and training systems. These reforms were proposed as a means to begin to redress the historical imbalances created by apartheid's racialised labour market, which had resulted in what McGrath, Badroodien, Kraak and Unwin (2004) have characterised as a ‘low skills regime’. A key challenge facing the new government was to develop policies that could address this historical legacy while simultaneously overseeing the integration of the South African economy into a hostile global capitalist economic system. This resulted in an expectation that the post-apartheid state would develop policies that will redress the historical imbalances that occurred as a result of apartheid. Scholars such as Motala, Vally and Spreen (2010:241) have argued:

In light of the various, conflicting pressures for policy reforms from domestic and global forces, the democratic government has chosen contradictory approaches to development. These are directed at redressing the historical imbalances, on the one hand, and economic and social policy choices that have so far been unsuccessful in transforming the character of the South African economy, on the other. The discourse on skills development therefore is an expression of ideological and political contestations emerging within this broader framework of policy development in the period of the political transition. My contention is that the prevalence of human capital theory assumptions on skills as evidenced in the broad acceptance of outcomes-based education (OBE) reforms and the National Qualifications Framework (NQF) in the post-apartheid state have contributed immensely to the current situation defined as a crisis of skills development.