**9. Modernization with new horizons**

As the enrollment at the primary and basic levels moved towards the goal of primary schooling for all, it is not surprising that government's attention moved towards expansion of the secondary and higher levels, which had been on hold since the late 1980s in order to support the movement towards universal primary education as the best effort towards equity creation. This shift to post-primary was also prompted by the fact that the workforce grew at an annual average rate of 4.9 percent between 2005 and 2012. Increasingly, employment went to the more educated. Those with no education and those with Grade 7 found it harder to get jobs while those with Grades 8-12 s and university level had a better chance, prompting a perceived need for higher academic credentials.The majority of school leavers were thus marginalized and faced with employment in the informal sector which TEVET supported. Despite government rhetoric however, its investment in TEVET compared poorly with that of other sectors especially the university [61].

When the Patriotic Front (PF) government was elected in 2011, it took steps to include more people at the higher levels of the education system. As part of its approach, it renamed and reframed the educational system, reverting to the older system of speaking of primary school as Grades 1–7, secondary school Grades 8–12 followed by tertiary education. The previous system had been introduced to facilitate the inclusion of Grades 8 and 9. The problem had now shifted to include more pupils in Grades 8-12. Access to secondary school and higher levels of education was seen to be part of the route to achieving the country's middle-income status in the light of Vision 2030. At the same time, government recognized that the dynamic of the current system of education poorly related to the creation of employment and as a result the country still wrestled with high level poverty and marginalization. Would large-scale investment at the higher levels create more employment or would school leavers face the need for higher credentials for roughly the same level of formal employment?

### **10. Modernization reframed**

With dramatic expansion at secondary and higher level enrolment in view, the PF government decided through *Framework 2012* [62] to leave the system fundamentally as it was but to balance the curriculum so that the technical learning might no longer be seen to be inferior [63]. Instead of a major effort at reform of the system as happened in the mid-1970s, it proposed a two-career twin pathway in the school curriculum–academic and technical. This re-emphasis and effort to better include technical education together with a review of English being displaced by local languages at the lower Grades as the medium of instruction could be seen to re-surface the age-old issue of the relevance of the predominant kind of the schooling on offer. In an effort towards greater inclusion and less marginalization, it also opened pre-schools so that head-starts were not monopolized by the better off members of society.

This concern to integrate the different streams of schooling appears to be well directed but to be effective in breaking the age-old bias against technical education, the overall system may need a greater commitment to educate for formal employment and greater backing for TEVET's 275 institutions. Currently, the almost exclusive human capital perspective on social development continues to dominate and to be reproductive of the social order with highly unsatisfactory implications for inclusion of the majority. As, at the time of the so-called education reform in 1976, making this job-oriented learning attractive promises to be a hard battle. In the minds of most, formal employment is linked to academic achievement [64]. In some instances as in the case of university academic staff, this appears incontestable [65]. Perception of the opportunity structure remains pivotal and, until that opportunity window opens more widely through better reward for technical qualification, it is

difficult to see how any significant change will occur. Middle-income status may be achieved by 2030 but there is still likely to be large sectors of the population, marginalized in poverty with obvious consequences for their wellbeing [66].
