Abstract:

This study explores the academic staff turnover and its impact at the Coastal KZN TVET College in KwaZulu Natal. In the higher education landscape Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) exist to serve the purpose of providing vocational orientated programmes to the youth of RSA. As with all Higher Education institutions these colleges require appropriately skilled and qualified individuals to deliver the programmes offered at the colleges. The TVET sector has experienced many obstacles with retaining skilled and qualified staff; the reasons for academic staff turnovers are explored and discussed. Issues of staff dissatisfaction with working conditions and remuneration to staff development and training became apparent in the study.

The research design was quantitative in nature where structured questionnaires were used for the collection of data. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 15 for Windows was used to analyse data and tables were used to present the results. A pre-coded closed ended questionnaire using 5 point Likert scale was administered to the target population. Only academic employees of Coastal KZN TVET College participated in this study. The survey method was employed in this research due to the small number of respondents. The personal method of data collection was used to administer the questionnaires to all 83 respondents in the Coastal KZN TVET College and a high response rate of 100% was obtained.

The study concludes with findings on the major factors that affect TVET staff with regard to turnover.

Keywords:

Turnover, Impact, Dissatisfaction, Academic staff, Technical Vocational Education and Training.