A legacy of empire: The imposition, evolution and failure of construction skills training systems in Kenya and South Africa

Many countries that were part of the British Empire adopted or were obliged to introduce construction training systems similar to those practiced in Britain to meet the requirements of the colonial authorities and the economies that were being developed using Western technologies. After independence many of these nations continued using these British-oriented forms of training such that today many of these training systems are still intact. However, in many of these countries, particularly in the developing world, the construction sector has developed in ways that that have diverged from the colonial model and which has impacted negatively on the effectiveness and sustainability of the British colonial model of training, e.g. via the increased informalisation of the construction process. Moreover, whilst in Britain the training systems of the 60s have been subjected to diverse initiatives aimed at meeting the contemporary needs of the construction sector, in many commonwealth countries such as Kenya and South Africa, reforms in construction training have lagged behind or are non-existent, leading to the virtual collapse of the original British system. This paper discusses the cases of Kenya and South Africa as examples of how the imposed systems have changed over time to take into account the economic and social histories of each country and suggests that in both cases, the imposed colonial model failed to evolve and adapt and consequently gave room for new systems to emerge spontaneously that were better able to meet the built needs of both country s populations.