The Southern African Society for Co-operative Education (SASCE) is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting individuals and institutions in integrating academic studies with quality work integrated learning. SASCE advocates and promotes co-operative education throughout Southern Africa between academic institutions, the business world and community organizations.
The South African Committee of Technikon Principals (CTP) established SASCE in 1984. The society has grown substantially since 1984 and has established several international links and in 2003 expanded its horizons and changed its name to the Southern Africa Society for Co-operative Education.
SASCE prides itself as a Centre of Excellence and resource centre regarding the Cooperative Work Integrated Education.
Originally SASCE was created as a forum for in-service training focusing on the Academic aspect of cooperative education. But subsequently there was a decision to include the industry partners. The three key role players therefore became the student, the Institutions and Industry.
The importance of Co-operative and Work Integrated Education (CWIE) is critical for employability and its significance is underpinned by the creation of Directorate for WIL by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa
In 2011 SASCE membership was further extended to include other stakeholder bodies who contribute
to the area of cooperative education such as SAQA, CHE, SETA and other institutional bodies.
Whilst the concept of Cooperative and Work Integrated Education (CWIE) has mostly
been practiced by the Universities of Technology(UoT) and the Technical and Vocational
Education and Training (TVET) colleges particularly in the training of artisans and
technicians, the concept extends to other areas such as medical school, law, accounting,
etc although it is not referred as cooperative education. The importance of Cooperative and
Work Integrated Education (CWIE) is critical for employability and its significance is underpinned
by the creation of Directorate for WIL by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in South Africa,
it also features prominently in the White Paper on Post School Education.
Besides advocacy, SASCE prides itself
as a Centre of Excellence and resource centre regarding the CWIE. The Africa Journal on CWIE,
the prestigious WIL Africa conference and the TLIU project in collaboration with CSIR are some
of our proud projects on the ground. SASCE is a centre of excellence for cooperative education
that plays an advocacy and coordination role involving all stakeholders that impact the employability of the students.