This article investigates how training instructors in the South African clothing industry were prepared for their roles as Education, Training and Development Practitioners (ETDPs) by a university adult education programme. The key focus is on how these emerging ETDPs experienced their changing roles, identities and approaches to teaching and the resulting impact on their workplaces. The article explores the findings of four case studies of ETDPs that are located within a larger context of the university course. In addition the notion of the learning organisation as a post-Fordist workplace forms the basis for discussions of the future nature of the industry-university partnership. Both partners have a common goal to develop competent ETDPs, but there are tensions in this partnership which are framed by competing interests between workplaces, which are profitdriven, and the university, which is driven by a social and educational development agenda. The question is therefore raised about the effectiveness of the university's role in transforming ETD practices in the workplace through its adult education programme.