DoE-HSRC Conference on FET colleges, Kopanong Hotel, Benoni
27 June 2006
PREPARING FOR A SKILLS REVOLUTION
Ambassador Torben Brylle, Ms Lone Spanner of the Danish Embassy,
Professor Michael Young of the London Institute of Education,
Provincial officials,
Principals of FET colleges,
Ladies and gentlemen;
Good evening and welcome to the DoE-HSRC conference on FET colleges.
I am sure many of you present here today follow commentary and debate on
South Africa's economic progress with great interest. In recent years the
debate has taken many forms.
The primary objectives have always been to grow the economy to support
expanded development and to pursue the challenging task of ensuring that the
lives of all South Africans are changed for the better.
Linked to growth is the related objective of ensuring a redistribution of
economic benefit to widen the base of economic actors, so that those who were
denied access previously enjoy new opportunities.
Tied to these imperatives is the effort government has made to create a
stable environment at the macro economic level. An environment that would
encourage sustained domestic investment and a platform for accelerated
growth.
Further, state policy has targeted increased competitiveness development of
niche areas of economic activity, the promotion of research and support for
innovation and scientific development of indigenous knowledge. All these
diverse challenges form part of the core agenda that drives government's
work.
Recent announcement by government of a focused initiative directed at
building on success achieved in the past 10 years must be seen against this
background.
The success was clearly articulated by Minister Trevor Manuel in his 2006
budget speech. As he said:
"When the full accounting is done towards the end of this year, we may find
that our economy grew by five and a half or six percent last year. Labour force
and household survey data indicate that job creation is now proceeding at about
350 000 new opportunities a year or about 1 500 jobs every working day."
He also acknowledged in that speech that the critical issue of human
resource development required definitive attention, if South Africa is to build
on the early successes of democracy.
The human resource development sector in South Africa has been distorted by
apartheid policy and has thus been quite inadequate for the 21st century tasks
this country faces.
Government has recognised that more must be done. We have announced the
Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) as our
strategic intervention to ensure and sustain positive progress. AsgiSA is not a
project, it is an intervention that supports action on existing priorities and
acts as a catalyst for removing blockages and clearing pathways.
The initiative recognises that action can be held back by particular
constraints or dynamics or by the inability of institutions to reshape in order
to respond to the demand of increased growth and broad based development.
Early discussion on the steps necessary to accelerate growth identified
skills gaps and unresponsive intellectual capital as barriers. Decisive and
focused interventions in education were identified as absolutely necessary. The
Deputy President pointed to the need for a specific skills focus in order to
develop institutions, programmes and skills. To act on agreed priority areas,
early discussions on accelerated growth led to the creation of a specific task
team on skills acquisition, the Joint Initiative on Priority Skills Acquisition
(JIPSA). JIPSA has a broad inclusive working group and a secretariat that
supports the work of a technical working group that has the mandate of
supporting the working group in focusing on key deliverables.
The recapitalisation of the Further Education Training (FET) college sector
has been give attention by government due to the fact that the colleges are
central to our agenda of developing skills, responsive curricula and
collaborative partnerships with industry.
All the research findings presented by Human Sciences Resources Council
(HSRC) colleagues, by academics and by industry consistently support the work
being done with colleges.
The Department of Education began the work of FET transformation in 1995.
Concerned stakeholders had drawn attention to the following negative features
of the then technical colleges:
* Colleges were outdated and unresponsive to the emerging economy.
* Throughput rates were low and industry take up of students was
negligible.
* Those working in colleges had lost contact with industry and had little
knowledge of new trends new technology and the new shape of business in South
Africa and beyond.
* Education policies for the sector had little relationship to new demands,
funding was inadequate and colleges were somewhat schools with training
workshops.
* The N1 - N6 programmes in most colleges required modernisation and
re-conceptualisation.
The responses developed as part of the recapitalisation process address
these features, while also acting on the mandate of accelerated and priority
skills development that have been agreed in JIPSA.
The first response has been to address the funding gap. Close to R2 billion
will be spent on FET colleges over the next three years. In order to ensure
that spending is supported by adequate planning, a year or more was spent
working with colleges to develop plans and to assess their readiness to
execute.
The sector is now ready to begin the delivery of high quality skills
programmes and to implement the recapitalisation plan. The support received
from the government and people of Denmark has played a strong role in
supporting our preparedness.
The programme development process has been completed and âNâ (Nated) is now
replaced by a new curriculum framework and a new qualification, the National
Certificate (vocational).
The policy provides the framework for curriculum development and delivery,
namely one year programmes with three compulsory subjects (mathematics,
language and life skills) and four vocational subjects. The vocational subjects
have been developed with industry and other partners and they reflect good
vocational education.
Past experience has shown that workplace modules are vital if our programmes
are to succeed. We are engaging industry to develop opportunities for our
students, but are meeting challenges as the wide range of trainee programmes
makes it difficult for industry to prioritise college students. We remain
hopeful that industry will assist.
This response has included the publishing of a draft college bill. It
creates the necessary legal framework for the college sector and allows for us
to prioritise their funding and other institutional arrangements. It also
creates space for considering the creation of different college types to add to
the system and to potentially respond to increased and diverse demand in the
future.
JIPSA has been an important support for the college sector and our plans.
The JIPSA identified growth sectors in our economy that lack adequately skilled
persons. Engineering, construction, financial management, management,
information technology (IT), tourism and business process outsourcing are the
priority programmes. We have added six other areas and have 13 priority
programmes that will be offered in the colleges from 2007.
The programmes will be offered as full time and as part time, where
resources allow. We also hope that emerging partnerships with Services Sector
Education and Training Authority (SETAs) will assist in strengthening the
learnership programmes.
It is our intention to build and sustain a well designed responsive set of
institutions, offering flexible programmes and ensuring that we have students
qualified in critical skills.
We are aware that we do not have definitive research that can guide our
interventions at this level. The recapitalisation process has been welcomed
nevertheless as an important response to the modernising and growth agenda. We
believe the core necessary steps have been taken and we look forward to reading
the HSRC research on the college support programme.
Finally, in the interest of ensuring that we monitor progress and make few
assumptions, I have appointed a readiness assessment committee of experts to
examine our arrangements and plans, and to establish whether the colleges are
ready for the new age of hope.
I wish you well in your deliberations.
Issued by: Department of Education
27 June 2006
