skills development
8 May 2007
Mafikeng: In the next three years, more than 2 000 unemployed people in the
North West province, will be empowered with skills. And most of the
beneficiaries will include people with disabilities, youth and women.
Delivering the budget speech of the Premier's Office here today, the acting
Premier, Phenye Vilakazi, said the Premier's Office will spend R81,6 million to
empower the often marginalised members of the society. "We share sleepless
nights experienced by our Deputy President, Ms Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka on the
skilling of our national especially in the context of Accelerated Shared Growth
Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) and the Joint Initiative for Priority
Skills Acquisition (JIPSA)," said Mr Vilakazi.
This skills development initiative is part of the Provincial Growth and
Development Strategy (PDGS) and the AsgiSA programme. Mr Vilakazi said the
money, which is secured from the Department of Labour's National Skills Fund,
will be used in partnership with stakeholders and Sector Education and Training
Associations (SETA).
In the current financial year, the Premier's Office has flagged high the
improvement of the recruitment and retention of people with disabilities in the
public service. Vilakazi said the design of an intervention strategy, known as
Job Access 2006-2010, will come handy to radically change the provincial
picture on the employment of persons with disabilities.
"The Provincial Disability Forum (PDF) that we launched in 2005 will this
year develop a constitution as well as a program of action. It is our intention
to ensure the participation of the PDF in all the PGDS working groups and we
will proceed to launch similar forums in all the district municipalities in the
new financial year," said Mr Vilakazi.
During the year under review, the Premier's office alone allocated R2,1
million for skills development in programmes such as Adult Basic Education and
Training (ABET), internships and learnerships.
A total of 333 people were awarded bursaries to pursue their education at
tertiary institutions through the Youth Development Trust. Apart from the
transversal skills programmes that benefited 491 public servants last year, a
total of 19 unemployed youth were registered for learnership programmes and 10
graduates were registered for internship programmes.
Regarding youth empowerment, Mr Vilakazi said government is busy lobbying
for the absorption of post-graduates and graduates into various companies for
full time employment and learnership programmes.
Issued by: Office of the Premier, North West Provincial Government
8 May 2007
