We the social partners representative of the post-school education and training system, gathered at Irene on 9 and 10 September, commit to achieving the presidential outcome of a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path.
1. Noting that:
1.1 Since 1994, we have made some progress in the development of skills to meet the aspirations of our people and the needs for skills for social and economic development.
1.2 The creation of a single Department of Higher Education and Training provides a firm basis for addressing the challenges of education and training in a way which integrates education and training.
1.3 Skills shortages exist in a number of occupations and economic sectors. Importantly, this fact co-exists with a relatively high level of unemployment. It is clear that there is a mismatch between the supply of and demand for skills in the South African labour market as well as an urgent need to expand employment opportunities.
1.4 Many South African learners are ill-prepared to undertake further learning when they leave school and cannot access post-school education and training opportunities.
1.5 A low-skill, low-productivity, low-wage economy is unsustainable in the long term and is incompatible with poverty reduction. This is the vicious circle of inadequate education, poor training, low productivity and poor quality jobs and low wages that traps the working poor and excludes workers without relevant skills from participating in economic growth and social development in the context of globalisation.
1.6 A large number of youth and adults are not in employment, education or training with poor educational foundation. These South Africans are overwhelmingly black and from the poor and working class.
1.7 As a member of the ILO we are committed to upholding all conventions to which we are a signatory.
1.8 Education, vocational training and lifelong learning are central pillars of employability, employment of workers and sustainable enterprise development within the Decent Work Agenda and thus contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty.
2. Believing that:
2.1 Our development agenda remains the central focus of public policy and forms the basis of collective endeavour in all spheres of our society. Intractable and urgent challenges remain. These include:
2.1.1 Poverty
2.1.2 Unemployment
2.1.3 Income inequality
2.1.4 Threats to social cohesion
2.1.5 Ongoing demographic inequities (race, gender, disability, age, class and geographic)
2.1.6 The impact of globalisation
2.1.7 The impact of HIV and AIDS.
2.2 The human being is at the centre of all development activities; and that human resources are an essential means of achieving economic, social and development goals. Interventions in human resource development therefore represent an essential contribution to promoting the country’s development agenda.
2.3 Skills development is an essential factor for achieving the objective of decent work both by increasing the productivity and sustainability of the enterprise and for improving working conditions and the employability of workers. Effective skills development requires a holistic approach. This approach encompasses the following features:
2.3.1 Continuous and seamless pathways of learning that start with pre-school and primary education that adequately prepares young people for secondary and higher education and vocational training; that provide career guidance, labour market information, and counseling as young women and men move into the labour market; and that offer workers and entrepreneurs opportunities for continuous learning to upgrade their competencies and learn new skills throughout their lives
2.3.2 Development of core skills – including literacy, numeracy, communication skills, teamwork and problem-solving and other relevant skills – and learning ability – as well as awareness of workers’ rights and an understanding of entrepreneurship as the building blocks for lifelong learning and capability to adapt to change
2.3.3 Development of higher level skills – professional, technical and human resource skills to capitalise on or create opportunities for high-quality or high-wage jobs
2.3.4 Portability of skills is based firstly on core skills to enable workers to apply knowledge and experience to new occupations or industries and secondly on systems that codify, standardise, assess and certify skills so that levels of competence can be easily recognised by social partners in different labour sectors across national, regional or international labour markets
2.3.5 Employability (for wage work or self employment) results from all these factors – a foundation of core skills, access to education, availability of training opportunities, motivation, ability and support to take advantage of opportunities for continuous learning, and recognition of acquired skills – and is critical for enabling workers to attain decent work and manage change and for enabling enterprises to adopt new technologies and enter new markets.
2.4 The development of our human resources is a collective responsibility of government, organised business, organised labour, community representatives, professional bodies, research, education and training institutions and skills development intermediaries.
2.5 Educational inequality is a fundamental component of social and economic inequality. Education and Training opportunities must therefore reduce rather than exacerbate the inequalities in our society.
2.6 We have an opportune moment to institute significant changes which will lay the foundation of the new system of delivering a post-school education and training system.
2.7 We must produce the skills which are adapted to our particular industrial development trajectory and technology platform needs. We need a more effective alignment of a differentiated skills development strategy and industrial policy, guided by the sectoral conditions with strong articulation and progression.
2.8 We need to transform learning provision for young people and adults by providing broader, more flexible options matched by enhanced support and guidance with a wider choice of options to make sure that their choices give them the skills they need to access and progress.
2.9 The post-school education and training system must be supported by an institutional base that is both diverse and differentiated and responsive to communities as well as being conceptualized as an integrated and coherent whole in which meaningful learning pathways are developed across institutional and workplace education and training forms, including recognition of prior learning.
3. We therefore as government and our social partners in organised business, organised labour, community representatives, professional bodies, research, education and training institutions and skills development intermediaries resolve to work together to build a “skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path” by
3.1 The establishment of a credible institutional mechanism for skills planning that will take place via the development of frameworks for standardisation and cooperation and the development of systems and system interfaces
3.2 Increasing access to programmes leading to intermediate and high level learning, by:
3.2.1. Providing young people and adults with foundational learning qualifications
3.2.2. Increasing ABET level four entrants
3.2.3. Improving NC(V) success rates
3.2.4. Creating “second-chance” bridging programmes (leading to a matric equivalent) for the youth who do not hold a senior certificate
3.2.5. Providing a range of learning options to meet the demand of those adults and youth with matric but do not meet requirements for university entrance.
3.3. Increasing access to occupationally-directed programmes for adults and youth in needed areas and thereby expand the availability of intermediate level skills (with a special focus on artisan skills) through:
3.3.1. Increasing artisan production in line with industry needs and the needs of our development state
3.3.2. Putting in place measures to improve the trade test pass rate in line with industry needs and the needs of our development state
3.3.3. Increasing the number of learners on artisanal and other immediate programmes
3.3.4. Establishing a system to distinguish between learnerships up to and including level 5, and level 6 and above
3.3.5. Increasing the number of unemployed people, especially young people, entering learnerships
3.3.6. Increasing the number of workplace learning opportunities for those who have completed vocational programmes, such as the ‘N’ or NCV programmes, through the provision of appropriately restructured learnerships, internships or apprenticeships.
3.4. Increasing access to high level occupationally-directed programmes for adults and youth in needed areas in order to increase graduate production in all scarce skills areas and in particular the areas of:
3.4.1. Engineering Sciences
3.4.2. Animal Health
3.4.3. Human Health
3.4.4. Natural and Physical Science
3.4.5. Teacher Education.
3.5. Increasing research and innovation in human development for a growing knowledge economy by:
3.5.1. Increasing the output of:
3.5.1.1. Honours graduates
3.5.1.2. Research Masters
3.5.1.3. Doctoral graduates
3.5.1.4. Post-doctoral students.
3.5.2. Providing increased support to industry-university partnerships
3.5.3. Increasing investment in research and development, especially in the science, engineering and technology sector.
3.6. Increasing access to education and training of the those with disabilities, and increasing access of women and of South Africans from the poor, the unemployed and the working class
3.7. Addressing the scourge of HIV and AIDS in all of our interventions in education and training
3.8. Through a differentiated system which values equally all parts of the system.
