Members of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training have expressed their dissatisfaction at the under-utilisation of the National Skills Fund while millions of young people in South Africa are unemployed due to lack of skills.
This emerged during today’s briefing in Parliament by Ms Marry Metcalfe, the department’s Director-General. She gave, among other things, an overview of the Sectoral Education and Training Authorities (SETAS) and analysis of their financial performance.
Although the committee commended the work done by SETAS in helping the historically disadvantaged South Africans participate in the country’s economy, it was very unhappy to find that the National Skills Fund was under-spent.
“Under-spending of the money that has been put aside as a concrete strategic measure to fight unemployment is not acceptable,” said Committee Chairperson, Mr Marius Fransman.
Mr Fransman attributed this under-spending largely on incompetence and incapacity.
Mr Frasman called for the complete overhaul of the Seta landscape in order to deal successfully with the challenge of unemployment.
“National Skills Fund and SETAS should jack-up their commitment, they should be effective and efficient in order to meet their mandate,” he said.
The chairperson called on the Minister of Higher Education and Training to ensure that SETAS were capacitated, and that there was a national structure that would coordinate the work of SETAS to ensure that they perform well.
All the 23 SETAS would appear before the Committee in due course, he said.
Mava Lukani
Tel: 021 403 8738
Cell: 072 589 9355
E-mail: mlukani@parliament.gov.za
Issued by: Parliament of South Africa
17 February 2010
Source: Parliament of South Africa (http://www.parliament.gov.za/)
