Two ground-breaking skills accords will be signed into effect at the Union Buildings today.
The signing ceremony marks a milestone in the process of social dialogue on the New Growth Path.
Brokered over the past few months, the National Skills Accord and the Accord on Basic Education and Partnerships with Schools are national efforts to speed up the skilling of young South Africans, a key element of the government’s New Growth Path (NGP).
Present at the signing ceremony with Minister Ebrahim Patel, will be Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshegka, as well as leaders of business, labour and community.
“Addressing education and skills development is one of the core aspects of the New Growth Path, as improvements in education and skills development is a prerequisite for achieving many of its goals,” said Minister Patel, who chaired the discussion.
“We look forward to rapid implementation of these accords and attainment of these targets so that we can together achieve our common objective of high levels of employment in South Africa,” he said.
Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, who led the discussions on the National Skills Accord, welcomed the commitments by all constituencies.
“We have highlighted the need to ramp-up artisan training, and placements for students and now have commitments that will take us forward to reach our key training targets. This requires the collective effort of all involved to achieve success,” Minister Nzimande said.
Minister of Basic Education, Ms Angie Motshekga led the talks on the Basic Education Accord. “Government has taken a number of actions to improve basic education outcomes. This Accord provides a framework and impetus for our partners in the community to work with us to improve the performance of our schools,” Minister Motshekga said.
Background
Government has coordinated a process of social dialogue on the New Growth Path (NGP) at the National Economic and Development Labour Council (NEDLAC) to promote implementation of the policy framework. This process brings together government departments, organised labour, organised business and community groups, to engage on key areas identified in the NGP. All constituencies have committed to the NGP goal of five million new jobs by 2020.
The meetings are high level engagements where national cabinet members confer with leaders of business, labour and community on key issues. This approach to social dialogue enables each of the constituents to ascertain their role and identify their contribution to furthering the objective of the NGP. It yields positive and firm commitments to the goals of the NGP.
Social dialogue engagements were undertaken at NEDLAC in November 2010, February, May and June 2011. The next meeting has been convened for today and a fifth meeting is scheduled for August. One-a-side meetings complement the work of the social partners in these plenary engagements.
The social partners are discussing other accords and partnerships in the areas of the green economy, enterprise development, local procurement, red tape and infrastructure investment.
The National Skills Accord
This Accord will be signed by the Minister of Higher Education and Training, Minister Blade Nzimande, as well as the leaders of the business, labour and community constituencies.
The objective of the Accord is to develop a partnership between the constituencies to strengthen skills development as a crucial pillar of the NGP. It binds the social partners to objectives in the areas of artisan training and training of other scarce skills, as well as the promotion of internships and placements for graduates of further education and training (FET) colleges and universities of technology.
The Accord includes measures to strengthen sector education and training authority (SETA) governance and financial management, as well as stakeholder involvement in the SETAs. The Accord entrusts and binds the social partners to aligning sector and workplace skills plans to the NGP and the Industrial Policy Action Plan 2010/11 (IPAP2). It requires social partners to commit to improve the FET colleges and Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET).
The Accord captures commitments by the constituencies in eight key areas. Examples of commitments in these eight areas include the following:
- Employers, in collaboration with SETAs, commit that 30 000 apprentices (for training as artisans) will be placed in training programmes this financial year. This target includes 31% in the government sector, (defence, local government, etc.), 13% state-owned antities (SOEs). (Eskom, Transnet, etc.). The balance of 56% coming from the private sector.
- Companies will make 12 000 placements/ internship spaces available for further education and training (FET) college graduates and 5 000 internships available for 3rd year students at universities of technology in a phased approach over three years.
- Business commits to improve spending on training that companies undertake in addition to the 1% compulsory training levy, to between 3% and 5% of payroll on training. This means that the norm of spending on training will be 4% to 6% of payroll, providing an injection of resources to address South Africa’s skills needs.
- Government will develop targets for internships throughout the public sector. The government commits that at least 20 000 persons will be enrolled as apprentices and learners between 2011 and 2015.
- Annual binding targets have been set for the larger SOEs in the Accord, that is, for Eskom, Transnet, SAA/SAX, Denel, Safcol, Alexcor and Infraco.
- The framework of all sector skills plans will be aligned to the New Growth Path (NGP) and its manufacturing driver, the IPAP2.
- Sectors will develop and submit new sector skills plans by September 2011 for the Minister of Higher Education and Training to consider.
- The parties support the new focus on FET Colleges and on ABET. Social partners agreed that the FET colleges’ intake will be expanded to ensure that they are at the centre of our efforts to improve skills development. FET colleges will be the preferred training providers for skills training programmes. The skills development levy will be steered towards the programmes that are provided through the FET colleges.
The Accord on Basic Education and Partnerships with Schools
This Accord will be signed by the Minister of Basic Education, Minister Angie Motshekga, as well as the leaders of the business, labour and community constituencies.
The Accord expands the recognition that government alone cannot address the challenges of the educational system and it creates space for social partners to contribute to the improvement in the quality of basic education. It reaffirms President Jacob Zuma’s call to the nation to join hands to improve the education system and to establish partnerships to achieve this goal.
The Accord directs the social partners to the country’s most poorly-performing schools and centers on an “adopt-a-school” campaign. The campaign provides for individual businesses, trade unions and community-based organisations to work collectively in assisting selected schools. The interventions will be based on analysis of the problems at that school, in partnership with the local community and the structures of the Department of Basic Education at various levels. The social partners have determined a minimum target of the intervention of 100 schools in 2011 and 500 to 1 000 schools in 2012.
Some examples of the commitments include the following:
- Organised labour, business and community organisations together commit to an initial target of between 100 and 200 schools to be supported in the adopt-a-school initiative during 2011.
- The success of the interventions will be evaluated at the end of the period and will inform an expanded programme during 2012 that will increase the target to between 500 and 1 000 schools. Prior to implementing the programme in 2012, the Department of Basic Education will hold a workshop with the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector and a conference will be held with all social partners to present the implementation plan for 2012.
- The Department of Basic Education and provincial departments of education will supply the social partners with a list of schools and the social partners will identify the schools with which they plan to work closely. The government commits to update its information on the schools and share this information with the social partners.
Provincial departments of education will advise the schools concerned of the initiative and will provide the names of school principals to the social partners as the initial contact points with the schools. Social partners will also provide the name of their contact person as well as a senior official in the constituency who may be contacted in the event of any difficulties in the interaction between the constituency and the school concerned. Business will supply information where existing initiatives are underway within a period of three months.
- Labour will drive an advocacy campaign to support the implementation of the adopt-a-school campaign.
Additional note:
Key participants
- Ministers that have participated in the process besides the Minister of Economic Development include Minister of Rural Development and Land Reform Gugile Nkwinti, Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande, Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga, Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies, Minister of Finance Pravin Gordhan, Minister of Science and Technology, Naledi Pandor and Deputy Ministers Enoch Godongwana and Ben Martins.
- The participation by organised labour is led by Zwelinzima Vavi of COSATU, Dennis George of FEDUSA and Manene Samela of NACTU.
- Business has been represented, amongst others, by Futhi Mtoba (BUSA), Michael Spicer (BLSA), Bobby Godsell (BLSA), Prof Raymond Parsons (BUSA) and Laurraine Lotter (BUSA).
The community constituency is led by Lulama Nare, the convenor for community at NEDLAC.
