Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) General Secretary, Comrade Zwelinzima Vavi
Comrades and delegates,
It is a profound honour for me to address this milestone conference and to have the opportunity to engage with you on the crucial issue of skills development in our country.
At the outset, I want to commend our revolutionary trade union federation, Cosatu, on taking the initiative to convene this summit and elevating the important issue of skills development on its agenda.
It is a welcome development that there will now be over-arching co-ordination and attention from the federation on the issue of education, training and skills development, rather than these matters being dealt with only by the affiliate unions – important as this may be. It is commendable that Cosatu is able to examine its own policies and strategies in this area with the determination to tackle our skills crisis head-on.
It is also very necessary that we produce a full appraisal of our current education, training and skills programme and needs, identify weaknesses and failings, and make recommendations on how these can be remedied. In short, we need a skills revolution.
As the biggest and most powerful trade union federation in the country, Cosatu is a critical stakeholder in the national dialogue on matters of the economy and in particular, issues related to the empowerment and skilling of our workforce. I am therefore confident that this conference will provide a comprehensive and valuable assessment of the challenges and responses needed to transform the skills training system.
As the line-function representative responsible for government's skills development and training programme, it is especially significant and helpful for me to have my comrades in Cosatu in partnership to overcome the immense challenges we face as a nation on these issues.
Comrades, as you are aware, the Department of Education was split into two following our momentous election victory in April. The rationale behind this bold move to create dedicated ministries of Basic Education and Higher Education and Training was to ensure that these two critical segments of our education system receive greater attention and dedicated focus from government.
It was also in recognition of the developmental challenges of our country that the Department of Higher Education and Training was conceptualised to focus on the provision of diverse and relevant post-school educational and training opportunities for youth and adults, and cater for the social, cultural and economic needs of South Africa.
Our strategic objective in the department is to accelerate the transformation of the higher education and training landscape in line with our overall developmental agenda. The setting up of such an education and training system was envisaged in 1994 when the African National Congress (ANC) government first took power, but had never been taken to this level.
The agenda we have now set out includes:
* Improving access and success in higher education, with a particular focus on black, women and poor students.
* A co-coordinated skills development strategy, informed by an overarching industrial strategy, based on clear sectoral industrial strategies, placing particular emphasis on scarce skills. This will require re-focusing and possibly restructuring of the SETAs to be guided by this overarching objective, rather than the other way round.
* Improving quality and capacity of the FET Colleges (rename Vocational and Career Colleges), with a particular focus on artisans and other scarce skills, and as primary delivery centres for Adult Education and Training.
* Rebuilding a vibrant, expanded and quality college sector to improve post-schooling options and access to skills for youth. A complicated question here relates to the resolution of re-opening teacher training colleges? What does this mean? Does it mean colleges separate from universities, or expanding delivery sites of university schools of education in the form of dedicated teacher colleges?
Comrades, a number of cross-cutting issues and perspectives that need must be factored into the above, include the following:
* At the heart of all this is also the implementation of the ANC Manifesto, which essentially means that no deserving poor student must be excluded from access to higher education.
* Rural higher education and skills for rural development.
* The nature of a developmental state that seeks to address the class, national and gender contradictions in their interrelationship.
* How do we integrate the key streams of the Department of Higher Education and Training without collapsing the particular contribution of each into the others?
* How do we creatively use funds in our hands for example the National Skills Fund to advance these objectives, and what additional resources are needed in line with the prioritisation of education in government's policies?
* Clearly the success of implementing our mandate in higher education and training rests in improving the quality and outputs from the school system. But at the same time we cannot wait for this and what can be done with what we have now to improve access and success in higher education and training.
Earlier this week during the Education budget vote in parliament, I explained some of the findings of a ministerial report on post-compulsory and post-school provision, which reflects a grim picture of our society. According to the report, 2,8 million of the 6,8million 18 to 24 year olds in South Africa are neither in employment, education institutions or workplace training. This figure of 41% of all our youth is attributable to, amongst other things, very limited access into post-school education and training opportunities, poor resources, the lack of financing and the restricted availability of jobs.
As the leading voice of the organised working class, Cosatu has a first-hand and deep understanding of our profound challenges regarding unemployment and the difficulties facing unskilled workers. Millions of our people experience daily hardships, bearing the brunt of the tough economic climate.
We therefore require a fundamental rethink of our skills development strategy as well as the respective roles of, and relationships between, Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges, Universities of Technology, other universities, the National Skills Fund and the Sector Education and Training Authorities.
This fundamental rethink requires that we have to think out of our boxes if we are to development an overarching, highly integrated and articulated system of higher education and training, but without at the same time mechanically collapsing into each other the distinctive roles, features, and contribution of each of the components of such a system (colleges, universities of technology, other universities and SETAs).
But it is clear that these pillars of our higher education and training system can also not operate as silos. In this regard I am especially concerned about the continuing "ivory tower" attitude of many universities, reluctant to develop appropriate systems of articulation with further education and training (FET) and other schooling qualifications, for example the National Vocational Certificate.
Articulation can also not be left to individual choices of universities, to cherry-pick on college programmes. It is clear to me that an articulated system and standards needs to be centrally driven. I know that in raising this matter an accusation of wanting to lower standards may be raised. Therefore we need to look at accreditation and articulation in an all-rounded fashion, including matric exit standards, FET/College standards as well as university requirement. In all this, we need to be guided by the need to create a high quality higher education and training system that is responsive to our skills development needs.
Comrades, as I mentioned earlier, a refocusing and restructuring of the SETA landscape is on the cards ahead of the proposed re-establishment in April next year. In the meantime, the SETAs and all associated institutions and legislation will relocate from the Department of Labour to the Department of Higher Education and Training.
While it is wrong to paint all the SETAs with one brush, there is clearly unevenness in their performance. There is definitely a need for an intensive assessment of the SETAs to ensure greater accountability, improved employment of resources, better management of funds and streamlining and alignment of their operations in order that they fulfil their role as a central cog of our skills training and job creation machinery. I will shortly be engaging the SETAs to examine these issues and enhance their capacity to meet the skills needs of South Africa.
There are some important questions we need to examine about the SETAs:
* Why were they named sector education and training authorities, if their primary focus is biased more towards workplace training to the total exclusion of formal skills training in for instance the FETs, universities of technology and other types of universities?
* Where does training start and where does it end? Isn't there a continuum between formal (academic) skills training to internships/learnerships to ongoing workplace training to be duly undertaken by employers in any case?
* What is workplace training and what forms of workplace training take place: internships/learnerships from new graduates from FETs and universities? Shouldn't the SETAs also facilitate the placement and effective training of these graduates?
* Does Services Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) and the National Skills Fund (NSF) not have a role to play in relation to formal skills training in FETs/colleges/universities? This seems to be happening but outside of a strategic and programmatic framework. What should be the appropriate balance between NSF and SETA funds earmarked for formal skills training in colleges and universities on the one hand, and workplace training on the other?
Would this balance not be determined by the needs in each sector? Is it not possible that in one sector there might be a need for more funding and support to formal training in colleges and universities as a result of lack of through put of those basic qualifications from the formal education system; whilst in other instances the need maybe greater in terms of creating opportunities for placement of interns/learners; and yet in others a more focused opportunities for (further and ongoing) workplace training?
In April next year, National Skills Strategy number two is coming to an end, coinciding with the renewal of the mandate of the SETAs. We hope that this conference would help to guide us towards NSDF Three and the kinds of transformation needed in the renewal of the mandate of the SETAs.
In light of these questions and challenges, there seems to be a need for deeper engagement to assess our overall skills needs in the economy, as well as in each economic sector, and the appropriate funding model for our skills training system. The process of developing a national skills development strategy needs to be informed by an overarching industrial strategy.
It is also however important that the existence of the SETAs should not be a substitute to ongoing workplace training. We are concerned that some employers simply regard their contribution to the SETAs as the fulfilment of their obligations for ongoing workplace training. The SETAs should be seen as just one of the tools for ongoing workplace training.
It is also important for the federation to oversee effective deployment of worker representatives onto the boards of the SETAs so that such that this does not become co-option and access to benefits that go with being members of the boards.
This conference is therefore an important facet in kick-starting this engagement. I am committed to continuing dialogue between government and stakeholders, particularly the labour movement.
Comrades, it is clear that creating an integrated higher education and training system is no easy feat. However, through my department, I will strive to have within the first half of our term in government, to have the fundamentals in place to begin to deal with our vast skills backlog, and education training challenges. By the end of the term of this government we should have built a very strong foundation for such, and also be able to realise some possible short term deliverables for the sake of our youth, our workers, the unemployed and the poor of our country.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Higher Education and Training
2 July 2009
Source: Ministry of Higher Education and Training (http://www.education.gov.za)
