Chairpersons of FET Colleges
Principals of FET Colleges
Chief Financial Officers
Deputy Principals
Representatives of SETAs
Officials from the Department of Higher Education and Training
Members of the Media present here today
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you all for honouring the invitation from the Director-General (DG) and the department to share with you some of the initiatives towards realising some of our goals towards building a strong Vocational and continuing Education and Training system. As participants in this event you become an integral part of our social contract and commitment to expand and improve access to education and training.
Some of you may recall that I have already committed to the country during this year’s budget vote speech, that the department will harness resources within its reach (financial and otherwise) including skills levies, in order to increase the levels of investment in education and training in order to amongst others intensify skills development and increase opportunities for our youth to acquire further education and training and prepare them for the labour market and active participation as citizens to improve the return on that investment.
You may also recall I had also encouraged young people who have completed grade 12 not to sit at home but rather to seek enrolment in Further Education and Training (FET) colleges in order to pursue further studies. These statements were not just empty commitment or talk -they constituted a serious commitment by government, through our department, to increase post school education and training opportunities.
The promulgation of the Department of higher education and training was intended to bring together previously divided and to some extent fragmented systems of post school training under one roof. These include the higher education system as commonly defined by university education, the further education and training system and the skills system with Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), National Skills Fund (NSF), Quality Council for Traders and Occupations (QCTO) and NSA.
Although these are under one roof we are aware that collectively they may espouse and cherish the ideal of an integrated post school system but practically they may still be hamstrung by legislation establishing them and different attitudes and experiences and lack of common vision, which by all accounts does not envisage or promote integration.
It is for this reason that we published a Green Paper on Post School Education and Training, partly to challenge conventional thinking and debates on post school education and training but more importantly to ask South Africans to start thinking differently about post school education and training especially in the changing socio-economic context of our country.
I want to thank all those who provided valuable comments to this Green Paper Process and assure you that we are not sitting on our laurels-we are proceeding with the task and will soon be releasing the White Paper on post school education and training.
We live in times where hardly a week or month goes by without some statistics being published that describes how the economy is performing or how people feel about a particular social or political issue. The most common are job numbers, labour force surveys, consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index. These largely drive investor sentiment and account for fluctuations in our currency and commodity prices.
The Department of Higher Education and Training has for some time raised the issue of National Economic Education Trust (NEET)- the 2,8 to 3 million young people who are not in education, employment or training. This is perhaps one statistics we should be concerned about and recognise our duty to respond to the plight of this group. What should also concern us further is that 1,1 million young people turn 18 each year. Some end in our tertiary institutions, a few in the work place while the majority join the NEET group.
Programme director allow me to now turn to the specific issues involving us in this partnership to build the FET system. What we are communicating today is simple. The project we are launching today represents a massive investment of R2.5 billion in National Skills Funding dedicated solely to the 50 Further Education and Training FET colleges for their programme related activities.
We will add a further R1,5 billion from the fund for infrastructure improvement bringing this to a total of R4 billion in NSF funding over the next 3 years. In his opening remarks the DG has given details of where this investment is going and I am sure you will agree that our efforts are still far from the goal of 1 million FET enrolments by 2014.
In actual student numbers this translates to increase enrolments in:
- NC (V) = 25,324
- N4-N6 = 20,356
- N1-N3 = 9,350
- Other short skills programmes = 24,808
- Learnerships = 17,352
- Apprenticeships = 196
- Capacity development (lecturers and project managers) = 4,980
Total beneficiaries = 102,366
With this investment the department and government are sending a message on the importance of FET colleges in the skills development in our country. This therefore is a challenge especially to the SETAs to increase financial investment and support to these colleges, as well as to employers to move closer to the colleges, including provision of equipment, workplace opportunities for students and lecturers, as well as staff exchange programmes.
As part of our overall strategy to improve quality and turn our colleges into institutions of choice, the DHET will this year establish a call centre at Ekurhuleni East FET College, where all the graduate information from Colleges will be made available to industry, employers and SETAs. This will hopefully improve prospects for student placements and employability.
With these initiatives we also hope to change perceptions about FET colleges and reverse the amount of skills funds that have been directed to private service providers at the expense of investing skills funds into our public institutions. The sad and often unpalatable truth is that over the past decade or more we have systematically shifted state resources away from the FET system leading to its demise and ultimate decline. Examples include levy resources spent in the last decade on a skills system that promoted the growth of private providers but we have very little to show by way of skills to support our economy.
Similarly we have ploughed more resources into the university system but the economy and our socio-economic challenges have not improved. At the same time we all agree that the 50 FET colleges and their campuses have a much larger footprint in the country than any of the other education and training system. FET Colleges therefore present us with an opportunity to not only expand access but to also do this in a manner that serves the people of this country equitably.
Our expectation of the FET system is that it must be a driver and catalyst for community development, tackle unemployment and poverty head on. This requires a shift in thinking and perspective. That the NSF funding extends beyond the traditional National Certificate Vocational (NCV) and Report 191 programmes to include other shorter, but relevant, skills programmes, learnerships and internships is by no accident.
We expect that FET colleges will reach out to communities, especially young people and offer them these opportunities. Over the long term we would like to see FET colleges as a partner of choice (for SETA and NSF) to roll out skills development on a massive scale.
As a department we are acutely aware that more money is not necessarily the solution if not accompanied by other interventions to turn the system around. That is why this funding has been preceded by strengthening governance and management, financial management practices through, amongst others, the appointment of CFOs. I will soon be appointing new council members as part of further strengthening governance. We are also setting up strong monitoring, evaluation and support mechanisms through the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) in order to ensure that the funds are utilised for intended purposes.
I have stressed in many public forums like this one that one of our greatest enemies, one that impedes government’s efforts to service delivery is corruption and the prevalence of the practice of tender-prenuership. Weak governance systems, greed and opportunism all provide a climate where corruption can thrive. As chairpersons of councils, principals, deputy principals and Chief Financial Officer (CFOs) you are the first and last line of defence against such tendencies.
You have a duty of care towards these public resources. Above all we should all be reminded that the NSF investment requires us to keep our focus on national priorities and outcomes and to do this within a provincial or local context. I will like you to ponder on the question of whether it is acceptable that a municipality struggles with skills to maintain its delivery infrastructure like water, sewage system or electricity when there is a college right next door? Charity must begin with safeguarding prized community assets.
We are aware that the Auditor General has raised concerns over the capacity of the NSF to monitor funds in skills development projects. In this instance the DHET, as outlined above, will build the necessary capacity both at national and provincial or regional level to ensure that monitoring functions are decentralised as close as possible to where the funds are used.
I need to remind and advise our SETAs that the NSF investment in the FET system does not imply their exclusion nor does it undermine any of their efforts to contribute to the building of the FET system. If anything this is an invitation to join the party and make this task a collective effort. We have already agreed that SETAs will contribute a further R1 billion towards the FET infrastructure initiative. I am told one of the areas the NSF funding will address includes college capacity building. As authorities in your various sectors, we expect you to join and lead efforts to ensure that our FETs are better.
In conclusion, this initiative is clarion call and a unique opportunity to turn our colleges around. It is a historical opportunity that you should grab with both hands, for the sake of our youth and future generations. There is absolutely no excuse for anyone to say they do not understand what the skills priorities of our country should be, and the centrality of FET colleges in this.
I thank you.
