Programme Director
Minister of Economic Development
Minister of National Planning
Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training
Members of Parliament
Special Advisor to the Minister
The Director-General
CEO of Education, Training and Development (ETDP) Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA)
Officials of the Department of Higher Education and Training
President of the South African College Principals’ Association (SACPO)
Student Support Services Managers
Student Representative Council Members
Distinguished guests
Comrades
It is a great honour for me that within a matter of a few months, I have another opportunity to engage with the student leadership of a very important sub-sector of post-school education and training, the Further Education and Training (FET) Colleges.
You will agree with me that this is probably the most exciting time ever to be a student in an FET College. And most exciting of all is to have the opportunity to serve as a student leader in the sector that we have placed at the heart of the country’s skills development agenda.
As we all know, in February this year, the Education, Training, and Development Practices Sector Education and Training Authority partnered with the Department of Higher Education and Training to host a successful consultative and capacity building workshop for Student Representative Councils in FET Colleges. The idea of establishing the national association for public FET college students emanated from the engagement we had then.
I am sure you will agree that at no other point in the history of our democracy – perhaps even in the history of this country have students mobilized so energetically to access opportunities of study in technical and vocational education and training.
We should be proud of this form of education, which was advocated so strongly by our forbears John Dube, the first President of the ANC and Oliver Tambo, the President of the ANC during exile times. Dube, for instance, drawing from his interaction with Booker T. Washington, a black intellectual from the US, ran the Zulu Christian Industrial School, later renamed Ohlange High School, in Inanda outside Durban.
In exile, Tambo, from a socialist point of view, encouraged ANC cadres to take education seriously. As ANC President, following socialist ideology, he was behind the formation of the movement’s Dakawa Vocational Centre inMorogoro in Tanzania.There are other examples. Chris Hani, for instance, studied at
Lovedale, a missionary institution which bridged the gap between vocational and classroom education. You can see that our leaders were committed to vocational education and you should follow proudly in their footsteps.
But today’s gathering is about the launch of the South African Further Education Student Association (SAFESTA) and I want to quickly focus on that. The documented history of organised student formations in South Africa goes back to 1917 when the Afrikaanse Studentbond (ASB) was formed. Beyond our African shores, the Confederation International des Students (CIE) was founded in Strasbourg, France, as an international platform advancing the interests of students.
This was followed by the formation of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), a liberal student organization, in 1926. In our country progressive student movements emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, with the mission of fighting for political and social emancipation of the oppressed, the black majority of this country. This included the South African Student Organization (SASO), a tertiary student movement, formed in 1969 under the tutelage of Steven Bantu Biko.
SASO adopted the Black Consciousness philosophy and struggled in the difficult circumstances of the time for students in universities like the University of Zululand, the University of the North (Turfloop), the University of Fort Hare (Kwa-no College) and the University of Natal.The Azanian Student Organisation (AZASO) later SASCO, was a crucial organisation in student politics in the turbulent 1980s.
The Congress of South African Students (COSAS) was instrumental in driving student politics at schools where it contested corporal punishment and other aspects of the second-class Bantu Education that was imposed on the young people of the time.This is why we are gathered here today, following in this long tradition of student political activism against any form of injustice.
But most important is your interest as students not only in the active promotion of your own well-being as a sector, but also simultaneously responding to other issues of socio-economic liberation and transformation in South Africa. Thus, the birth of the South African Further Education and Training Student Association, SAFETSA, is a pioneering landmark in the history of student formations in our country.
Representing the vocational education and training sector, SAFETSA is a hitherto missing piece of the skills development puzzle that the Department of Higher Education and Training is putting together to entrench and advance post-school education and training in democratic South Africa made it possible for student leadership to feature prominently in the legislative architecture of FET Colleges.
Let me remind you that in terms of the Further Education and Training Colleges Act of 2006, the Student Representative Council (SRC) is one of three statutory bodies in a college along with Council and the Academic Board.
Your position is further strengthened by the fact that, legally, the SRC has representation in both the Council and the Academic Board. This means please appreciate the significance of this that the SRC is legitimately a member of all statutory bodies. Indeed, SRCs are indispensible within the governance framework of FET Colleges. This is not an accident. It is an affirmation of the central role afforded to students and an important signal to them of their crucial role around which students must organize themselves, the very mission of Colleges, the learning enterprise.
Let me say clearly, you must thank the ANC government for leveling the playing field after the movement was democratically elected to run the country after 1994. We now have freedom of speech, academic freedom, freedom to formally organize formations like the one being launched here today.
Above all, we have the most open and advanced constitution in the world. Under apartheid students were never represented in institutional structures. Instead, as students I was one of them, we were brutalized by the regime, working closely with University administrators, and expelled from our respective institutions in the blink of an eye.
We experienced that at Ongoye in 1976 when we were chased out of campus for rising against the injustices perpetrated by university authorities. Other students were not as lucky as they were killed for their political activism. I am talking here about the likes of Biko, an ex student of the University of Natal.
Looking at the hard road we as comrades have travelled, fighting endless wars in those university and township trenches, doing all we could to liberate the students from the monster of apartheid and its crippling Bantu Education, I cannot help but feel honoured and proud to be standing as a witness to and facilitator of the collective and organized action of student leaders towards the creation of what I am convinced will be a vibrant, radical and informed student union which will take student issues to the next level.
Over the next three days, you will have an opportunity to define your struggle as students in this dynamic sector. You will have an opportunity to influence the agenda for the skills revolution, taking stock of the achievements of Government after nearly twenty years of democracy and pioneering a new activism for transformation and change in the education and training terrain and, by extension, in the transformation of the South African economy.
In my address to you in February I highlighted that South Africa is at a cross-roads, constantly making decisions about the kind of society that it seeks to become.
Carefully choosing its direction at this cross-roads, government adopted a broad developmental framework outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP), which works in tandem with other key sectoral strategies, especially the New Growth Path (NGP), the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP), the National Youth Accord (NYC), the National Skills Accord, the Ten Year Innovation Plan of the Department of Science and Technology and, of course, the Human Resources Development Strategy (HRDS).
As student leaders you need to familiarize yourselves with these important policy documents,and be their custodians. They all converge on a single issue: that education and training as well as accelerated skills development form the foundation for taking South Africa’s economic and social transformation forward. To this end, government has placed FET Colleges at the nerve-centre of the country’s development pathway as illustrated in the policy frameworks.
As leaders in your institutions, you must be aware of the transformation priorities for the development of the sector. The first challenge is the continuing pursuit of the fundamental transformation of Vocational Education and Training to create a responsive, credible and efficient sector.
In addition SAFETSA should serve as a strong representative voice for students, providing insights for FET college management in their task of ensuring student access to programmes. More than this, this Association should articulate the needs AND capabilities of the FET student population.
Indeed while there is a myriad of things that students require in their journey through education and training, they also have immense abilities to co-create the practical and sustainable solutions required for the sectoral development we envisage. Tap into this depth of creativity and capability; harness it for yourselves and for the broader society in which you live; embrace it as your inherent character.
I am concerned about the insistence of students on de-linking bursary allocation from academic performance and class attendance. My office has recently received reports of student protests aimed at forcing management to relent on the implementation of class attendance policy.
I have raised this matter on several occasions: students cannot appear at
the college only on the day of the bursary payouts and then disappear. This has a direct negative impact on the pass and certification rates in the sector. We are not running a social grant scheme here and the mischievous activities of this minority of bad apples are, in fact, equal to fraud.
I challenge you therefore, as the student leadership, to launch a massive campaign to have all students in class at all times. Yes, many of you write to me lamenting that the bursary allocation is still not adequate to cover your total needs.
Let me assure you that my office continues to explore means through which a more comprehensive package can be offered to students but of course this must be within the confines of the many other demands on the country’s revenue. Once more let me say, these kinds of bursary schemes aimed at assisting FET students were never available during apartheid.
As the ANC led government we are doing our best to educate you so that you can have a better future, free of the frustrations of poverty and unemployment. It is for you as student leaders to immerse yourselves in South Africa’s struggle history and impart it to your fellow students so that they can understand where we come from. This will help them to measure the progress we have made against the extraordinary oppression and the deliberate limitations of education under apartheid.
As the department, we remain committed to meeting South Africa's educational and skills needs, with a special focus on artisanal and other middle-level skills and to embrace the value of responsible and accountable leadership. Most encouragingly, we are beginning to see evidence that our efforts of making FET Colleges Institutions of Choice are bearing fruit, with enrolments in the sector having increased by 54% between 2011 and 2013.Based on this trend, the target of enrolling one million students in the FET sector by 2014 is within reach.
As the department, we have also increased the allocation of bursary funds from a mere R318 million in 2010 to an impressive R1, 274 billion in 2011 with the 2013 allocation being just shy of R2 billion. This represents an exponential average annual growth of 150% in four years. By all measures, we have certainly put our money where our mouth is, as it were and this government needs to be applauded for that.
This year alone, I expect more than 222 thousand students to benefit from the FET College Bursary Scheme but this will only be possible if the bursary is not treated like a cash machine to fund everything other than your education and training.
Another achievement which is worth mentioning is around the issue of certification of NC(V) programmes. This is a challenge that the department has been grappling with for a while but as you would be aware significant progress has been made in this regard. To date three hundred and twenty-two thousand, two hundred and fourteen (322 214) certificates have been issued and dispatched to examination relevant centres.
The processing of 16 602 certificates which were withheld due to public colleges owing certification fees to Umalusi has commenced following the department's efforts to get colleges to pay. Private colleges owe Umalusi in excess of R840 000 and this has led to the withholding of 3 491 certificates.
The department has intervened in this matter but if there is no cooperation from private colleges we might have to consider revocation of their registration as legitimate education and training institutions.
Just two weeks ago I was in Pietermaritzburg at the Anti-Hunger Campaign launched by former students of Mangosuthu University of Technology. They indicated that despite the enormous investment made in the form of student bursaries, these funds take a long time to reach them, if they reach them at all.
To improve our efficiency in allocation and disbursement of bursary funds, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) will pilot a new loans and bursaries system. This is intended to ensure that many more financially needy and academically deserving students do in fact benefit. These are efficiencies that we must embrace and support to ensure that the progressive implementation of fee-free education becomes a reality.
As SAFETSA you should engage my department as well as your respective FET colleges on these issues in a meaningful way. Other issues of engagement range from policy and curriculum development to quality assurance. Student organizations like SAFETSA should not see themselves as narrowly reactionary pressure groups surviving through knee-jerk strike action.
Taking to the streets and burning government property will not take us anywhere. We are beyond apartheid times where property that the militant youth of the turbulent 1980s often destroyed belonged to the hated apartheid regime.
We have overcome the apartheid beast and all the evil it represented. Therefore, keep it in mind that the educational facilities that some students destroy during wildcat strikes belongs to the nation and the people, led by the ANC led government, your own government, for that matter. You should be proud that the ANC-led government is doing its best to ensure that we have a well-oiled education system which is being continually enhanced.
The department's efforts to improve efficiency in the college sector are anchored in the Turnaround Strategy for FET Colleges which I launched in 2012. I can report to you that the implementation of the seven pillars of the strategy has commenced, with great progress already being visible in the recruitment and retention of quality staff in management, teaching, support, and administrative functions, financial management and capacity building, especially for lecturers.
I am highlighting these matters here but details will be elaborated in the
presentation to be made by the officials later in the programme.Some of the achievements of which we are proud relate to the department’s intense focus on improvement of the curriculum.
This year alone, we have developed the Policy on Lecturer Qualifications and have commenced, through the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations (QCTO), with the revision of seven report 191 subjects to ensure that they are more occupationally directed, as well as more relevant to the needs of industry and the labour market.
In addition, the department is processing the recommendations of the Ministerial Task Team on the Review of the National Certificate (Vocational) with the aim of strengthening the qualification in terms of "fitness of" as well as "fitness for" purpose.With these opportunities before you, as role models for your peers and constituencies, you must handle both learning and leadership responsibilities with distinction and continuously demonstrate the qualities befitting a responsible, mature, well-organized leadership cadre.
This is especially relevant in the context of a college sector about which public perceptions remain stubbornly negative, despite the inroads that we are making in this regard. You must join us in improving this public perception. Through your actions and the issues you choose to address and the strategies that you employ towards your desired goals, you have the opportunity to demonstrate the value, quality, and centrality of the technical and vocational education and training system.
Part of what you must ask yourselves is how you build the profile and improve the reputation of this important sector in which you are studying. This you should do not as a favour to me and the department but as an affirmation of the value of the education and training that you and your fellow students are receiving at these institutions. Your strategies and tactics must change to reflect a balance between student activism and learning.
As I mentioned earlier, the burning and destruction of campus facilities is senseless and the work of reactionary forces. Ask yourselves: how does this sort of activity serve the interests of the many people on the periphery of our society, desperately seeking an opportunity to acquire a skill?
One of your priorities should be to forge close working relations with other student organizations in the education sector, particularly in Higher Education. Such student organizations include SASCO and I am sure that their experience at tertiary level will enrich yours.
While we as the DHET seek to integrate the post-school system, it is my hope that the strength of SAFETSA will be defined not only by delivering on its programme of action nor even by its relevance to the student population that it serves, but principally by its ability to become a bottom-up catalyst for the envisaged integration of the post-school system.SAFETSA must be accountable to students.
The leadership of SAFETSA will be expected to maintain and improve the public image of the student movement and the sector, maintaining a distinctive and constructive voice in the improvement of teaching and learning in FET Colleges. It must play a pivotal role in enhancing effective management and governance of FET student organizations. You will be expected to lead by example and uphold high moral and ethical standards with a commitment to service.
In our lecture rooms, students must have constructive engagement with lecturers. In campus life, they must engage in constructive, student centred debates, discussions, and programmes of action that can build our sector. Enhancing your visibility and informed voice on the issues that are pertinent to young people within and outside FET Colleges will strengthen your overall credibility and enable you to lobby and earn the respect of Government and other relevant stakeholders.
The FET College Times newsletter now serves the FET sector nationwide. Use it to contribute on all issues affecting FET colleges. This will help our department to strategize and implement policies and programmes that will bring meaningful change in the FET sector.
Let us take this newsletter seriously and engage in debates that will shape the nature and future of our FET colleges. The 1976 generation and others placed education at the centre of their struggle for substantive change in South Africa. In the process, they built and left a huge legacy of selfless leadership and commitment which we all have to emulate, protect and promote.
Above all, your actions and deeds must serve also to honour the cause for which so many of them fought and died. I am excited about the birth of SAFETSA because, as demonstrated by the commitment and achievements of your forebears, you can drive the skills revolution to which the department and indeed all of government is leading.
I would also like to urge you to attend to broadening the base of SAFETSA itself, especially to ensuring greater gender representation not to mention becoming an inclusive association that does not discriminate on the basis of age, disability, race, and HIV/AIDS status. The Afrikaanse Studentebond was founded as a reactionary association, founded on principles of racial exclusion. Ours should be a sector that is sensitive to and inclusive of race, gender, and disabilities.
Let me also remind you that as student leaders you must work within institutional governance frameworks and engage on an on-going basis with councils and management. You should not expect my department to step into every college to resolve student challenges, small or big. Instead, you must contribute to building the capacity of SRCs in FET Colleges to abide by the institutional arrangements in place for resolving problems.Good governance does not only apply to education and training institutions. Good governance practice must also inform the way in which you run your own association.
It is my hope that SAFETSA will play its part in ensuring that we achieve all our developmental goals as a post-school system and as a country. My department will continue to play a supportive role to the Association in its efforts to build an accountable representative, responsive and sustainable structure. It is also my hope that SAFETSA will lead in the development of future generations of student leaders.
The launch of SAFETSA must signal a process of renewal and repositioning of the students of the FET sector and of placing colleges where they belong - in the mainstream. It must signal unity of the student voice. It must signal a process that will move the FET sector from the periphery to the centre. Logically, this means that after this launch, one of the first questions SAFETSA will be asked is: how will it achieve all of this?
The leadership that will be elected at this conference must respond to this question and all of you here today must inform the strategy of SAFETSA, including its relationship with the Association of Colleges South Africa.
Thank you, leaders, and thank you to the National Task Team that was charged with launching this important Association.
Amandla!!!!
