Address by the Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation, Dr Blade Nzimande on the occasion of the South West Gauteng TVET College opening of Trade Test Centre and celebration of the TVET Month
Programme Director Ms Fundi Mazibuko;
Mr Sam Zungu, Deputy Director-General: TVET; Mr Zukile Mvalo, Deputy Director-General Skills;
Mr Pule Mashele, Acting Regional Manager – Gauteng and Free State Province; Mr Zenzele Dlamini, South West Gauteng TVET College Council Chairperson; Mr Malose Joseph Monyamane, Acting Principal South West Gauteng TVET College;
Management of the college;
SRC members of South West Gauteng TVET College;
Mr Clifford Wee, Principal Gauteng Community Education and Training; CEO’s and officials of SETA’s present;
Dr. Zhilei Lu, Director of Chinese Culture and International Education Exchange Centre;
Mr Roy Maponya, CEO of Dr Richard Maponya Institute for skills & Entrepreneurship Development,
Officials of the Department; Members of the Media; Distinguished guests; Ladies and Gentlemen
Dumela – Sanibona - Good day
It gives me pleasure to be part of this occasion marking the Opening the Occupational Certificate: Electricians Trade Testing Centre as part of our TVET Month celebration.
As a department, we committed ourselves to strengthening and developing the PSET sector by investing in infrastructure to provide quality teaching, learning and research and innovation spaces.
Here we are today opening this state-of-the-art Trade Testing Centre as part of our response to the community of the West Rand, the City of Johannesburg and Soweto in particular who requested our department to build and upgrade our PSET infrastructure in response to the skills needs of the communities in this area.
I am also happy that we are meeting today following the successful 4th WorldSkills South Africa (WSZA) National Skills Competition, that was held in Durban from
6th to 10th June 2022, which focused on ratcheting up the production of 21st Century Artisans.
As we meet today, the Quarterly Labour Force Survey for the Second Quarter of 2022, as released by the StatsSA on 23rd August 2022, reflected some welcome decline in the unemployment rate for young people between the ages of 15-24 years
old. There is a decrease from 63.9% to 61.4% and those not in employment, education and training (NEET) decreased from about 3.8 million to 3.6 million.
Other good news as we continue with artisan training, is the increase in employment in occupations associated with artisan development in the second quarter of 2022, in areas such as Craft and Related Trades & Plant and Machine Operators occupations by 60 000 and 16 000 respectively.
We also noted that there is employment created almost in all industries except in manufacturing and transport industries.
Programme Director
We are meeting in the month of August, which, we all know, marks Women’s Month at a period of the history of our democracy where our nation is faced with huge challenges in respect of gender inequality, violence and femicide against women.
That August is both our Women’s Month as well as a TVET Month is an important co-incidence that enables us also to focus on the increased production of women artisans. We expect the trade test centre to certify an increased number of women artisans.
There is no doubt that South Africa has made significant progress towards achieving gender equality since 1956, when 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August in protest against the extension of Pass Laws to women.
Today, South Africa’s progressive laws have seen more women serving in high- ranking positions in government than ever before. However, we must seek to affirm women in mid-level skills as well, especially the artisan and other related occupations, that are still in short supply in our country.
Despite our advances in educational parity for women, and in striking contradiction, female unemployment rates have remained higher than that of their male counterparts. This is a reality that we must all confront, including within our PSET sector.
We are also committed to broadening the participation and mainstreaming of gender, youth, and people with disabilities in education, training, science and innovation.
BUILDING A QUALITY, DIVERSE AND RESPONSIVE TVET COLLEGE SECTOR
Ladies and gentlemen
The vision and objective for our public TVET colleges sector as articulated in the national PSET plan is to expand and strengthen TVET sub-system in order to provide quality technical and vocational education and training to prepare students for the world of work (i.e., formal employment, self-employment and other forms of sustainable livelihoods).
However, we are constrained by skills ‘mismatches,’ real and perceived, towards our attainment of this noble objective, particularly our ability to grow our economy. This perpetuates barrier to social inclusion and poverty reduction.
In response to this mismatch, we have begun a process of crafting one country one skills plan – the Master Skills Plan. This process will promote a more efficient and effective mechanism for country-wide skills planning.
The master skills plan draws on the information available in existing plans, such as the National Skills Development Plan, Human Resource Development Strategy, Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, ERRP Skills Strategy, National Plan for Post School Education and Training, SETA Skills Sector Skills Plan, Master Economic Sector Plans, and National, Provincial and Local Government Skills Plans.
Our latest National List of Occupations in High Demand (OIHD) in South Africa, is one of the many instruments that guides government investment in skills development.
In this list, we have identified 345 occupations that are in high demand out of a total of 1500 registered in our Organising Framework for Occupations.
This list tells us which occupations are likely to have what vacancies and which occupations are likely to grow due to new investments, by both government and the private sector.
Many of the occupations on the list can be associated with key areas and sectors identified as crucial for the Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, such as the digital economy, energy, infrastructure development, manufacturing, tourism and agriculture, data scientists, web developer, computer network technician, electrical engineer, concentrated solar power process controller, mechatronic technician, toolmaker, gaming worker, crop produce analyst, agricultural scientist.
Some of you may also recall that in 2018, we embarked on a campaign to launch 26 Centres of Specialisation located in 19 of our 50 TVET colleges, prioritising 13 occupational trades in high demand, with the aim of curbing the shortage of trade and occupational skills while reducing unemployment and poverty in our country.
The 19 colleges were selected following a rigorous process undertaken by teams of education and industry experts, including the National Skills Fund, to identify trades that are in demand for the government’s national infrastructure programme as well as other strategic programmes.
Further to this, these 26 centres were provided with resources to upgrade their workshops and equipment to deliver effectively on these much-needed skills.
The Centres of Specialisation are well positioned to prepare students for the workplace, or for self-employment, through the maintenance of close working relationships with employers in their areas of study.
We have also established entrepreneurship hubs at TVET Colleges to support students to move into self-employment after completion of their programmes.
ARTISANAL TRAINING
Ladies and gentlemen
South Africa needs at least 60% of school leavers to pursue artisanal type training to meet the country’s demand for scarce skills. We honestly need to do more to encourage school leavers to pursue technical trades.
This is amongst the reason why there is a continuous need for suitably qualified artisans to sustain industries and support economic growth in South Africa.
In 2013, as a Department we launched the Decade of the Artisan campaign to promote artisanship as a career of choice to South Africa’s youth.
The campaign was launched under the theme “Its cool to be a 21st Century Artisan”.
The importance of this programme is to ensure that we develop the necessary artisans to successfully implement our country’s Strategic Infrastructure Projects, which included the building of roads, schools, universities, harbours, power stations and other social and economic infrastructure.
With the current Eskom power generation challenges that we have, the work that we need to do to rehabilitate our works by filling in potholes, it is undisputed that we need more artisans than ever before. This must tell all of us that the work of artisans in our economic development will always be guaranteed.
As Africans, we grew up believing that artisans were victims of the economy. They did not come to mind when talking about success or financial freedom. We were taught that in order to make it in life you have to be a lawyer, a medical practitioner, an engineer, a social worker - in other words to be a university graduate - otherwise you are a failure. This mindset must change as this is not true! In fact in some of our urban and metropolitan areas, qualified plumbers make more income than many professionals!
Society failed to teach us that artisans play a vital role in the growth of the economy and in creating decent jobs.
Our Government’s National Development Plan (NDP) and our White Paper for Post- School Education and Training expects of us that by 2030 the country should be producing 30 000 qualified artisans per year.
At present the country is producing an average 20 000 qualified artisans per year. We therefore need to ensure that the number increase drastically leading up to 2030 for the country to realise the NDP target. We however do believe that we are well on our way to attain this goal and even surpass it. Centres like we are open today are very much part of this agenda and will help us greatly in producing more artisans.
Unfortunately, we noted that the total number of learners who entered artisanal learning programmes in the 2020/21 financial year was 10 302 reflecting a 36.5% (5 916) decline compared with the 2019/20 financial year.
I am informed that the reason for the decline is attributed to the introduction of Artisan Recognition of Prior Learning (ARPL) model which affected the normal flow of learner registrations as Artisan Development Stakeholders are still getting used to it. I am hoping that going forward we will work hard to improve on our enrolments.
SETAs also struggled to register learners, and COVID-19 was cited as a factor due to limited movements between regions which affected recruitment.
Despite all these challenges, I am happy to report that the total number of artisans issued with national trade certificates by SETAs and INDLELA during the 2020/21 financial year was 12 613. These learners participated in the government Special Infrastructure Projects (SIPs) scarce skills programme in the 2020/21 financial years.
They include artisanal skills in automotive mechanics, electrician, plumber, diesel mechanic, boilermaker, millwright and welder.
More than one third of certificates were issued by MERSETA (37.2% or 4 651) followed by MQA (11.0% or 1 372), CETA (10.0% or 1 253) and EWSETA (9.9% or 1
232).
Over the course of the 2020/21 financial year, the National Skills Fund (NSF) supported 304 skills development projects, with the number of beneficiaries reaching 34 994. Furthermore, NSF disbursed more than R1.6 billion on skills development interventions.
These funds were mainly disbursed to TVET colleges (29.2% or R493.1 million) and Rural Development projects (29.0% or R490.5 million), while 22.6% (R381.3 million) was allocated for the bursaries and 18.6% (R313.4 million) for “other national priorities”.
In my response to the President State of the Nation Address (SONA), I have committed that through our SETAs, we will increase our targets for Workplace-Based Learning for the financial year commencing on 1 April 2022, with our annual target of 107 000.
We have also committed to have 15 000 TVET college graduates to be placed for Workplace-Based Learning. This is 5000 more than SONA commitments.
We are also targeting 20 500 opportunities for apprentices, 22 500 for artisanal
trades; 31 300 for those completing learnerships and 148 000 for learners entering into various other skills development programmes, such as digital skills, crop production and plant production.
Ladies and gentlemen
Government has already spent vast amounts of money to support our youth through the TVET system, and therefore it is important that we assist them to transition to the workplace through appropriate placements.
We cannot achieve the rapid production of artisans without the active role of industry, including small and medium enterprises, especially to open their workplaces for workplace exposure of mainly our students, but also our TVET college lecturers.
This is amongst the reasons why I increased the Apprenticeship Learner Grant from R165 000 to R206 290 from 1 April 2021, to encourage employers hosting apprentices to open up their workplaces.
To this extent, we have, amongst others, established partnerships with:
ꞏ Japan/Toyota on automotive industry training.
ꞏ Germans on the dual system.
ꞏ UK to address youth unemployment.
ꞏ Huawei on ICT skills academies in 22 TVET colleges.
ꞏ SAMDRA on repair and maintenance of mobile devices.
These agreements include the provision of training for both TVET college students as well as to give workplace exposure to TVET college lecturers, so that they teach and train in what is currently needed by industry.
As part of my service level agreement with all SETAs, they will incorporate government priorities in their training programmes and plans, especially aimed addressing the triple challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality as captured in the National Development Plan in their Sector Skills Plans, including tackling youth unemployment.
I am therefore pleased to see the existing relationship between the South West Gauteng TVET College, MICTSETA, WRSETA, FOODBEV SETA, CETA and many others. I encourage these TVET-SETA partnerships to be deepened. Not a single SETA must not have a relationship with the TVET college sector. Board members and CEOs of SETAs who do not forge this partnership do not belong to our SETA system.
Similarly, any TVET college prinicipal who has not forged partnership with industry and other workplaces does not belong to our TVET system. have previously stated on numerous platforms that TVET college management, especially Principals, must know that they are not running TVET colleges unless they prioritise building partnerships with industry.
I gave a directive that all TVET college Principals should sign new Performance Agreements that include Industry Partnerships as one of their primary key performance indicators.
The above commitments and decisions were informed by the White Paper for Post- School Education and Training which requires Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) to be a central component of the college programmes, and that the extent to which students are able to get placements in the workplace must be used as an important indicator for assessing the performance of the management of institutions.
TVET college Principals owe it to the youth and the country to manage student admissions with the end in mind and this calls for the establishment of strategic partnerships with industry.
It will indeed be a travesty of justice and a serious indictment on us, as leaders, if we were to allow our inaction to cause TVET colleges to become a dead-end for students.
Therefore, seeing Thuthukisa, Festo, Gauteng City Region Academy (GCRA), Maponya Institute, Sakhumzi Restaurant and many more other partners, are examples of the type of the leadership we need in our TVET Colleges.
Thank you very much to all of you for joining us in making sure that we bridge the gap between theory and practice. I also thank the leadership of the South West college for heeding our call.
The relationship between the three universities in attendance here today, i.e, (University of Johannesburg, University of Free State and the Tshwane University of Technology) illustrates also the extent that a relationship of articulation between the higher education sector in which the TVET colleges and the universities share the common goal of skills development.
In support of strengthening the role of colleges in further training and development, I have authorised the request from this college in April this year to undertake the benchmarking excursion to German TVET colleges Vocational for about ten lecturers and two senior managers to learn on how industrial robotics work in the Mechatronics apprenticeships. This excursion was sponsored by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Recently I have also approved a request from this institution for the Acting Principal to attend the NEPAD-SIFA Workshop held in Ghana, Accra that was funded by African Union and Huawei for this College to receive the Fourth Industrial Revolution equipment to the value of R25 Million.
This will assist the College in embracing the Fourth Industrial Revolution and benefit the surrounding community with the skills required by the Market.
Furthermore, this event comes immediately after the college attended the Nepad conference in Accra, Ghana from the 01st – 05th August 2020, representing Southern Africa as part of the African Union partnership on the community development agenda with the pledge of almost R25 millions of equipment to assist with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) training to the surrounding disadvantaged community.
Of course, I do need to say I approve these international trips so that the participants must come back to share their knowledge to attain our objectives of building a vibrant and relevant TVET college sector.
In conclusion
In conclusion, let me convey my sincere appreciation to the following organisations for their contribution to the South West TVET college success that we enjoy today:
ꞏ Foodbev SETA- CEO Ms Nokuthula Selamolela for their funding of more than 300 apprentices.
ꞏ Chieta for the funding of apprentices of more than 50 apprentices
ꞏ Resolution Circle for hosting our apprentices in various fields
ꞏ Thuthukisa Director Mr Paulos Mahlangu for advisory service provided to the ollege during the Accreditation Processes
ꞏ Festo Didactic Sales Engineer/Account Manager (SADC-French) - Mr Jean Bukanga for their training advisory
ꞏ QCTO TVET Specialists Mr Charles Pule for assisting the college with the accreditations
ꞏ Gauteng City Region Academy – Director for Funding 500 Students in placement to the value of R40 Million Rands
ꞏ MICTSETA for partnership with Huawei and Nepad for 4IR Equipment to the value of R25 Millions Rands
ꞏ Chinese Culture and International Education Exchange Centre; Director Dr. Zhilei Lu for the students development and entrepreneurship development within South Africa TVET and Chinese Vocational Colleges.
Gratitude also goes to the Acting Principal, College Council and to the entire Executive Management Committee and Staff of the College and everybody who contributed toward the achievement of this event.
I thank you
