Master of Ceremonies
Executive Director of the Development Bank of South Africa Vulindlela Academy - Dr Sifiso Mbatha
Chairperson of the Local Government Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) - Mr Sakhumzi Somyo
The sponsors present
Skills Development Advisor-for the South African Local Government Association, Mr Leonard Thabane
Dr John Tibane
Graduates
Invited guests
Ladies and gentlemen
It is a pleasure and privilege for me to address this audience today. Even more so to address graduates from a prestigious business school, with a history in the development of young minds in leadership which will hopefully result in the improvement of the lives of ordinary South Africans. The graduation ceremony evokes a mixed bag of emotions. Some of you might have a sense of achievement, and obviously joy.
There is a sense of a job well done, and a career ahead. For some of the graduates, there is a feeling of being free at last, being out of many hours of uncertainty, pressure, fear and anxiety. No matter what you might have gone through while studying, here we are today to celebrate with you, your new beginnings. The strengthening and capacity development of our municipalities is critical for the development of our country and this graduation ceremony heralds a fresh batch of graduates who will return to the workplace renewed and armed with new skills.
On behalf of the Ministry of Higher Education and Training, I sincerely congratulate each and every one of you for your achievement. It is also appropriate for me today to equally thank all the parents, relatives, friends and sponsors who have contributed towards your success. To educators, we know the agony and pain of developing and shaping a student. The graduates’ success is your success as well.
Let me take this opportunity to comment on the mandate of the new Ministry of Higher Education and Training established in 2009. As the department of Higher Education and Training we aim to promote and ensure access to higher and vocational education and skills development training opportunities, which will in turn contribute towards improving the quality of life of all citizens of our country.
For us, your graduation is significant, as our focus is on developing a skilled society to take on the challenges of our developing country. We are on an economic growth path, which requires skilled and globally competitive hardworking people such as you today. As graduates and the society at large you have a government that has a vision and makes effort to ensure that, education is a top priority.
As a new department, focusing on post-school education, which includes adult education, vocational and further education, workplace skills development, developing artisanal skills, and higher university education, we face enormous challenges in achieving our objectives. These include creating greater access to post-school learning and training opportunities for young people in our country, reducing barriers related to class, race, gender and disability and other inequities.
The department ensures high quality, relevant educational programmes, and responsiveness to national social and economic priorities. In my view, these imperatives include a set of ethics and values that respect and promote our constitutional values, as well as a willingness to support empowerment and enrichment programmes. We are putting systems in place to ensure cooperation and alignment with all educators, around the same objectives, which, is to educate and skill, so that our graduates secure descent jobs or they become excellent entrepreneurs.
President Jacob Zuma, during the world cup, joined FIFA president and world leaders and star footballers, to launch the “1 Goal Education for all” Campaign. They agreed to work towards a breakthrough on global education funding in 2010, in order to make education the legacy of the 2010 FIFA world cup in Africa and poor regions around the world. In his speech he said:” We are signing up to the 1Goal campaign today because we believe that it is the responsibility for every government to make their commitment to tackle this indefensible situation, and also to meet the millennium development goal, by acting now, together we can assure education for all.
Certainly, as graduates going out to the world, I challenge you to become ambassadors and change agents at your work place, to be activists for education, creation of artisans and production of skills, and generally stand for research and development and also issues of leadership in your local government.
The South African economy faces estimated immediate shortages of middle and senior managers in excess of three hundred thousand. If every private and public higher education institution offering management qualifications be filled to complete capacity, it would hardly address this critical shortage of managers.
Central to the strategy of our department is the concerted effort to develop a skilled and capable workforce, our graduates need to actively play a role in our society and economy. As President Mandela has said many times, education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change this world. I trust and hope that this resonates in your hearts and minds as you are capped for your achievements.
You may be aware that graduations are a time-honoured tradition, instituted to give men and women such as you, acknowledgement for having the initiative, motivation and perseverance to develop your talent to the fullest. May the values that gave you a drive continue to give you an edge for success in the work force. As you go out there to serve, you will be a mirror of the culture that leads to your success. I challenge you to read, one of the inspirational authors; Eliyahu M Goldratt and Jeff Cox, on their 2004 book, titled, THE GOAL: A process of ongoing improvement.
In introducing their book, they said, “The Goal is about new global principles of manufacturing. It’s about people trying to understand what makes their world tick so that they can make it better. As they think logically and consistently about their problems they are able to determine “cause and effect” relationships between their actions and the results. In the process they reduce some basic principles which they use to save their plant and make it successful, (P2; 2004).
It is against this background that I would like to reflect on the role of the graduates in our country or society. The graduate is inextricably bound to the values of the university, college or an institute, which produce him or her. Graduates are inevitably a mirror of the university’s self understanding, identity and values. Admittedly, the mandate of the university or an institute is to offer courses and qualifications that are of a world class standard, relevant to the needs of society, and the intellectual development of our citizens. And also to produce a calibre of a graduate who is able to move into a workplace anywhere in the world with confidence, well equipped for the task at hand.
The local government sector has come under severe criticism in last five years. We are inundated with news reports on violent public protests due to poor or nonexistent service delivery by municipalities. Reports on financial mismanagements, out of control debts, misuse of power and corruption are rife. The local government sector is the point at which our government reaches the very grass roots of our nation.
It is where government comes face-to-face with the daily hardships, strife, needs, and desires of the very communities that place us in positions of governance. We must therefore reflect carefully on how well we are serving our people, indeed our clients of our local government sector.
Such reflection must include clear strategies on empowering our local government employees with skills geared towards improvement of services and meeting constitutional imperatives. This context causes the responsibility weighing on your shoulders as graduated to increase significantly; now that you have the skills in municipal finance management as well as in leadership development the weight rests upon you to put these skills towards positive and visible use in your constituencies.
In response to reports of poor service delivery each Minister has signed a performance agreement with the President of South Africa. These agreements are in essence social contracts of performance entered into with the citizens of our nation. From these agreements certain outcomes were adopted by Cabinet, of which outcomes four and five pertain in particular to post school education in South Africa.
Outcome four relates Increasing access to high level occupationally directed programmes in needed areas, while outcome five addresses increased research, development and innovation in human capital for a growing knowledge economy. It is ultimately the task of the department to do all in its power to develop a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path.
Education can no longer be for its own sake. Knowledge should more and more be used to create the society we would all like to leave as a legacy for future generations. There are numerous examples of people who used knowledge to change the world. For example Nelson Mandela and many other philanthropists used their passion to accelerate change and social cohesion in society and the world at large. Charles Kovess in his 2005 book: Passionate People Produce; rekindle your passion and creativity. He emphasised the three P’s to success which is Passion, People, and Produce.
He also emphasise the critical issues of passion in the leader and the manager, where he says” If the leader is not passionate, it will be difficult to create an environment in which passion is natured. Our experience has shown that the viability of any successful institution, organisations rests on five factors: innovations, quality assurance, strong leadership, organisational strength and financial viability.
It is our belief that sufficient levels of skills can only be achieved by enhancement of opportunities for skills development through the integration of higher education, training and skills development by turning our focus to a single post school education landscape geared towards achieving national human resource needs. The fragmented higher education and skills development sectors have been pointed out as one of the causes for the failure to raise the skills base towards meeting national needs. The National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS III) and new integrated post school educational landscape provides opportunities to clearly identify and address skills needs in the short- medium and long term, for different labour market segments and industries, and for a wide range of individuals from new entrants to those facing retrenchment or retirement.
A further positive outcome is that of enhanced control and accuracy in public funding towards the acquisition of priority skills and achievement of national and sectoral objectives. The NSDS III will have its most profound impact on the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs).
In order to enhance the effectiveness of the skills development system, the DHET has introduced a number of processes such as reducing the scope of SETAs; to align SETA structures behind national mandates and economic sectors; to align Sector Skills Plans with national and sectoral objectives; build a national information management system containing data on the entire post school system and revitalising the public Further Education and Training College system.
The Minister of Higher Education and Training, Dr. Blade Nzimande, announced a restructuring of the SETA landscape in order to achieve the goals of the NSDS III. As the Local Government SETA (LGSETA) and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) were directly involved in developing the CPMD it is necessary to elaborate on the envisaged role of SETA’s in the new post school education landscape. The new SETA landscape is informed by the urgent need to address the skills and employment needs of the youth and adult population in South Africa. For example, the transfer of sic codes from the LGSETA to the SASSETA, and specifically involving the transfer of metro police and traffic enforcement, was announced.
In reinforcing the post school education landscape the DHET is embarking on a number of activities in addressing challenges faced by SETAs, which include refocusing SETA activities through the new NSDS III; initiating a process to strengthen the SETA Sector Skills Plans (SSPs) and aligning these to Service Level Agreements and reporting mechanisms in an effort to improve monitoring and evaluation; establishing the Quality Council for Trade and Occupations (QCTO) to improve occupational qualifications against which learner ships and apprenticeships programmes are developed, as well as ensuring that the QCTO accredits quality service provision in order to prevent SETAs becoming both judges and facilitators of training programmes.
Government has identified that, due to the enormous pressure placed on our economy and society by high levels of unemployment, poverty, financial disparities and global economic competition, the implementation of a concise human resource development strategy as part of a larger national plan towards development had to be developed. A Human Resource Development Strategy was therefore developed to not only address immediate short term skill shortages hampering economic and social development, but also medium and long term strategies stretching from 2010 to 2030. While the HRD strategy of South Africa addresses immediate and important economic shortfalls it reaches beyond these into our values, good citizenship and our wider commitment towards developing our country.
In developing a strategy for human resource development a number of key challenges were identified. With reference to the local government sector it was concerning that, while some local government entities have developed HRD strategies, most of these efforts have sought to locate their respective strategies within the broader HRDSA. There is no expectation that departmental, provincial and local government and occupational HRD strategies need to be a simple subset of the HRD-SA. They need to reflect the priorities of the HRDSA through the lens of local and sectoral conditions, cater for the indicators over which they have jurisdiction, and include activities and programmes that cater for their own strategic priorities and imperatives.
In addition, the HRDSA’s Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF) is intended to provide a framework for the elaboration of department, provincial and local government-specific HRD strategies and plans. These strategies and plans need to be designed to respond to local priorities and imperatives. The indicators and activities contained in the HRD-SA thus serve as minimum guidelines to be implemented in provincial and local government HRD strategies. In addition, provinces and local governments may also adopt special programmes that are specific to the province.
The HRDSA sets out a number of commitments to be achieved by the end of 2010. In our seventh commitment it states that government intends to ensure that the public sector has the capability to meet the strategic priorities of the South African Developmental State. The need to ensure a dramatic improvement in the efficacy of the public sector SETA, sustainable leadership and operational effectiveness is highlighted.
Strategies set out in adhering to Commitment Seven include leadership development management strategies, a more strategic role for professional bodies (norms, standards); capacity development; promoting learnerships, internships and traineeships; a national/provincial Public Service Academy; e-learning for the public service; and fostering HEI and FET College partnerships.
It is my firm conviction that collaboration between the Department, public universities and public FET Colleges needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency. While Minister Nzimande has gazetted the minimum requirements for admission to higher education institutions with a National Certificate Vocational, completion of a credit bearing short learning programme, even in collaboration with a SETA does not currently ensure articulation into a full qualification at a university.
The development of a clear articulation pathway from FET College type programmes and credit bearing short courses offered at universities towards obtaining a full university qualification has now become critically important. I therefore call upon the university to engage with the department in constructive dialogue towards developing these short learning programmes into fully independent qualifications with clear articulation pathways towards continuous tertiary education.
On behalf of the national Department of Higher Education and Training I wish to extend my most sincere congratulations to each graduate on completing the CPMD. Such recognition is further extended to the facilitators, lecturers, assessors, and administrators of Wits Business School, as well as countless family members and friends in support of each graduate. The Higher Education and Training Ministry is indeed appreciative of all your efforts and would like to urge you to continue with your unwavering support and commitment to skills development.
Those of you who graduate here today carry the immense responsibility to take to heart the circumstances and challenges facing our communities. You are now ready to be called upon to further study, comprehend and implement national, provincial and local strategies towards improving the living circumstances of every South African. Now that you have the skills and the knowledge you can never again with a clear conscience turn your back on the complex issues facing our young developing democracy. Just before you launch into celebrations, I trust that you are already so enthused and fired up that you are speculating and contemplating your next career development opportunity. I wish you all success, and thank Wits Business School for ensuring that this special day is honoured for all of you this day
I thank you!
For further enquiries:
Mr Fanie Ngoma
Tel: 012 312 5056
Cell: 083 575 2039
E-mail: Ngoma.F@dhet.gov.za
