Mister Speaker
Honourable members
It gives me great pleasure to introduce the Higher Education Laws Amendment Bill, the Skills Development Levies Amendment Bill; and the Higher Education and Training Laws Amendment Bill to this honourable house.
These legislative amendments further enable the transfer of functions vested previously with the former Department of Education, as well as with the Departments of Labour and Basic Education, to the Department of Higher Education and Training.
In the past 16 months since the establishment of the Department of Higher Education and Training, we have made great strides in laying the foundation for a truly comprehensive and differentiated post-school system, conjoining the education and training sectors.
In 1994, we inherited the outcomes of a deliberate policy of under development of our people. Education performance still replicates patterns of poverty and privilege. The patterns of unequal educational outcomes are endlessly repeated through occupational inequalities from one generation to another. Therefore, we still have major challenges in improving access and quality of education and educational outcomes.
In the coming months, we need to make far-reaching changes to improve the provision of post-school opportunities for especially the youth but also adults. We also intend accelerating our efforts in dealing with some of the fundamental challenges in the system including skills bottlenecks, especially in priority and scarce skills; low participation rates; distortions in the shape, size and distribution of access to post-school education and training; and quality and inefficiency challenges.
To address these and other impediments to our economic and social goals, we require significant policy and legislative changes. Therefore this amended legislation before the house will remove some of the difficulties and hurdles in the way of policy development.
Mr Speaker, the transformation and expansion of the higher education and training landscape will have a direct bearing on government's overall mission for economic growth and development.
My performance agreement with the president based on outcome five of government's programme of action: "a skilled and capable workforce to support an inclusive growth path" sets the agenda for the work of my department. Honourable members, this outcome requires a major rethink of how government and its partners have been operating in the area of human resource development.
To guide our work, the human resource development strategy which is in its final draft will soon be launched by the Deputy President. Regarding the work of my department specifically, we have begun the process towards drafting a Green Paper on Higher Education and Training which will require a broader, long-term view of the post-schooling system we wish to create.
The year 2010 has been momentous for my department in terms of the regimen of stakeholder partnerships we have created. In April we held a landmark Stakeholder Summit on Higher Education Transformation which brought together a cross spectrum of the higher education community to confront the challenges in the university sector.
Earlier this month, we held two extremely successful dialogues, a Further Education and Training College Summit and a National Skills Summit. The FET College Summit was a thorough engagement among stakeholders on how to stabilise the sector and make colleges pillars of skills development across the nation.
We set in place a process for action in the immediate, medium and long term to support FET colleges to function as high quality institutions that can respond to national education and training challenges.
Last week's National Skills Summit saw government and our social partners in organised business, organised labour, community representatives, professional bodies, research, education and training institutions and skills development intermediaries resolving to work together to effect a skills revolution in our country.
The discussions and final declaration sets out a detailed map to tackle the skills challenge from second-chance learning and adult education to high-level research and innovation. Speaker, I table a copy of the declaration for the information of members.
The summits have identified a shared set of principles which form the basis for action to improve teaching and learning, efficiency, effectiveness, good governance, social responsibility and heightened employability of graduates.
The outcomes of all three summits will form the basis of the Green Paper which will survey the post-school education and training landscape and set out the policy and legislative changes needed to support our strategic objectives.
I wish to thank all Members of Parliament who participated in these dialogues and who continue to support us in the intensive work to create an articulated system which is able embrace those unable to access learning and skills opportunities as well as to bridge the divides between institutions of learning and the workplace.
I thank you.
Contact:
Ranjeni Munusamy
Tel: 012 312 5555 (Pretoria) or 021 465 5513 (Cape Town)
Cell: 0725712812
E-mail: munusamy.r@dhet.gov.za
