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Today, Minister of Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande revealed his plans for the future Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETA) landscape. Considering the massive skills deficit facing our country, and the fact that we have millions of unemployed people desperate for training, his axing of three SETAs and the realignment of various others for the next five years (2011-2016) will serve only to perpetuate the misguided and unproductive approach adopted in recent years by the Higher Education department.

Minister Nzimande's stubborn allegiance to the failed SETA system, despite its dismal performance, makes it more difficult for workers to get the skills they need. His announcement could not have been more disappointing for the unemployed.

The reason is this: there are various ways of spending money on education and skills training, and some work better than others. Some barely work, or do not work at all. The SETAs fall into this latter category. The DA believes that the state has a crucial role to play in providing skills training, but as a facilitator, rather than the controlling agent, in the relationship between industry and education.

What we have been proposing - and what the minister has regrettably failed to take up - is a major shift in the Higher Education department's budgeting. We propose that the government dissolve the SETAs and spend its budget instead on Further Education and Training (FET) colleges, which we know can work effectively with businesses to train workers.

Right now the bureaucratic environment in which SETAs operate stifles trainers' responsiveness to skills needs. The ad hoc way in which funds for training are released by the SETAs does little to build centres of excellence in training. SETAs are trying to direct economic traffic in a dynamic global context, which is not producing the necessary results. We should get educators, skills-seekers and businesses to interact with each other directly. The state's role in this is crucial - but it ought to provide the funding, rather than centralise control of the process through the SETAs model.

Instead, we should incentivise skills development by increasing FET college capacity, so that they can accommodate at least 1.5 million of the 2.4 million unemployed youth between the ages of 18 and 24. By failing to do this or chart a new course for the Higher Education department, the minister missed a real opportunity today to tackle one of our country's most pressing problems.
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