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The announcement by the Department of Higher Education and Training that FET colleges should plan for no increase in the number of enrolments for 2011, and a scant 4.5% increase in their budget, is a severe blow for skills development and job creation. Given salary increases of 7.5% for educators, it is likely to result in a drop in the number of staff that FET colleges can employ, and the number of learners who can be trained. This cannot be allowed to happen. The DA calls on minister Nzimande to disband the wasteful and corrupt SETA system and rather use the billions allocated to these institutions to improve funding for FET colleges.

It is generally accepted that South Africa faces a major skills shortage. This has been cited as one of the main reasons for our failure to attain the targeted growth rate of 6% per annum. Yet the number of apprentices and students passing trade tests has been dropping consistently over the last two decades. The major reforms in training since the promulgation of the Skills Development Act in 1998 have not improved the situation. In many cases they have had a net negative effect. Capping FET college funding, and decreasing enrolments, will only worsen the skills shortage.

The funding problems are being compounded by mixed messages being sent out and no-one seems to know to what extent programmes will be subsidised, and which will not be subsidised, leaving the learners and industry with fees that they will not be able to pay. As it is, the colleges have huge bad debt from non-payment of fees. This has left the FET colleges in a "fragile" state, to quote the Director General, Mary Metcalfe. NATED (the National Technical) courses are being phased out, but in the absence of programmes which can replace NATED, thousands of matriculants who cannot or who do not want to go to a university or university of technology, will be left stranded. Few matriculants are interested in starting at NC(V) Level 2 (the National Certificate (Vocational)) at the FET colleges and spending 3 years to get to Level 4 (equivalent to matric) yet again, as was suggested by officials. The Minister himself has pronounced this a scandalous waste of time and public money, yet this situation is not being addressed with the urgency that it deserves.

The NCV programmes have been "under review" but there is no indication when an accelerated form of the NCV will be available to cater for this specific market. While the Minister insists that FET colleges will play a major role in skills development, it is not clear, with all this uncertainty, whether many colleges nationally will be able to provide the necessary training much longer.

The Democratic Alliance will be asking the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education and Training to urgently investigate the serious problems in skills training, including the public FET college sector. We need to increase the number of students gaining access to quality training, not limit their numbers.