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The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes Higher Education & Training Minister Blade Nzimande's placing of four Sector Education & Training Authorities (SETAs) under administration. The ESETA, PSETA, CETA and MAPPP are the worst offenders in financial mismanagement, having received qualified audits, some year in and year out.

But why stop there? The 19 SETAs may have unqualified audits but that does not mean that they are any good, or the optimal vehicle to address the skills issue in South Africa. SETAs are funding bodies with mandates to identify training institutions that can educate and train South Africans in various skills. However some simply do not perform.

Minister Nzimande's department has reviewed the SETAs. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee is in the process of reviewing the SETAs too. However, the Minister is reluctant to confront the 19 SETAS racked by financial mismanagement; for here rests (idle I am afraid) cadre deployment and his trade union alliance partners. So he obfuscates, reorganises the SETAs on paper and fiddles while the whole system is continuing to deteriorate.

The DA still holds the position that the overly bureaucratic and cumbersome SETA system should be scrapped, in favour of skills development being made the direct responsibility of firms and businesses competing. Government-backed wage subsidies can help to ensure that skills development is actively driven by the private sector. We know very well that there are three to perhaps four SETAS that are managing to do a decent enough job (I am thinking here of the BANKSETA, FASSETA and ServicesSETA). However the gold standard is set by the manufacturing and auto assembly one called MERSETA, which works precisely because it is not structured like a SETA: it is well-managed, and is integrated deeply into the private sector (BMW trains its workers through the SETA). It puts the money into industry determined and competitive skills, and not its executive's back-pockets. Thus I would like to suggest that Minister Nzimande distil what works for MERSETA, and divert the department's resources to similar instruments: a system of wage subsidies and apprenticeship programmes that recognise that governments don't decide what skills firms need, firms do.