Date: 24/05/2004
Source: Ministry of Labour
Title: M Mdladlana: Launch of the ESDLE Agencies
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF LABOUR, MEMBATHISI MPHUMZI SHEPHERD MDLADLANA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LEAD EMPLOYERS AGENCIES (ESDLE) LAUNCH, Sandton Convention Centre, 24 May 2004
The Programme Director
CEOs of SETAs
Distinguished guests
Department of Labour Provincial Representatives
Leadership and Management of ESDLEs
Colleagues and Comrades
Thank you for your overwhelming support in the recent elections and for supporting the ANC to again take the reigns of government to create jobs and a people's contract to work together to find common solutions to our country's challenges, especially unemployment and poverty. Thank you too for your prayers and support in ensuring that our country wins the right to host the 2010 World Soccer prestigious sporting event.
In 2001, I launched our National Skills Development Strategy to sharpen and direct the focus of SETAs and the National Skills Fund projects. The National Skills Development Strategy was hailed as an ambitious and wide-ranging intervention that recognises that State intervention must work together with market forces to remedy our country's skills deficiencies.
The NSDSs fundamental objective is to bring about a change in attitude towards people development, and to increase our collective investment in skills development. Such a change in culture and practice does, by its very nature, take time. Other countries such as Ireland, took nearly 20 years to establish their training system fully. I am pleased to announce that within a space of four years, the levels of participation and engagement with the strategy by employers, training providers, workers, communities and learners has multiplied four fold. The fact that we have managed to rally many partners around the realisation of this strategy, is evidence that the strategy is working.
From all corners of South Africa, people are beginning to seriously engage in skills development initiatives. Some employers have realised how much skilled workers contribute to their competitive advantage and to the quality of their goods and services. Education and training providers have become increasingly under pressure to improve their programmes and to respond to the needs of various employers and learners. Together we still face a big challenge to open up more placement opportunities within the world of work for young people and people with disabilities. These issues have prompted the country to talk about skills development and to make it part of every day language. This is an achievement and proof that the strategy is actively "at work".
Today's occasion stands as testimony to the commitments we made last year at the Growth and Development Summit (GDS), where government, labour, business, and the community constituencies signed an agreement to strengthen our partnership and accelerate the intake of new entrants into learnerships programmes. I am launching the ESDLEs because I am convinced that they will assist in ensuring that the large number of our unemployment people, especially in rural areas, are placed in the small and medium enterprises.
My President announced on 21 May 2004 that our achievement in terms of learnership intake, in both learnerships and apprenticeships, as at the end of March stood at 64 000 learners. I am optimistic that once the figures for April and May are collated we should reach the GDS targets. I must hasten to say that the targets we set are a fraction of the problem when measured against the scale of youth unemployment - something that I am sure you know as well as I do. Thousands of unemployed young people are eager to engage in learnerships, they are prepared to learn, work and earn and to contribute towards the growth of our economy and the social status of their communities. Let us unleash and guide that energy.
We have embraced the concept of Employment and Skills Development Agencies as one of the best ways to extend skills development to our small enterprises and reach out to rural areas. Last year we amended the Skills Development Act, 1998 to enable us to move strongly into this area.
It is my belief, that by creating these agencies, we will be in a position to boost and consolidate these partnerships towards achieving our next target, namely that of 80 000 learners in learnerships by March 2005.
Programme Director, allow me to acknowledge the tremendous support we received from the Australian government in developing this concept. I also want to thank other donors such as the European Union and the German Government for their contribution in this process. We are humbled.
Today, we are launching 21 Pilot Employment and Skills Development Lead Employer agencies under our current Learnership regulations. This will enable us to better understand the challenges of implementing these agencies and to enable us to prepare new ESDA regulations and further national rollout. I am told that collectively the 21 ESDLEs will take on about 11 000 learners. Programme Director, allow me to acknowledge the efforts of the other 290 organisations that applied to participate in this pilot. Even though they were not successful, to me they have demonstrated their believe in this concept and its viability. Once we have concluded the Employment and Skills Development Agency regulations, there will be more opportunities for all of you to apply for ESDA status.
Today we are launching 10 Sectoral ESDLE Pilots. These are intermediate bodies that will operate nationally, across provincial boundaries, within the scope of a single sector (coinciding with the scope of the SETA).
These Sectoral ESDLEs have a principal relationship with their SETAs. The SETAs will be encouraging smaller employers in their sector to take on learners with the assistance of 'their' ESDLE. I am told that contracts have been entered into between the SETAs and 'their' ESDLEs and that these contracts commit the SETA to funding the administrative costs of 'their' ESDLEs, as well as providing individual learnership grants for a specified number of learners.
We are also launching 11 Provincial ESDLEs: These intermediate bodies will operate within a single province with a strong rural emphasis, but incorporate a range of small employers from a wide spectrum of sectors, which happen to be located within that particular province. The provincial ESDLEs have already secured an agreement with those SETAs to which the small enterprises in the province that agreed to take on learners belong. It is for this reason that my Department has committed a total of R90 million under the National Skills Fund towards their administrative costs. These ESDLEs will still continue to receive individual learnership grants from their respective SETAs.
I know that there is going to be a degree of competition between the two sets of agencies, as both will try to win over small employers to take on 'their' learners. To me, this is a healthy competition, and one that is ultimately in the interest of learners given that it will hopefully ensure a higher level of participation by small employers generally. However, the situation will be monitored through the life of the pilot programme and adjusted if needs be. I expect a good working relation between the sectoral and provincial ESDLEs and your respective SETAs.
I congratulate you all for having the courage to participate in our first ever pilot and to assume the employer responsibility on behalf of these small enterprises to recruit, employ and train and coordinate the rotation of previously unemployed learners on a learnership amongst these employers, within the term of an employment contract. They are also positioned as supportive mechanisms to SETAs and training providers in learnerships development and delivery.
Your success in this pilot will help us to address the widespread complaint by small employers that the administrative obligations associated with learnerships are too onerous, and that they were therefore discouraged from taking on learners. International experience suggests that this is not a uniquely South African problem. Some of you might be asking, why did we not simply reduce the amount of administration required? Well, if you look behind the word 'administration' you will find a range of checks and balances that have been put into place to ensure that learners are not exploited and that they get high quality training. If we did away with these checks and balances, there would be a real danger that learners would be exploited and training standards would fall. This would discredit all learnerships everywhere, so we could not do that. Instead we opted to introduce intermediate agencies to execute these functions on behalf of smaller employers thereby enabling them to take on learners and benefit from the scheme.
We are piloting this concept by creating these agencies to assume full responsibility for the employer obligations under the learnership regulations under both the Skills Development Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. It is hoped that these obstacles will be overcome and that a large number of additional new learnership opportunities will become available for young people in this country. Experience of similar arrangements in Germany and Australia suggest that we are likely to see major benefits arising from these arrangements for learners.
To the 21 ESDLEs that I am launching today, let me remind you that, as government we remain steadfastly committed to ensuring that the equity targets that I set in the National Skills Development Strategy are met, namely that at least 85% of the beneficiaries of training should be black, 54% female and 4% must be people with disabilities. You have three months from today to sort out your administrative and infrastructure arrangements and within the next six months, I expect the first report of your learnership intake.
I want to come back in a year's time to celebrate the ESDLE achievements and the success of learners that we recruited through these agencies. I want to celebrate the success of the model and its role in assisting small employers and reaching out to learners in rural areas. This will be a joyous occasion indeed and I am looking forward to celebrate this occasion with you. I know you won't let me down.
Once again Programme Director, congratulations to the 21 organisations that share my passion for building South Africa as a society with a rising base of knowledge that can be put to work to end poverty and create jobs.
I thank you for your commitment to this landmark process. Let us continue with our efforts to better the lives of our people. Together we are sure to succeed.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Labour
24 May 2004
Source: Department of Labour (http://www.labour.gov.za)
Source: Ministry of Labour
Title: M Mdladlana: Launch of the ESDLE Agencies
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF LABOUR, MEMBATHISI MPHUMZI SHEPHERD MDLADLANA, ON THE OCCASION OF THE EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS DEVELOPMENT LEAD EMPLOYERS AGENCIES (ESDLE) LAUNCH, Sandton Convention Centre, 24 May 2004
The Programme Director
CEOs of SETAs
Distinguished guests
Department of Labour Provincial Representatives
Leadership and Management of ESDLEs
Colleagues and Comrades
Thank you for your overwhelming support in the recent elections and for supporting the ANC to again take the reigns of government to create jobs and a people's contract to work together to find common solutions to our country's challenges, especially unemployment and poverty. Thank you too for your prayers and support in ensuring that our country wins the right to host the 2010 World Soccer prestigious sporting event.
In 2001, I launched our National Skills Development Strategy to sharpen and direct the focus of SETAs and the National Skills Fund projects. The National Skills Development Strategy was hailed as an ambitious and wide-ranging intervention that recognises that State intervention must work together with market forces to remedy our country's skills deficiencies.
The NSDSs fundamental objective is to bring about a change in attitude towards people development, and to increase our collective investment in skills development. Such a change in culture and practice does, by its very nature, take time. Other countries such as Ireland, took nearly 20 years to establish their training system fully. I am pleased to announce that within a space of four years, the levels of participation and engagement with the strategy by employers, training providers, workers, communities and learners has multiplied four fold. The fact that we have managed to rally many partners around the realisation of this strategy, is evidence that the strategy is working.
From all corners of South Africa, people are beginning to seriously engage in skills development initiatives. Some employers have realised how much skilled workers contribute to their competitive advantage and to the quality of their goods and services. Education and training providers have become increasingly under pressure to improve their programmes and to respond to the needs of various employers and learners. Together we still face a big challenge to open up more placement opportunities within the world of work for young people and people with disabilities. These issues have prompted the country to talk about skills development and to make it part of every day language. This is an achievement and proof that the strategy is actively "at work".
Today's occasion stands as testimony to the commitments we made last year at the Growth and Development Summit (GDS), where government, labour, business, and the community constituencies signed an agreement to strengthen our partnership and accelerate the intake of new entrants into learnerships programmes. I am launching the ESDLEs because I am convinced that they will assist in ensuring that the large number of our unemployment people, especially in rural areas, are placed in the small and medium enterprises.
My President announced on 21 May 2004 that our achievement in terms of learnership intake, in both learnerships and apprenticeships, as at the end of March stood at 64 000 learners. I am optimistic that once the figures for April and May are collated we should reach the GDS targets. I must hasten to say that the targets we set are a fraction of the problem when measured against the scale of youth unemployment - something that I am sure you know as well as I do. Thousands of unemployed young people are eager to engage in learnerships, they are prepared to learn, work and earn and to contribute towards the growth of our economy and the social status of their communities. Let us unleash and guide that energy.
We have embraced the concept of Employment and Skills Development Agencies as one of the best ways to extend skills development to our small enterprises and reach out to rural areas. Last year we amended the Skills Development Act, 1998 to enable us to move strongly into this area.
It is my belief, that by creating these agencies, we will be in a position to boost and consolidate these partnerships towards achieving our next target, namely that of 80 000 learners in learnerships by March 2005.
Programme Director, allow me to acknowledge the tremendous support we received from the Australian government in developing this concept. I also want to thank other donors such as the European Union and the German Government for their contribution in this process. We are humbled.
Today, we are launching 21 Pilot Employment and Skills Development Lead Employer agencies under our current Learnership regulations. This will enable us to better understand the challenges of implementing these agencies and to enable us to prepare new ESDA regulations and further national rollout. I am told that collectively the 21 ESDLEs will take on about 11 000 learners. Programme Director, allow me to acknowledge the efforts of the other 290 organisations that applied to participate in this pilot. Even though they were not successful, to me they have demonstrated their believe in this concept and its viability. Once we have concluded the Employment and Skills Development Agency regulations, there will be more opportunities for all of you to apply for ESDA status.
Today we are launching 10 Sectoral ESDLE Pilots. These are intermediate bodies that will operate nationally, across provincial boundaries, within the scope of a single sector (coinciding with the scope of the SETA).
These Sectoral ESDLEs have a principal relationship with their SETAs. The SETAs will be encouraging smaller employers in their sector to take on learners with the assistance of 'their' ESDLE. I am told that contracts have been entered into between the SETAs and 'their' ESDLEs and that these contracts commit the SETA to funding the administrative costs of 'their' ESDLEs, as well as providing individual learnership grants for a specified number of learners.
We are also launching 11 Provincial ESDLEs: These intermediate bodies will operate within a single province with a strong rural emphasis, but incorporate a range of small employers from a wide spectrum of sectors, which happen to be located within that particular province. The provincial ESDLEs have already secured an agreement with those SETAs to which the small enterprises in the province that agreed to take on learners belong. It is for this reason that my Department has committed a total of R90 million under the National Skills Fund towards their administrative costs. These ESDLEs will still continue to receive individual learnership grants from their respective SETAs.
I know that there is going to be a degree of competition between the two sets of agencies, as both will try to win over small employers to take on 'their' learners. To me, this is a healthy competition, and one that is ultimately in the interest of learners given that it will hopefully ensure a higher level of participation by small employers generally. However, the situation will be monitored through the life of the pilot programme and adjusted if needs be. I expect a good working relation between the sectoral and provincial ESDLEs and your respective SETAs.
I congratulate you all for having the courage to participate in our first ever pilot and to assume the employer responsibility on behalf of these small enterprises to recruit, employ and train and coordinate the rotation of previously unemployed learners on a learnership amongst these employers, within the term of an employment contract. They are also positioned as supportive mechanisms to SETAs and training providers in learnerships development and delivery.
Your success in this pilot will help us to address the widespread complaint by small employers that the administrative obligations associated with learnerships are too onerous, and that they were therefore discouraged from taking on learners. International experience suggests that this is not a uniquely South African problem. Some of you might be asking, why did we not simply reduce the amount of administration required? Well, if you look behind the word 'administration' you will find a range of checks and balances that have been put into place to ensure that learners are not exploited and that they get high quality training. If we did away with these checks and balances, there would be a real danger that learners would be exploited and training standards would fall. This would discredit all learnerships everywhere, so we could not do that. Instead we opted to introduce intermediate agencies to execute these functions on behalf of smaller employers thereby enabling them to take on learners and benefit from the scheme.
We are piloting this concept by creating these agencies to assume full responsibility for the employer obligations under the learnership regulations under both the Skills Development Act and the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. It is hoped that these obstacles will be overcome and that a large number of additional new learnership opportunities will become available for young people in this country. Experience of similar arrangements in Germany and Australia suggest that we are likely to see major benefits arising from these arrangements for learners.
To the 21 ESDLEs that I am launching today, let me remind you that, as government we remain steadfastly committed to ensuring that the equity targets that I set in the National Skills Development Strategy are met, namely that at least 85% of the beneficiaries of training should be black, 54% female and 4% must be people with disabilities. You have three months from today to sort out your administrative and infrastructure arrangements and within the next six months, I expect the first report of your learnership intake.
I want to come back in a year's time to celebrate the ESDLE achievements and the success of learners that we recruited through these agencies. I want to celebrate the success of the model and its role in assisting small employers and reaching out to learners in rural areas. This will be a joyous occasion indeed and I am looking forward to celebrate this occasion with you. I know you won't let me down.
Once again Programme Director, congratulations to the 21 organisations that share my passion for building South Africa as a society with a rising base of knowledge that can be put to work to end poverty and create jobs.
I thank you for your commitment to this landmark process. Let us continue with our efforts to better the lives of our people. Together we are sure to succeed.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Labour
24 May 2004
Source: Department of Labour (http://www.labour.gov.za)
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