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Funding for poor and academically performing students in higher education and training grew from R2.375 billion in 2008 to R6 billion in 2011, and the Department of Higher Education and Training will make sure that this funding continues to grow every year.

Minister for Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande said this at the COSATU Education and Skills Conference in Benoni today. He was speaking as part of a panel discussion on: “Critically engaging the current Education and Training Landscape: Government’s Transformation Agenda”.
“From last year we have effectively introduced free education for poor student in the FET colleges,” Minister Nzimande continued.

FET College students who would normally have qualified for a NSFAS loan now no longer have to pay fees at all and in most cases also get their accommodation or transport subsidized.

“An important feature of our skills development policies is our emphasis on expanding workplace-based training opportunities to complement classroom-based education. Many programmes require learners to have experience in workshops as well as in workplaces in order to qualify.

Workplaces which are prepared to accept learners are often in short supply and one of our most important thrusts is ensuring that more employers provide opportunities for apprentices, learner, interns, cadets, articled clerks, etc. The numbers of new artisan learners (i.e. those in apprenticeships or learnerships) has now started to increase again after a long decline from the mid-1980s,” Minister Nzimande said.

He added that the numbers of people passing their trade tests to qualify as artisans has more than doubled in the last four years, from 6 030 in 2007/08 to 13 168 in 2011/12.

Minister Nzimande told the conference delegates that the continued growth in these numbers is essential if the country is to successfully undertake the planned strategic infrastructure projects and all the peripheral industries which will grow to complement them: suppliers, users and service providers of various kinds.

Minister Nzimande further called on delegates to start developing a comprehensive skills strategy per union-member of COSATU and per economic sector in the country to guide negotiating strategies at all levels.

The Minister of Basic Education, Ms Angie Motshega and Minister of Labour, Ms Mildred Oliphant, also made inputs into the discussion with Minister Nzimande.