Date: 30/07/2003
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
Title: Singh: KwaZulu-Natal conference of the Services Sector Education & Training Authority
ADDRESS BY MR NAREND SINGH, KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE, AT THE SERVICES SECTOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING AUTHORITY REGIONAL CONFERENCE, International Convention Centre, Durban, Thursday, 30 July 2003
Mr Themba Mabuza, Chairperson of the Services SETA;
Mr Ivor Blumenthal, Chief Executive Officer of the Services SETA;
Mrs Hixonia Nyasulu, of TH Nyasulu and Associates;
Mr Makhosi Busisiwe Khoza, Chief Executive Officer of the KwaZulu-Natal Local Government Association;
Other distinguished panellists;
Other distinguished delegates and guests;
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for inviting me to be here today to share my thoughts on the training of a rising generation so that they might optimally benefit themselves, serve the economy and serve society. I welcome the opportunity. And may I state at the outset that I see the activities of your Sector Education and Training Authority - indeed of all SETAs - and of my Department as being two sides of the same coin. I am here toward the close of your one-day regional conference, and I trust that your deliberations have been constructive and fruitful. I feel I am here to give my blessing to that.
However, I would also like to outline how I see the challenges posed to all of us involved in training the workforce, plus explore a few ideas. It is almost trite to say that South Africa faces a skills shortage. A 40-year phase in which people were deliberately deprived of the opportunity to develop full literacy, full numeracy - and the business and technical skills which flow from them - has, with the dawn of democracy and the ending of political isolation, run straight into a post Cold War phase of economic globalisation. This phenomenon of globalisation can be criticised and decried, but it is the overriding reality and will not go away. It is the nations that can produce competitively and trade competitively that will survive and prosper. Those that cannot will be marginalised. It is a harsh truth.
Skills shortage
And we in South Africa could hardly have been worse placed as we emerged from the economic and other distortions of apartheid with an under-trained labour force, and serious shortcomings in the managerial category as well, to face the full blast of competition from nations with no such handicap. Industry and commerce have had to drastically trim their sails to remain competitive, and one of the results has been a calamitous loss of employment in the formal sector - a frightening statistic of something like a million formal jobs shed in the past nine years.
Ladies and gentlemen, one response to such misfortune is to demand mass re-employment on any terms; a re-erection of tariff barriers and the creation of a closed circuit economy based largely on semi-skilled and unskilled labour, something not very different from a colonial economy, relying essentially on the export of minerals and other raw natural resources, gambling from day to day on world commodity prices. Such a response - more or less cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world - is perhaps understandable in emotional terms but I am sure all of us here will agree that even in the medium-term it is a non-starter. The world has changed.
The other response is that adopted by national government and given expression in your SETA and the other training authorities. This is to set about training up the workforce so that they can be productive and competitive so that South Africa can edge its way into becoming a serious competitor in the international markets - which, in the globalised world, includes our own consumer markets. And the greater the skills acquired by the workforce, the greater their earning capacity, the better the lifestyle of themselves and their dependants and the greater the degree of social stability. All are winners.
But, as I said, there are serious backlogs to be made up. Part of it has to be achieved in the education system, where capacities are severely strained, though I believe we are beginning to get over the hump and gather momentum. However, that is to look into the future as a new generation of properly educated school-leavers enters the economy. In the short term, we have to make up the backlog in skills created by 40 years and more of inferior and often poorly directed schooling.
SETA system
This is where the SETA system kicks in. I see it as a wonderfully innovative way to allow commerce and industry to pursue enlightened self-interest in enhancing the skills of their workforce, increasing productivity and efficiency, increasing profitability - and at the same time enhancing the earning capacity of their employees. It is the ultimate win-win solution. And, when you think about it carefully, it is difficult to think of any other way to eliminate the skills backlogs and make South African business competitive and more profitable.
When you think of it, the 1% payroll levy charged is almost laughable when you consider the benefits that can flow from SETA if a business were to send its employees for further training. As I understand it, a small company paying about R100 a month in levies could send five or so employees for SETA training worth R50 000. Where will you ever get a deal better than this?
I see the national Minister of Finance, Mr Trevor Manuel, has urged business not to regard the payroll levy as another tax. Billions of rands have flowed into the National Skills Fund, he says, and unless these are properly applied South Africa will not produce enough "high end" skills to get beyond the 2.8% growth rate since 1994 and not enough jobs will be created to lift people out of poverty. I could not agree with him more. Business needs to use this funding to lever itself into a better state of efficiency and competitiveness. It seems some of the SETAs are performing better than others, and I imagine this could depend to a great extent on the degree to which managements take advantage of what is on offer. It seems a mindset needs changing. The Skills Levy is not a tax. It is there to assist you, the entrepreneur, to improve your performance by improving the output (and earnings) of your employees.
Interface with education
This brings me, ladies and gentlemen, to the interface there obviously has to be between SETA and school education, more particularly vocational and technical education. To me it would be wasteful, pointless - in fact crazy - if these were not closely synchronised. I refer to the courses offered in the colleges of Further Education and Training (or FET), of which we now have 15 in KwaZulu-Natal.
And allow me, at this juncture, to say a little about the way I see these FET institutions serving education in the future. I see them playing an increasingly important role in delivering employment-focused education as opposed to the kind of conventional education which leads on either to tertiary study or starting from scratch in the training of some professional or other skill required by employers. I see the post-school employment rate as being every bit as important as the matriculation pass rate, and in this respect I am disturbed by the statistics here in KwaZulu-Natal. Only 5% of school-leavers go into formal employment. Another 13% go into tertiary education. What happens to the remaining 82%? It is a disturbing question and one of the reasons why, I believe, it is so vital that the learners who pass through our FET institutions should acquire skills which are in demand in commerce and industry and in fact exactly match what is required by employers.
We therefore have a situation in which young people should be coming into employment with skills appropriate to the job, joining a workforce with similar skills. Some of that existing, slightly older, workforce will themselves be enhancing their skills through SETA. It surely makes sense that those FET and SETA skills should mesh; that the qualifications should be mutually recognised. That one could lead on to the other as a FET school-leaver decides, on entering employment, to advance his or her skills training through SETA. The last thing we want is for a dual-track system to develop - FET producing a qualification which is not recognised by SETA, making it difficult for the FET graduate to improve his or her skills and standing in the workplace without going back to Square One in terms of the learning process. That would be wasteful, frustrating and self-defeating.
I also see the FET institutions playing a vital role in ABET - our programme of adult education - which, in KwaZulu-Natal, is of particular importance in empowering adults who left school in another era with inadequate education and skills training. Obviously they too need to be able to proceed smoothly with self-improvement, and efficiency enhancement, once they enter formal employment.
I realise, ladies and gentlemen, that the synchronisation I speak of cannot be an easy, automatic process. Every SETA Chamber has its particular needs and priorities. It quite rightly demands qualifications which satisfy certain standards and particular expertise. It will not always be easy or possible for an FET institution to provide training in every one of those particularities. But I also believe there are broad areas where synchronicity can be achieved. These are areas for engagement, negotiation and adjustment. Where there is a will, much can be achieved.
Dialogue
And in this regard I am glad to say that the officials of my Department who concern themselves with the FET colleges are already in dialogue with the SETAs, including your own Services SETA with its 11 Chambers, and have already achieved preliminary agreement on various matters. They are putting together a plan to streamline and co-ordinate vocational and technical training across the province and co-ordinate it as far as possible with the SETAs. I believe we have grounds for optimism.
Another skills shortage
Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned earlier the blast of international competition this country encountered when apartheid ended and we rejoined a world economy which was just going global. I believe we have weathered the storm reasonably well, considering the disadvantages we started out with. But now we are beginning to encounter another kind of strain, I believe. The South African economy is starting to get stronger. I know there are still horrendous unemployment and poverty statistics plus HIV/AIDS - I would be the last to attempt to minimise those - but the indicators are that the economy could be starting to stir in a way it has not done for decades. The most cursory visit to Gauteng reveals a veritable explosion of building and other activity. Here in Durban, billions upon billions of rands are being invested in harbour expansion, industrial development, tourism development and property development. It is rippling throughout KwaZulu-Natal.
The demand for a skilled and educated workforce is going to become greater, month-by-month, I believe. But there lies the rub. The demand cannot be filled by semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Those days are past. I see the SETAs being at the cutting edge of resolving this predicament. The better you succeed, the better South Africa as a whole will succeed. And I am invigorated to know that we who have a responsibility for school education also have our vital role to play. I see the role of education as complementary in every way to that of the SETAs. We both of us have to eliminate a backlog established over decades and provide the kind of workforce and managerial class which is capable of taking South Africa into the 21st century to at last achieve its potential. It is a vital and an invigorating role. I feel we are all of us privileged to be involved.
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for inviting me to be here today. I hope I have struck a chord with you, and I would like to conclude by assuring you that my officials would welcome the closest engagement with the Service SETA - as in fact with any SETA - and, as far as I personally am involved, my door is always open. I thank you for your attention.
Issued by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
30 July 2003
Source: KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
Title: Singh: KwaZulu-Natal conference of the Services Sector Education & Training Authority
ADDRESS BY MR NAREND SINGH, KWAZULU-NATAL MINISTER OF EDUCATION AND CULTURE, AT THE SERVICES SECTOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING AUTHORITY REGIONAL CONFERENCE, International Convention Centre, Durban, Thursday, 30 July 2003
Mr Themba Mabuza, Chairperson of the Services SETA;
Mr Ivor Blumenthal, Chief Executive Officer of the Services SETA;
Mrs Hixonia Nyasulu, of TH Nyasulu and Associates;
Mr Makhosi Busisiwe Khoza, Chief Executive Officer of the KwaZulu-Natal Local Government Association;
Other distinguished panellists;
Other distinguished delegates and guests;
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for inviting me to be here today to share my thoughts on the training of a rising generation so that they might optimally benefit themselves, serve the economy and serve society. I welcome the opportunity. And may I state at the outset that I see the activities of your Sector Education and Training Authority - indeed of all SETAs - and of my Department as being two sides of the same coin. I am here toward the close of your one-day regional conference, and I trust that your deliberations have been constructive and fruitful. I feel I am here to give my blessing to that.
However, I would also like to outline how I see the challenges posed to all of us involved in training the workforce, plus explore a few ideas. It is almost trite to say that South Africa faces a skills shortage. A 40-year phase in which people were deliberately deprived of the opportunity to develop full literacy, full numeracy - and the business and technical skills which flow from them - has, with the dawn of democracy and the ending of political isolation, run straight into a post Cold War phase of economic globalisation. This phenomenon of globalisation can be criticised and decried, but it is the overriding reality and will not go away. It is the nations that can produce competitively and trade competitively that will survive and prosper. Those that cannot will be marginalised. It is a harsh truth.
Skills shortage
And we in South Africa could hardly have been worse placed as we emerged from the economic and other distortions of apartheid with an under-trained labour force, and serious shortcomings in the managerial category as well, to face the full blast of competition from nations with no such handicap. Industry and commerce have had to drastically trim their sails to remain competitive, and one of the results has been a calamitous loss of employment in the formal sector - a frightening statistic of something like a million formal jobs shed in the past nine years.
Ladies and gentlemen, one response to such misfortune is to demand mass re-employment on any terms; a re-erection of tariff barriers and the creation of a closed circuit economy based largely on semi-skilled and unskilled labour, something not very different from a colonial economy, relying essentially on the export of minerals and other raw natural resources, gambling from day to day on world commodity prices. Such a response - more or less cutting ourselves off from the rest of the world - is perhaps understandable in emotional terms but I am sure all of us here will agree that even in the medium-term it is a non-starter. The world has changed.
The other response is that adopted by national government and given expression in your SETA and the other training authorities. This is to set about training up the workforce so that they can be productive and competitive so that South Africa can edge its way into becoming a serious competitor in the international markets - which, in the globalised world, includes our own consumer markets. And the greater the skills acquired by the workforce, the greater their earning capacity, the better the lifestyle of themselves and their dependants and the greater the degree of social stability. All are winners.
But, as I said, there are serious backlogs to be made up. Part of it has to be achieved in the education system, where capacities are severely strained, though I believe we are beginning to get over the hump and gather momentum. However, that is to look into the future as a new generation of properly educated school-leavers enters the economy. In the short term, we have to make up the backlog in skills created by 40 years and more of inferior and often poorly directed schooling.
SETA system
This is where the SETA system kicks in. I see it as a wonderfully innovative way to allow commerce and industry to pursue enlightened self-interest in enhancing the skills of their workforce, increasing productivity and efficiency, increasing profitability - and at the same time enhancing the earning capacity of their employees. It is the ultimate win-win solution. And, when you think about it carefully, it is difficult to think of any other way to eliminate the skills backlogs and make South African business competitive and more profitable.
When you think of it, the 1% payroll levy charged is almost laughable when you consider the benefits that can flow from SETA if a business were to send its employees for further training. As I understand it, a small company paying about R100 a month in levies could send five or so employees for SETA training worth R50 000. Where will you ever get a deal better than this?
I see the national Minister of Finance, Mr Trevor Manuel, has urged business not to regard the payroll levy as another tax. Billions of rands have flowed into the National Skills Fund, he says, and unless these are properly applied South Africa will not produce enough "high end" skills to get beyond the 2.8% growth rate since 1994 and not enough jobs will be created to lift people out of poverty. I could not agree with him more. Business needs to use this funding to lever itself into a better state of efficiency and competitiveness. It seems some of the SETAs are performing better than others, and I imagine this could depend to a great extent on the degree to which managements take advantage of what is on offer. It seems a mindset needs changing. The Skills Levy is not a tax. It is there to assist you, the entrepreneur, to improve your performance by improving the output (and earnings) of your employees.
Interface with education
This brings me, ladies and gentlemen, to the interface there obviously has to be between SETA and school education, more particularly vocational and technical education. To me it would be wasteful, pointless - in fact crazy - if these were not closely synchronised. I refer to the courses offered in the colleges of Further Education and Training (or FET), of which we now have 15 in KwaZulu-Natal.
And allow me, at this juncture, to say a little about the way I see these FET institutions serving education in the future. I see them playing an increasingly important role in delivering employment-focused education as opposed to the kind of conventional education which leads on either to tertiary study or starting from scratch in the training of some professional or other skill required by employers. I see the post-school employment rate as being every bit as important as the matriculation pass rate, and in this respect I am disturbed by the statistics here in KwaZulu-Natal. Only 5% of school-leavers go into formal employment. Another 13% go into tertiary education. What happens to the remaining 82%? It is a disturbing question and one of the reasons why, I believe, it is so vital that the learners who pass through our FET institutions should acquire skills which are in demand in commerce and industry and in fact exactly match what is required by employers.
We therefore have a situation in which young people should be coming into employment with skills appropriate to the job, joining a workforce with similar skills. Some of that existing, slightly older, workforce will themselves be enhancing their skills through SETA. It surely makes sense that those FET and SETA skills should mesh; that the qualifications should be mutually recognised. That one could lead on to the other as a FET school-leaver decides, on entering employment, to advance his or her skills training through SETA. The last thing we want is for a dual-track system to develop - FET producing a qualification which is not recognised by SETA, making it difficult for the FET graduate to improve his or her skills and standing in the workplace without going back to Square One in terms of the learning process. That would be wasteful, frustrating and self-defeating.
I also see the FET institutions playing a vital role in ABET - our programme of adult education - which, in KwaZulu-Natal, is of particular importance in empowering adults who left school in another era with inadequate education and skills training. Obviously they too need to be able to proceed smoothly with self-improvement, and efficiency enhancement, once they enter formal employment.
I realise, ladies and gentlemen, that the synchronisation I speak of cannot be an easy, automatic process. Every SETA Chamber has its particular needs and priorities. It quite rightly demands qualifications which satisfy certain standards and particular expertise. It will not always be easy or possible for an FET institution to provide training in every one of those particularities. But I also believe there are broad areas where synchronicity can be achieved. These are areas for engagement, negotiation and adjustment. Where there is a will, much can be achieved.
Dialogue
And in this regard I am glad to say that the officials of my Department who concern themselves with the FET colleges are already in dialogue with the SETAs, including your own Services SETA with its 11 Chambers, and have already achieved preliminary agreement on various matters. They are putting together a plan to streamline and co-ordinate vocational and technical training across the province and co-ordinate it as far as possible with the SETAs. I believe we have grounds for optimism.
Another skills shortage
Ladies and gentlemen, I mentioned earlier the blast of international competition this country encountered when apartheid ended and we rejoined a world economy which was just going global. I believe we have weathered the storm reasonably well, considering the disadvantages we started out with. But now we are beginning to encounter another kind of strain, I believe. The South African economy is starting to get stronger. I know there are still horrendous unemployment and poverty statistics plus HIV/AIDS - I would be the last to attempt to minimise those - but the indicators are that the economy could be starting to stir in a way it has not done for decades. The most cursory visit to Gauteng reveals a veritable explosion of building and other activity. Here in Durban, billions upon billions of rands are being invested in harbour expansion, industrial development, tourism development and property development. It is rippling throughout KwaZulu-Natal.
The demand for a skilled and educated workforce is going to become greater, month-by-month, I believe. But there lies the rub. The demand cannot be filled by semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Those days are past. I see the SETAs being at the cutting edge of resolving this predicament. The better you succeed, the better South Africa as a whole will succeed. And I am invigorated to know that we who have a responsibility for school education also have our vital role to play. I see the role of education as complementary in every way to that of the SETAs. We both of us have to eliminate a backlog established over decades and provide the kind of workforce and managerial class which is capable of taking South Africa into the 21st century to at last achieve its potential. It is a vital and an invigorating role. I feel we are all of us privileged to be involved.
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for inviting me to be here today. I hope I have struck a chord with you, and I would like to conclude by assuring you that my officials would welcome the closest engagement with the Service SETA - as in fact with any SETA - and, as far as I personally am involved, my door is always open. I thank you for your attention.
Issued by KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Government
30 July 2003
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