Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande on Tuesday said that his department would take a much more “hands-on” approach in the governance and management of Sector Education and Training Authorities (Setas).

Speaking at a Seta forum in Pretoria, Nzimande said that some drastic changes were needed if negative public opinion were to be changed and to achieve critical goals of skilling the nation.

“Even though the Setas have made some positive contributions to skills development initiatives over the past ten years, it has not been able to address the ticking time bomb of our unemployed youth. It seems that our youth are now worse of than 1976 when we had the uprisings.”

Research done by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) on the performance of Setas had pointed out that the operation of Seta boards and a number of related governance issues were key challenges affecting the efficient functioning of the Setas.

Nzimande said that the department would impose a number of initiatives towards increased efficiency and professionalism of Seta boards. These included the introduction of independent chairpersons, limiting the number of board meetings, reducing the size of boards, the participation of the Minister in the appointment of board and executive members and CEOs, introducing standard remuneration rates and increasing accountability.

“This is already being done by a number of other public enterprises and as the executive authority, I prefer not to have an arm’s length relationship with the Setas.”

Further, the Minister emphasised that he would like to see more focus being placed on longer-term professional courses and an end to the “terrible practise” of short courses that do not tackle the qualifications and skills crises that South Africa is faced with. “These one and two day courses, sometimes even in someone’s backyard, is mostly just a lot of a quick buck.”

Currently, only a third of training facilitated by the Setas lead to full qualification, and Nzimande emphasised that this was not a good investment of levy resources.

The Minister also pointed to the excessive cost of training, saying that it was “disgraceful” when compared to the associated outcomes.

The DHET announced previously that a new Seta landscape would be introduced starting April 2011, when all 21 remaining Setas would be required to sign standarised constitutions, which would represent a standard and platform for governance in the Setas for the next five years.

The department had also set up a task team to look into the possibility of clustering services to manage capacity issues in some of the Setas, and to achieve economies of scale.

Further, it would introduce a 2011/12 midterm review, where budget projection of the Setas would be taken into account. “Currently, we are sitting with R8-billion surplus, owing to the poor management and planning of Setas, while, at the same time, serious constraints to support learning programmes in the public education and training institutions exist. This review will aim to bring an end to the accumulation of surplus funds by Setas, while the need out there for training is not being met.

“We want to ensure that every cent spend will go towards the up-skilling of the country’s people.”

Nzimande said that there was a widespread perception that the Setas had generated a whole new industry of service providers who have created parasitic and sometimes even corrupt relationships in the skills development arena.

“Going into 2011, we will ensure that the Setas start off on a different footing.”

The Minister emphasised that he would not hesitate to act where there were instances of inefficiencies. “I will not sit back and allow one bad apple to rot the entire bag,” he said.