Issued by the Ministry of Education
5 September 2000
The Federal Minister for Economic Co-operation and Development, Mrs Heidemarie
Wieczorek-Zeul,
Minister of Labour
Mr Wolfgang Reuter, Executive Director of Q-Verband
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am extremely delighted to be invited again to speak at the official opening of this important event. I need to place on record that I have noted that a similar event will be taking place in Cape Town. I thank you for listening to the request I made last year for the replication of the event in other provinces. I hope this marks the beginning of the replication process and the roll over to other provinces. May I also thank the steering committee for their discussions and inputs on what should be the main benefit for participants of this Q 2000, thus producing the diversified topics as displayed in the three days programme.
Human resource planning involves a multiplicity of activities that are aimed at promoting an integrated system that promotes staff productivity, commitment to service and professionalism, through an integrated development plan. The ultimate aim being to improve the quality of teaching and learning demonstrated by skills knowledge, attitude and values, thus resulting in the improvement of life for all South Africans.
Today I wish to share with you some ideas as well as show-cases of some leaps that have been made in terms of human resource planning for the African Century. I will present some initiatives that my department is currently engaged in to reform the education system, as well as improving the performance of the workforce.
It is interesting to me to note the convergence of interest as displayed by the programme developed by the steering committee, which was constituted of people from various interest groups and departments. This is evidenced by the correlation that exists between the programme and the initiatives that are currently taking place in my Department.
My Department is engaged in various processes, to take our policies through to implementation. Some of these initiatives are:
1. The Business Trust Initiative, that aims at involving the business, government and national Department in increasing the efficiency in schools by reducing repetition rates. The Trust is also identified as an area of human capacity development, improvement of the effectiveness (external efficiency) of further education and training system by implementing effective technical college programmes. Most importantly the Trust is involved in training and development through a learnership programme for sustainable employment.
2. The joint venture between education and labour on the implementation of learnerships in all the provinces across the twenty-five (25) Sector Education and Training Authorities commonly called SETAs. The program is targeting a minimum of 2500 out-of-school and other disadvantaged youth and young adults that are unemployed
3. The implementation of learnerships to upgrade the underqualified educators through SETA funding. The role of industry and business can never be underestimated in the above initiatives. The commitment of industry and business towards workplace training for educators as well as structured workplace learning for the learnership implementation is quite commendable. Qualification Africa's programme on solutions to achieve the most productivity through increasing training performance links perfectly well with the initiative.
4. The Technology Enhanced Learning initiative that is aimed at providing some computers to institutions so as to promote multiple literacies. The access to the Internet as a resource for learning is promoted through this initiative. This initiative is linked to the Qualification Africa's e-learning training in technology.
The above do not exhaust the list, but I feel that they are critical interventions to mention as they are geared towards changing the delivery of education and training. The change in the delivery is essential, as the aim is to have institutions that can develop and deliver market responsive programmes.
I am by no means expecting the above initiative to be a smooth sailing, especially the dynamics around implementation but I am quite confident that such inputs will really improve the human resource base of this country, both young and old.
The Department of Education is currently engaged in a process of improving the size of institutions through mergers of colleges. The 152 colleges that currently exist will be merged into 40 to 50 mega institutions as part of the process of declaration of institutions as further education and training. The contribution of the College Collaboration Fund (CCF) is to create modern college system that meets the needs of not only the employers, but also the learners and the communities.
As part of the Collaboration Fund programme, an International Exchange Programme has already been initiated wherein educators from colleges in all provinces will be placed in institutions in the United Kingdom, for a period of three (3) months so as to gain expertise in the management activities of institutions.
Closely linked to the above initiative is the incorporation of subject specialisation schools into Further Education and Training. This is aimed at increasing both the size and shape of further education, by incorporating these institutions within the plans for declaration of institutions. Of course this has structural, pedagogic, and organisational culture implications which have to be taken into consideration. I hope the programme on didactic necessities and cost benefits will provide some show cases on strategies aimed at learning improvement. This is critical to human resource planning of our education and training system and I am delighted to note that it is, also to Qualification 2000.
The result of these interventions will be institutions that impart skills and competencies to learners that will enable them to be productive and marketable employees. The diversification of programme delivery will ensure that entrepreneurial skills are imparted so as to improve participation in the informal sector, as job creators.
This also has a bearing on untapped careers that are beneficial for the development of the African village that fully acknowledges the wealth of our indigenous value systems.
Some interventions have been introduced to modernise the curriculum, of which learnership is but one. The learnerships are a curriculum innovation whose aim is to provide programmes that generate demand. Learnerships, by their nature are vehicles for curriculum reforms as well as that they contain the elements that will enable institutions to be declared as further education and training institutions. Of major importance are the letters of commitment that have to be secured to ensure availability of workplaces for structured workplace learning. The input from Qualification 2000, in terms of keeping the workplaces abreast with the rapid pace of change, fits perfectly with the further education agenda of provision of programmes that generate demand.
The department is currently looking at creative ways of opening learning opportunities to all. This initiative recognises the wealth of information that rests within our communities, hence the need to collaborate with communities so as to embrace value systems. The other aspect being the provision of cost-effective learning centres that will provide access to all forms of learning technologies. The home schooling initiative is but one of the benefits of the electronic media in opening learning to all. I hope the e- learning training in technology will provide participants with more experiences that could be utilised to opening learning. The reality that South Africa is a diverse, and thus needs creative ways of improving the skill base of all people is undeniable. The implementation of learnerships across all sectors (formal and informal) of the economy further presents the need for creative ways to ensure that communities have access to various types of information. The reality of delivery of learnerships through face to face and also through distance is a non-negotiable, if the aim is to improve the level of economic participation of citizens.
The South African National Literacy Initiative is another important creative attempt of open learning opportunities through the social movement to bring reading, writing and numeracy to the 13% of the South African population that is a victim of non-literacy. The South African National Literacy Initiative (SANLI) is targeting adults that are functional illiterate (approximately three million) and will provide ABET level 1(language, Communication an Mathematical Literacy)
The National Literacy Initiative represents a bold crusade against adult literacy in South Africa. Apart from the personal benefits enjoyed by neo-literate adults, the societal benefits of adult literacy include improved retention rates at primary and secondary school levels that are correlated to parental literacy rates. Successfully implemented literacy initiatives are precursors to an increase in the success rate of community based programmes like the Small Medium and Micro Enterprises based learnerships and skills programmes as well as institution based learnerships in rural contexts across all the economic sectors. It is clear that the economic returns to social investment in adult literacy interventions far outweigh the returns to any other form of human capital investment. It is critical that if South Africa is to develop in line with national expectations, its potential and resources, all factors of production especially the human capital must be maximised, hence the need to invest in human resource planning.
The need to improve internal, allocative and external efficiency of the system is a non-negotiable. The implementation phase of policies, which we are currently in, demands more creative ways of ensuring value for money. Service delivery, a driving vision of the South African Public Service needs a move away from talkshops to result oriented activities that benefit the communities. This is also the view shared in the caption "from vision to implementation". The challenge is to put the vision and policies into implementables so that they begin to make sense and be of value to the communities. This is the only way that the confidence of public in the government will be revived and sustained. I hope the session on improving performance will expose the participants to creative solutions of how to achieve the required level of implementation results in the respective organisation.
I want to thank Qualification Africa for these opportunities that are made available to the participants. I hope that the plan of replicating this initiative in other provinces is already in place. Such initiative will afford even the disadvantaged communities opportunities to expand their horizons. The impact of this initiative in promoting informal sector participation in youth is unimaginable. Finally, I wish to thank the German Government for their continous support of our programmes to improve the effectiveness of our education and training system. I also want to extend the same gratitude to the organisers of this wonderful conference.
Let us all continue to work together to provide valuable information to communities so that they can develop. With a well thought through human resource plan we will be able to reach the discouraged, disadvantaged and the designated groups. Participation of these groups of people in the economic development activities will improve the quality of life and as such economic growth of the country.
I now declare the Qualification Africa 2000 Conference officially open.
I thank you.