The Clothing, Textiles, Footwear and Leather Seta serves companies that manufacture or use such products. The Seta has about 4 300 members, of which about 46% are smaller companies. The industry has been badly affected by factory closures and job losses.
Since its inception the Seta has focused on delivery of training at factory level. Learnership development was addressed as a priority and qualification frameworks have been developed at levels two and four for all sub-sectors.
Forty-two learnerships, consisting of curriculum frameworks and learning materials, have been registered. The Seta has more than 1 400 learners registered in learnerships. It recently completed the first phase of a small, medium and micro enterprises (SMME) cluster pilot project in Cape Town. Similar projects will be launched in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
The Seta has also established centres of excellence at the Durban Institute of Technology and the Peninsula Technikon, and has succeeded in providing vital technologist training to the industry as well as industry- based training through units at these centres.
One of the challenges the Seta faces is maintaining membership as a large number of the companies registered with the Seta pay levies irregularly. The sector consists of a number of smaller companies that still regard the skills levies as a tax. The Seta has tried to encourage companies to become involved in the skills development process, but the difficult economic climate has shifted company focus away from training. The lack of a sufficient training-provider base also made it difficult to provide cost-effective training to all companies in the sector.
The Seta’s income has also been affected by the closure of companies and the reduction of employees in the sector.
However, the SMME pilot project and the establishment of the centres of excellence have had a great impact on participating companies. Through these initiatives quality training has been made available in the sector.
The Seta will conduct a skills audit in the next three months to get a clear picture of the existing skills available in the sector and what training needs to be addressed.
Seta’s main challenges include increasing the participation of smaller companies in the Skills Development Strategy through the submission of workplace skills plans and the provision of training to their employees; increasing the training- provider base in order to provide quality accredited training to the sector; and encouraging more learners in the sector to study towards a national qualification.
In year one of the Skills Development Strategy the Seta had disbursed more than 80% of its grant budget in four payment tranches. This included a special discretionary grant that was disbursed to companies that trained over and above their expected capacity. The second year the Seta paid out its entire grant budget in mandatory and discretionary grant funding to companies in the sector.
Elmine Labuschagne works at the Clothing, Textiles, Footwear and Leather Seta