South African business and academics expressed scepticism at the government’s plan to establish a new set of training agencies, saying the initiative will undermine the development of skills in the country and is yet another bureaucratic tactic.
Minister of Labour Membathisi Mdladlana will announce the establishment of 20 new employment skills development agencies (Esdas) within two weeks as part of a broader strategic intervention by the government in the roll-out of learnerships.
This comes three years after the establishment of the 25 sector education and training authorities (Setas) tasked with training workers, the unemployed and people working in small businesses.
The government introduced the National Skills Development Strategy in 2001 as a remedial measure to address the shortage of skills within the South African economy. This followed the 1998 National Skills Act.
The skills development strategy set a target for learnerships and apprenticeships of 80 000 by 2005. However, this target looks unattainable so far, given a series of management problems in some of Setas. To date fewer than 30 000 learners have signed an agreement for training.
According to Department of Labour spokesperson Snuki Zikalala, the Esdas will accelerate the recruitment of learners by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and NGOs.
”The lack of capacity within the SMEs to manage and administer training programmes has been identified as one of the major stumbling blocks in the implementation of learnerships.
”This lack of capacity is compounded by unwillingness on the part of many businesses in the sector to actively engage with the relevant structures for regulated training.
”This lukewarm response — often prompted by a lack of time — means that SMEs are unable to enter into training contracts with learners.
”The Esdas will ensure that learners are recruited and provided with support once in the learnership,” said Zikalala.
Zikalala said the new agencies would initially be introduced as a pilot project to enhance entry to the labour market for people, especially the youth, who have experienced difficulty in gaining employment.
However, labour experts said the establishment of Esdas was not an answer to the problem facing skills development in the country.
”It would seem [that] when the government runs out of ideas, they opt for a new system. Setting a new structure won’t solve the problem. This will rather build a growing bureaucracy controlled by [the] government,” Ivor Baatjes, senior lecturer in the Centre for Adult Education at the University of Natal said this week.
Baatjes said the current Seta learnership programmes appear merely to be the reorganisation of programmes previously offered by companies.
”In reality the content of the current programmes are not different from what used to be provided by employers,” said Baatjes.
He added that there was a need to investigate the quality of the national qualifications framework aligned programmes.
The South African Chamber of Business (Sacob) said the new initiative could only work if Setas were able to deliver learnerships.
”At the moment we are not sure if Setas are able to deliver,” Sacob representative Carol O’Brien said.
Paul Lundal, a senior researcher at the University of Cape Town, said the ”tension” between the education and labour departments is the major stumbling block for the skills development in the country.
”Philosophically, the tension seems to pit the educationalists against the vocationalists.
”The National Skills Development Strategy on the other hand is clearly an attempt to elaborate skills empowerment through vocational measures. Indeed this is the elegance of a demand- driven strategy,” said Lundal.