“I want to declare now the end of the season of summits,” said Blade Nzimande in his closing address on Friday to the skills summit in Gauteng.
“We have had the higher education summit [in April], then the FET colleges summit, now this skill summit. Now is it time for action, time to act,” he said to applause from the 500 delegates.
But it wasn’t all applause and plain sailing towards the summit’s closure. As the higher education and training minister’s summit moved on its last day towards a declaration to be signed by all representatives, a series of both small and large critiques from the floor of the draft declaration suggested that the two days of the summit had arrived at a broad consensus but also that delegates were signalling some battles still to come.
“If I were in Parliament, I’d say it’s a question for the House,” said Mary Metcalfe, director general of higher education and training (DHET), as she invited comments on the draft declaration an hour or so before Nzmande was due to wrap up proceedings. As a former education minister in Gauteng, she has some experience of House procedures and so phrased her invitation with delicate care.
“Does the declaration reflect us, our concerns, our commandments satisfactorily? Any of us could adjust and rewrite forever, but are there any comments that would call for substantive amendments?” she said as the summit edged towards its closure (and delegates perhaps started thinking of the lunch that DHET signs outside the conference room at the St George Hotel near Irene had promised as they trooped in for the final session).
The first apparently substantive response from the floor to the draft suggested delegates might have to wait quite a while for their free lunch.
“Principals [of FET colleges] have gazed at the declaration and think it’s comprehensive,” said J Mbana, chairperson of the South African College Principals Organisation. “But many of our colleges are out there in rural areas – our only hope economically — and we wanted to see [from the summit] a better elevation of the consciousness of rurality in our skills agenda,” he continued.
As if that weren’t enough to put a wobble in the journey to a unified summit declaration, Mbana continued: “The assumption of the summit has been that all those who aren’t working want to be employed. But the reality is that is took the 1857 cattle killings [following the Xhosa prophet Nongqawuse’s vision of what the Xhosa nation needed for its secure future] to get some people to work.”
Seemingly unruffled, Metcalfe said that the relevant clauses had been drafted by herself and covered this concern — and she moved swiftly on to the next comment. This turned out to be a comparatively mild request that commitments in the declaration be tied to specific timeframes.
But then a representative of trade union federation Cosatu asked what exact resolution of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) it was that clause 1.7 referred to — a potential awkwardness Metcalfe neatly finessed by suggesting that, because South Africa was a signatory to all ILO resolutions, the singular noun “resolution” in the offending clause be adjusted to the plural “resolutions”.
This appeared so acceptable to Cosatu that it was mere minutes later that the federation was pledging full “commitment to the implementation of this declaration” and joking with Nzimande — who by this point had rejoined the summit — about Cosatu’s anxiety whenever the minister is absent from anything for any period of time: there’s a “vacancy”, Cosatu feels — a term that, for a labour organisation concerned about the employment and workplace treatment of its members, must indeed have special significance
And that was as “substantive” as the objections got. “The Presidency will be delighted there’s been such a consultative process at this summit,” Metcalfe beamed as she invited all those about to commit their signatures to the now adjusted and agreed-upon summit declaration to come up to the front and be photographed in the act of signing.
“A bit like a wedding when the photo-taking becomes more important than the wedding itself,” she suggested, before expressing worried concern that her analogy might have offended anyone. She didn’t appear to have any basis for concern: her comment elicited laughter and delegates seemed only too pleased to be photographed like guests at a romantic union.
Nzimande then took to podium to close the summit. Speaking off the cuff, not from a prepared speech, Nzimande — an excellent and very experienced orator — earned his trademark early laugh with ease: someone said to him the other day, he began, that during the World Cup we were worrying that South Africa had too few strikers, but now we have too many.
The summit declaration is “a pact with our young people”, he said. “What we are talking about is skills for decent work and sustainable livelihoods.”
The summits “has forced us out of our silos”, he said: “For example, to hear a debate between universities and Setas was wonderful.”
He continued: “We are going to be tough [on the use of skills-development funds]: if we see money being taken for things and to places it’s not meant to go, we’ll act.”
For now, though, “I’m not feeling lonely any more in the skills development sector,” he said. “I’m feeling very warm, knowing that I’m part of a larger family.”
And his new family cheered, applauded and looked very pleased to be heading towards food at last.
Click here for the full declaration