Minister Blade Nzimande reaches agreement with the Setas on transformation

9 May 2011

The Minister for Higher Education and Training, Dr Blade Nzimande, has met members of the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) Forum and reached a groundbreaking agreement on the transformation of the Seta landscape and the urgent need to develop an adequate skills base that seeks to promote economic growth and development in South Africa. Meeting in Rosebank, Johannesburg today, the department and the Setas developed and agreed on a joint declaration that fully endorses the Minister's new vision for the post-school landscape and overall transformation of the Setas.

In the declaration, the Seta Forum and the department say: "the Forum fully endorses the Minister's new vision. We reiterate that we will co-operate with the Minister and continue to engage him on all transformation matters, including the proposed changes to the Seta landscape." The Forum further re-affirmed that whatever differences may arise from time to time, the legal route to resolve these is a hindrance to progress.

Speaking on behalf of the Forum, its Chairperson, Mr Joel Dikgole, said that as the Forum they "fully support the Minister's transformation processes. We are fully aware that the Seta sector needs urgent transformation to cope with critical shortages of skills and resource training of our people." In this regard, Mr Dikgole re-iterated the Forum's support for the appointment of independent chairpersons as proposed by the Minister.

Furthermore, the Seta Forum unreservedly welcomed the opportunity to engage with the department on matters of skills development, and categorically distanced itself from the ongoing case at the Labour Court between the department and the services Seta.

Addressing the Forum, Minister Nzimande, re-stated the department's goal to restructure the post-school terrain in order to achieve the overall objective of skills development, employment creation and eradication of poverty. "The department commits itself to continue to engage and consult with all relevant stakeholders and institutions in pursuit of this goal," he said.

Mr Dikgole affirmed that the Setas "speak with one voice and will continue to observe and endorse the Minister's processes to strengthen the drive for skills development".

The meeting agreed that the creation of sustainable jobs in a growing economy is a strategic objective the achievement of which all must strive to. The Setas therefore consider court actions to be an unfortunate distraction, when issues of transformation are of paramount importance at this time.

In his closing remarks, Minister Nzimande rejected the misconstrued notion that only one Seta is performing optimally. The Minister indicated that while there is need for improvement on the work that the Setas are doing, there is a lot of good work that is happening in many Setas.

Whereas services Seta is one of the few Seta's that has a high income from the Skills Development Levy, the quality of its training programmes leaves much to be desired. This is in contrast to those Setas with smaller revenue, but have managed to perform excellently.

"All the Setas are performing well in this country and we must not accept the misleading reports that there is a super Seta," concluded the Minister.

Statement issued by Mr Gwebs Qonde, Acting Director-General: Department of Higher Education and Training, May 9 2011

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