Job creation via education

The matric exams are done and dusted and at schools and campuses across the country the academic year is drawing to its end. But for Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande, it’s only half-term.

He’s been the man in overall charge of the transition from school to higher learning and the workplace since his appointment in May 2009.

Now that his term of office has reached the halfway mark, it’s an apt time to pause and reflect, as he puts it, “on some of the things we have done so far, and some of our plans moving forward”.

Splitting the education department into two essentially meant having to start from scratch – a period that saw turbulence and the departure of key staff, including his director-general, Mary Metcalfe.

Those early difficulties appear to have receded somewhat, allowing more focus on the massive challenge at hand: ensuring that school-leavers, matric in hand or not, can move through further studies and emerge equipped with skills that will get them jobs.

“What we’re trying to do is build a system that currently isn’t there – one which is integrated, which is articulated, which is responsive – for post-school education and training.

“By that we mean all those who are out of school and unlikely to go back and who require further education and training – we need to create a system that is going to respond to them, as well as those who never went to school, who are also our responsibility.”

It’s a stark equation: about three million young people aged between 18 and 24 – the NEETs as in Not in Education, Employment or Training. They feed the pool swelled by millions more adults in the same situation.

Apart from the tragic waste of human potential, it’s the kind of environment in which poverty flourishes rather than abates, sowing the seeds for social unrest.

Nzimande acknowledges that education alone is not the sole antidote to restructuring a skewed economy, but when it’s not delivering, growth and jobs are further out of reach. And even though we’re in an economic downturn, there are many more jobs available than there are people with the skills to perform them.

A lot of the work involves correcting past policy mis-steps.

“Look, we have had to set up a department that is trying to pull together strands that maybe should not have been separated at government level in 1994,” Nzimande says.

Before 1994, the ANC had committed to building an integrated training and education system.

“But unfortunately, what happened was that formal education institutions went to the Department of Education and Training, or grant-levy institutions, like the Setas, went to the Department of Labour. That created huge logistical problems in terms of pulling it all together, and this is what this department is trying to correct.”

Just this week, Nzimande read the riot act at a meeting with the chairmen and women of the country’s 21 sectoral education and training authorities (Setas), urging them to act “without fear or favour” against corruption and other transgressions.

“I want to be open, I expect nothing less than clean governance, finish and klaar,” he told them. Turning around “the generally negative perceptions” of Setas would be “one of your most important tasks”, he said. Improving governance, accountability and accessibility was the route to take.

Since they were first set up in 2000, a staggering R23 billion has passed through the Setas.

“But we have very little to show for it,” Nzimande says. “More than 90 percent of that money was spent on private consultants and short courses, while we are short of artisans, technicians and professionals.”

Has the rot been stopped?

“No, we can’t say that. We have a review of them under way – there are two teams, one looking at how to improve their functioning, the other (a broader initiative under the Human Resources Development Council led by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe) asking whether it’s the correct system to address our skills needs.”

So are the Setas living on borrowed time?

“I wouldn’t like to say so now. They have the potential to play a hugely positive role, hence these interventions.”

After controversially amending their constitutions to allow for greater oversight and control, Nzimande is waiting impatiently for the Skills Development Amendment Bill to make its way through Parliament to be signed into law by President Jacob Zuma.

The billions collected in wage-bill levies lined many pockets and plumped up the bottom line of dubious service providers specialising in spurious short courses of little use to employers. They also financed head offices in upmarket suburbs – convenient for trainers, but a world apart from the majority of those desperately needing skills.

Nzimande has given the Setas notice that he expects them to start opening offices in townships and rural areas – and would like every Further Education and Training (FET) college to have one, too. More crucially, he wants to see the money spent properly and priorities aligned with the National Skills Development Strategy.

Nzimande will be expecting “concrete plans” early in the new year that respond to some of the government’s urgent needs, such as trained people to support green economy jobs in solar and wind power, along with the artisans, engineers, technicians and other scarce skills.

Setas are best placed to cement partnerships between employers and institutions such as universities and FET colleges, whose role is to be radically expanded: their work needs to dovetail with the goals set out in the National Skills Accord signed at Nedlac in July.

It is aimed at producing the artisans, technicians and professionals the economy needs and commits the government, business, labour and other social partners to beef up the capacity of the FET colleges. While these were massively recapitalised during former education minister Naledi Pandor’s tenure, as with much education spending, the investment has not yielded the desired returns.

“One of the biggest obstacles has been that we have lots of students who have finished their courses, but who can’t get their 12 to 18-month workplace training to become apprentices and artisans.”

The skills accord opened one such avenue to try to fix this, and is already showing results. In the past financial year (which ended on March 31) 7 800 students passed their trade tests. In the first six months of the new financial year 11 000 have already qualified – a number expected to reach the target of 15 000 by year-end.

Working with the Setas, various employers have already registered 18 880 learnerships and apprenticeships (against a target of 30 000 placements). Eskom is committed to 10 000 trainees, but the response has been patchy, especially in the private sector.

Nzimande says foreign-owned companies are more receptive because they come from economies where the importance of work-integrated learning is well understood. In SA, the idea of having a small, highly skilled number of people and then drawing on a large pool of semi-skilled workers is still deeply entrenched, says Nzimande’s adviser, educationist John Pampallis.

“Businesspeople say they can only grow if they can pay lower wages, instead of saying ‘let’s create a skilled workforce and expand that way’.”

Nzimande says there’s a reluctance to employ qualified artisans because they would have to be paid commensurate wages.

“You hear companies complaining about skills shortages, yet they are contributing to that by not wanting to employ fully qualified artisans. It is the old apartheid cheap labour model – but some companies, to their credit, are coming to the fore because they realise this is not sustainable. We’re saying to them, train beyond your needs – because you are training for the economy as a whole.”

State-owned enterprises once had huge training programmes – but privatisation meant these were allowed to run down. That has to be turned around, too.

Nzimande defends putting the country’s 50 FET colleges under national control because it will allow for a sharp eye on how the billions are being spent.

Other problems include reviewing the national certificate of vocation programme (NCV). It’s a three-year course open to those who’ve done Grade 9, but a lot of entrants have had a shot at matric, making for a big variance of ability in the classroom and presenting a challenge to lecturers.

Making the leap from Grade 9 in a rural school to the first year of NCV is often too great, fuelling a high failure rate. And those who do pass can’t go on to a university because admission there requires a pass in two languages, while the NCV asks only for one.

Lecturers are either full-time or experts in their field, who work part-time. Both categories need training. Nzimande says at some colleges students are being trained to be unemployable as they’re taught how to use obsolete equipment and programmes.

The current ratio of three university students to one FET college student needs to be inverted: it’s an upside-down pyramid.

Given that he’s had just 30 months, Nzimande can take credit for some major groundwork in the educational landscape. Support for poor students to study further has been increased dramatically.

About 20 percent of the country’s university students are now being supported by the student financial aid fund, NSFAS. Many are the first generation in their family to study beyond school, “which is quite outstanding”, says Nzimande.

For the first time, final-year university students will get the full cost of study loans, which means money for books and food as well as tuition and accommodation – and if they pass, the loan becomes a bursary. Aid to poor students at FET colleges has more than trebled, from R300 million to R1bn since 2010. Also for the first time, needy FET students doing occupational programmes do not have to pay. Money has been set aside to help disabled students (R77m) and those who have finished their studies but owe universities and NSFAS and can’t collect their certificates.

“We’ve set aside R200m for students who were in that situation between 2000 and 2010, for them to go and make a loan, settle their debts and start paying once they get work,” says Nzimande.

This would release about 25 000 graduates into the labour market, according to university figures.

It’s just one of many strands Nzimande is pulling together. - Sunday Independent