The National Skills Authority will be hosting a roundtable at the Midrand Conference Centre on Tuesday, 5 April 2016 to review the National Skills Development Strategy and SETA landscape beyond 2018. The roundtable follows the NSA public hearings that took place countrywide.

The roundtable discussion is aimed at playing a special role of allocating an open platform of directly engaging views from specialised skills development bodies or organisations in a robust manner.

The objectives of the NSA roundtable are:

• To solicit comments and inputs on the NSDS and SETA landscape beyond 2018 from stakeholder groups/organization;
• To allow the NSA an opportunity to directly engage its stakeholders on their views; and
• To provide a platform for comments and inputs at a strategic and policy level.

Join us and participate in the conversation online:

Date: 05 April 2016
Time: 09:00-16:00
Venue:  Midrand Conference Centre
Facebook: National Skills Authority
Twitter: @Skillsauthority
Official Hashtag: #NSARoundtable
Website: www.nationalskillsauthority.org.za

The NSA will be convening a roundtable on the review of the NSDS and SETA landscape beyond 2018.

The Skills Development Act 97 of 1998 requires of the National Skills Authority (NSA) to advise the Minister on the Skills development policy, strategy as well as on the establishment of the institutions or structures that implement and operationalize the National Skills Development Strategy.

The roundtable discussion is aimed at playing a special role of allocating an open platform of directly engaging views from specialised skills development bodies or organisations in a robust manner.

The objectives of the workshop are:

• To solicit comments and inputs on the NSDS and SETA landscape beyond 2018 from the targeted stakeholder groups/organization.
• To allow the NSA an opportunity to directly engage the targeted stakeholders on their views
• To provide a platform for comments and inputs at a strategic and policy level.

Details of the roundtable are as follows:

Date    : 05 April 2016
Time    : 09:00-16:00
Venue  :  Midrand Conference Centre

Representatives from SETAs, Government, organised business, organised labour Education and Training Providers, Quality Councils, research institutions, Community Constituencies, Professional Bodies and international experts will be part of the roundtable.

National Skills Authority (NSA) liaise with the SETAs on their performance and the future of skills development in supporting SA‘s inclusive economic growth

The National Skills Authority (NSA) convened a meeting on Friday the 2 October 2015 with the representatives of the 21 Governing structures of the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) as part of the NSA’s legislative role of monitoring the performance of the SETAs. The Skills Development Act 97 of 1998 as amended requires that the NSA must liaise with the SETAs national skills development strategy whereas the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training (WP-PSET 2013) mandates the NSA to monitor and to evaluate the SETAs. It is envisaged that monitoring and evaluation must make it possible to understand the levels of efficacy that are being achieved, and to identify where any blockages in the system may be emerging particularly for the achievements of the current National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS III) goals.

Part of the delegates of the NSA meeting with the SETAs held in Boksburg

The Acting Chairperson Mr Thulani Tshefuta indicated that the meeting aimed at monitoring performance against NSDS III and other related programmes by highlighting achievements and challenges; learning from the SETA experience and observations of the current landscape and on NSDS as well as soliciting proposals and recommendations on the future strategy and landscape.  The engagement was informed by the reconstitution of the NSA, the expiry of the term the third NSDS and the Seta landscape in March 2016 and the urgency to review the same. The discussions of the meeting were underpinned also by the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP) indicating that “To build a socially cohesive society, South Africa needs to reduce poverty and inequality by broadening opportunity and employment through economic inclusion, education and skills, and specific redress measures…”

It was acknowledged that in order to realize the vision of the NDP by the year 2030, the economy should enable full employment, equip people with the skills they need, ensure that ownership of production is more diverse and able to grow rapidly, and provide the resources to pay for investment in human and physical capital. Hence, today’s performance in the delivery of skills must be supported by effective monitoring and evaluation system and by building a strong relationship between the college sector and industry. Thus, it remains a fact that the SETAs have a crucial role in building relationships between education institutions and the employers. With regard to the observation on their performance and the future Seta landscape, it was noted that in order to achieve the education and training priorities, skills development institutions must be strengthened and the NSDS should address the skills gaps. A clear and well-defined mandate is the crucial first step in improving their capacity of the SETAs to avoid conflating their objectives and reducing inappropriate targets is necessary since this leads to a diffused focus, and great difficulty in strategic planning. It has also meant that most SETAs have not been able to play their key role of linking education and work. The NSA raised concerns about the way in which SETAs report to the DHET; information is not provided consistently across SETAs in a manner that enables effective monitoring of their performance. The Minister of Higher Education and Training Dr Bonginkosi Nzimande together with the DHET are working towards the development of a clear, simple and focused mandate for the SETAs, and on establishing effective mechanisms to evaluate their performance.

Challenges and the lessons learnt during the implementation of the third National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS III) can be succinctly summarized by Section 8.4 of the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training (WP-PSET) stating that a number of important policy shifts in NSDS III are being incrementally addressed and implemented. These include: providing greater levels of access to education and training in rural areas; increasing collaboration between the skills system, government and industry; driving skills development primarily through the public education system, and in particular through universities and TVET colleges; and focusing less on numerical targets and more on outcomes and impact. These policy imperatives will continue to drive the skills development system into NSDS IV and beyond.

Enq: Ms Sally Mangubewa at Mangubewa.S@dhet.gov.za or 012 312 5666

The re-launch of the National Skills Authority (NSA) took place at the Midrand Conference Centre in Gauteng. In attendance at the re-launch were different delegates from government, NSA Constituencies, Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs), Colleges, Universities, Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) and Quality Councils.

The aim of the re-launch was to officially introduce the newly elected National Skills Authority Board to the skills development stakeholders and the general public. The board members serve dual purpose of advising the Minister of Higher Education and Training in terms of the Skills Development Act, but also as a link of communication between the NSA and their constituencies.

The NSA Acting Chairperson, Mr Thulani Tshefuta took the platform to speak in length about the achievements of the NSA since its inception, the challenges in skills development and the role the NSA has to continue playing in making sure that these challenges are addressed.

Amongst other issues, Mr Tshefuta also spoke of the NSA’s new role of Monitoring and Evaluation of the SETAs as stated in the White Paper for Post-School Education and Training.

Indeed, some of the SETAs are plagued by many challenges such as failure to achieve the expected training targets and other governance challenges.

The White Paper states that monitoring and evaluation of SETAs must make it possible to understand the levels of efficacies that are being achieved, and to identify where any blockages in the system may be emerging. The white paper goes on to say that the monitoring and evaluation has to take place against the indicators in the Minister’s delivery agreement with the President.

The latter sentiments were echoed by the Deputy Minister of Higher Education and Training, Mr Mduduzi Manana who commended the NSA for the work it is doing and also warned of the challenges that still lay ahead.The Deputy Minister further said that there are still numerous challenges bedevilling the skills system. He said that it is important to note that there are very different levels of capacity within the 21 SETAs in terms of governance, management, responsiveness and financial status.  This fact holds true to the skills development system as a whole. For this reason, it is not helpful to make blanket generalisations about SETA capacity since there are those SETAs that do a good job.  He cautioned that the NSA is still faced with the challenge to empirically and to practically address the capacity challenges through effective monitoring and evaluation. He retorted that apart from the fact that there are systemic weaknesses in reporting and analysis and the integrity of data on targets and indicators, a need exist to strengthen the capacity of the SETA system.

The Deputy Minister also thanked the former NSA Chairperson Mr Eddie Majadibodu for the work he foregrounded in the NSA before his appointment as the Special Advisor to the Minister.

The launch provided a platform for the NSA to reveal its new logo and website which will promote the marketing and enhance communication not only of the NSA and the DHET, but the entire skills development system.

For more information on the NSA you may visit the website: www.nationalskillsauthority.org.za

Twitter and Face-book accounts:

• The Twitter link is https://com/skillsauthority
• Your Facebook link is https://www.facebook.com/National-Skills-Authority-1727503367470656/

Enquiries:

Tel: 012 – 312 5420/5666

E-Mail: Mashongoane.T@dhet.gov.za

Issued by the National Skills Authority