South Africa’s National Skills Conference / A Collision

A friend who attended last week’s National Skills Conference at Birchwood confirmed my prediction that delegate gossip would centre on two separate task team reports on the future of skills development in South Africa. As such, they probably went back to their rooms and had nightmares of a catastrophic mid-air collision that left the national skills development strategy crashing and burning.

Not that many people – other than those millions of young South Africans who are crying out for gainful employment – would notice. After all, nobody’s noticed over the past few years that there is such a thing as a national vocational education and training master plan.

The two task teams, one convened by higher education and training minister Blade Nzimande and the other by the Human Resources Development Council of SA, have plotted courses that bear absolutely no resemblance to one another. The first is unabashedly politically motivated while the second is much more pragmatic.

As the old Seventies wisecrack had it: sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.

The ministerial task team, established under the aegis of the Skills Development Act, reported on the performance of the 21 Setas (sector education and training authorities) after a 13-month study conducted between March 2011 and May 2012. The report was only published in the Government Gazette on August 16 this year – along with a call by Dr Nzimande for comment on its findings.

Basically, if the task team’s recommendations are adopted, the national skills development strategy (NSDS) will bear no resemblance to the policy that was initiated in the late 1990s by then-labour minister Tito Mbowenibefore being handed over to his successor, Membathisi Mdladlana.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Reports put higher education and business on skills collision course.