Godsell comes out in support of Setas
29-MAR-06
Championed by the Deputy President, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Jipsa is a three year programme to fast-track the procurement of scarce skills. She has collected a group of leading players in government, business, unions and academia to serve on the task team and operational back-up is to be provided by a team at the National Business Initiative.
Godsell addressed a high-powered gathering at the Presidential Guest House for the official launch of Jipsa. While some have concerns that the new initiative is by-passing Setas and the current skills development infrastructure, Godsell was quick to put the Sector Training Authorities front and centre
He stressed the importance of a well researched skills development strategy for all sectors of the economy. “Setas are ideally placed to both develop and implement such a strategy. While the Setas have come in for a lot of criticism recently, there is nothing wrong with the idea of Setas,” Godsell said. “Business and labour need to provide the leadership resolve to see that they do what they were created to do”.
While the industry focus is important, Godsell also called for more action at the business level. An industry skills strategy will be still born if it does not both reflect the needs of the individual firm as well as make use of the resources of the firm. Unless this strategy is reflected in the business plan of the firm it will not happen”.
Godsell called on all firms to set a target for effective workplace literacy and determine what artisan skills were needed.
The Busa chair also proposed a higher profile for training and development activities. He called on all companies to outline in the annual reports how many artisan and learnership places were needed in their organisations and whether they had filled them. “Let companies equally set out their strategy to ensure continued effective management and leadership in the organisation”.
Concluding his address to the official launch of Jipsa, Godsell set some targets for business leaders.
“In business, as in life, money is a good indicator of serous intent. It has been suggested that a company that is serous about skills development will be spending at least 5% of its payroll on skills development. Let us adopt this target, and indeed make our investment in skills development and area of enthusiastic competition between companies and a reason why fund managers will choose to invest in company A rather than company B.”
