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Skills Development

Rolling back the skills revolution

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:58

By Jim Freeman

If I told you that one plus one was not equal to three, I would be telling you the truth. But would I be telling you the whole truth?

No, I wouldn’t, nor is higher education and training minister Blade Nzimande being completely honest with his criticisms of the Setas (sector education and training authorities) for pouring billions of rands into “short courses” and channelling almost all of their skills development spending through “consultants”.

Last Friday, Dr Nzimande told Services Seta stakeholders in the Western Cape that a total of R23 billion had been funnelled into skills development by the bodies since their inception in 2000. Ninety percent of this had been spent on providing short courses, he said, with almost all of the money going to “consultants”.

It’s a populist criticism that he’s been expounding for some months and it finds a ready audience in the ruling tripartite alliance; so much so, that the parliamentary portfolio committee on higher education and training is beginning to sound like an echo-chamber.

Nzimande has promised that this year, with the Setas sitting with R9.1 billion of skills development levy income, will not see a repeat of the historical spending pattern.

But what does he mean ... and is his criticism justified?

Actually, Dr Nzimande is being utterly disingenuous and taking advantage of the fundamental differences between “higher education-“and “skills development-speak”.

In the latter, a “short course” implies anything from a one-day workshop to a six-month learning programme. A learnership, however, would not be regarded as a short course because it’s the foundational workplace learning intervention offered by a Seta in terms of the first and second national skills development strategies – which fell under the auspices of the Department of Labour.

In “higher education-speak”, a short course is defined as anything either of shorter duration than three years or a learning intervention that does not lead to a full qualification registered with Umalusi (further education and training) or the Council for Higher Education.

A full qualification, for Setas, is one that addresses a number of pre-determined vocational outcomes and unit standards as registered with the South African Qualifications Authority.

The minister is therefore not comparing apples with apples: education deals with the acquisition of knowledge, while skills development focuses on its application in a working environment.

As for his emotive statement that the overwhelming bulk of the Seta billions has found its way into consultants’ pockets, Dr Nzimande is not telling the unvarnished truth. He would be closer to the truth (one plus one is a little bit less than three) if he said it had found its way into private sector pockets but even that would not be the full truth because it would be ignoring the historical context of the National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS).

It is only in the past two years – predominantly since the establishment of the Quality Council for Trades and Occupations – that there has been anything approaching parity of esteem between academic and vocational learning. Prior to that, public universities and colleges absolutely looked down their noses at learnerships and skills programmes, and would have nothing to do with them.

The unintended consequence was the creation of two “ivory towers” or silos of learning. The erstwhile Department of Education looked down on the Department of Labour, which called the academics a bunch of snobs who knew nothing about the real world.

It was only in a very few sectors, financial services and wholesale and retail are two that spring immediately to mind, where Setas partnered with public universities and colleges in order to meet their stakeholders’ skills needs.

A further practical reality is that Setas themselves are not training providers and that it would be bureaucratically prohibitive for them to manage individuals on learnerships or skills programmes.

The business reality of “economies of scale” came into play and the concept of a “lead employer” evolved. This was a registered company that would take on a number of people and project-manage their learning intervention from recruitment and pre-assessment to moderation and certification by the appropriate Seta.

These are the “consultants” to whom Dr Nzimande refers. He also ignores the thousands of companies who took on unemployed learners – for whatever social responsibility, tax or exploitative reasons – or put their own workers through learnerships in order to improve their productivity or employment equity status.

In fact, the minister is berating the Setas for doing exactly what they were intended to do.

Admittedly, some of them didn’t do it very well and unemployment continues to grow. However, is that the fault of the Setas?

I also cannot agree with Dr Nzimande’s statement last week that “generally, this money [the R23 Billion] has not been spent in a manner for which we can account”.

Certainly, there have been cases of fraud as well as wasteful and irregular expenditure but to make such a sweeping statement is to demean many highly professional and ethical Seta financial managers and governance structures – to say nothing of the auditor-general.

Naturally, the Setas cannot defend themselves because Dr Nzimande is their boss.

The final bone I have to pick with the minister is his comment that, by and large, the Setas suffered from a “very bad” reputation. He’s entirely right but he fails to acknowledge that this is primarily because they have been subjected to extremely weak political leadership during the first two phases of the NSDS.

Now that we’ve got the semantics and nit-picking out of the way, I believe Dr Nzimande said (or was supposed to say [See The challenges are ‘disheartening’ – Nzimande – Ed]) some very pertinent things.

“One of the critical lessons we have learned in the past 11 years of the existence of the skills development infrastructure is that there was an emphasis on achieving the specified numerical targets [of the NSDS], which resulted in an implementation culture that was preoccupied with achieving the numbers.” This, he said, was “at the expense of quality, sustainability and relevance”.

The minister added that, “many Setas have been in expedient pursuit of targets that are deemed to carry maximum public relations value. Implementation has been focused on mass programmes at lower levels [of the National Qualifications Framework] that do not enable learners to access opportunities or enable them to pursue learning and career opportunities.

“There is celebration of the achievement of the accreditation of large numbers of SMME providers that cannot offer quality education and training. Such a Seta would, in many respects, be assessed or assess itself as ‘highly effective’. Given that the primary objective of the skills development system is ‘quality skills provision for economic growth’, then it can be clearly seen that if we do not meet the objective of quality provision, there is little point in celebrating these achievements.

Saying that “we cannot have another 11 years of these experiences”, Dr Nzimande maintained that “stakeholders have expressed an urgent need for Setas to support programmes that are consistent with economic skills needs and priorities.

“They must ensure that the programmes they fund are intended to alleviate skills shortages in the economy; are aimed at enhancing the productivity and employability of participants, and enhancing human resources through improving skills (in this case for young job-seekers), while simultaneously fulfilling the needs of labour demand.

“The new NSDS ... was purposely developed without targets but seeks to ensure that the Setas respond to the skills needs of their respective sectors and steer their funding into programmes that will lead to qualifications, while simultaneously creating employment opportunities and promoting career progression.”