In this State of the National Address at Cape Town's City Hall, President Ramaphosa focused on his government's plans to deal with youth unemployment - centered around plans for a skills revolution.
"We are undertaking a fundamental overhaul of skills development system to implement a dual training model that integrates education with practical workplace experience".
"This will enable young people as they are trained for skills to be almost certain that they will get jobs once their training has happened", he added
"We will reform and reduce the number of SETAs to improve governance, strengthen industry participation, raise the quality of training and better align skills development with the needs of the economy".
"This includes improving the use of TVET Colleges as the primary site of occupational training and artisan development".
"To support effective workplace-based learning, we will increase the proportion of the skills development levy returned to emplyoers, restoring it to its original level of 40 percent".
"We will also transform the National Skills Fund into a more agile, outcomes-driven instrument that supports unemployed young people to access workplace experience and employments, building on successful initiatives such as Jobs Boost".
"These reforms will ensure that various training programmes that we have in government are a door to an opportunity, not a dead end."
The President also outlined plans to provide more spaces in higher education to match the increasing number of matriculants who qualify for higher education.
"I have directed the Minsiter of Finance and Higher Education to work on a proposal to build more universities and TVET colleges with specialised areas of focus".
"An immediate problem is the great shortage of student accommodation at our institutions of higher learning. I have directed the Minister of Higher Education to address this challenge, working with financial institutions on innovative methods in which the student accommodation".
