THERE IS an elegant wealth of training opportunity out there, according to Rose Blatch of ITRISA (International Trade Institute of Southern Africa), with a conceptual infrastructure just waiting to be kick-started.
All this with full governmental support - both from policy and legislative points of view.
The move now is following the government's lien that training is a priority, said Blatch.
Upskilling and upgrading are words of the moment - with the likes of SMME (small, medium and micro-sized enterprises) training being one of the primary examples in the industrialised training sense.
SMME training is a basic way to bring-up the disadvantaged to contribute to the economy, said Blatch. Grow the SMME, and you grow the employment.
This area of training focus - in both a small and large industrial sense - is very much in mesh with the government philosophy. Government is helping by putting a big emphasis on unit standards for vocational training, and education for employment, said Blatch.
Big companies are taking upksilling seriously, Blatch added. But it's also an essence for the small companies. We are also seeing an upswing in SMME for small company interests, she said. They need the knowledge to survive.
However, they can't afford time off work, so evening courses are what we find fits in here.
There are other motivations for training, according to Blatch.
We have now got industrial sectoralisation, she said, with businesses being viewed on a cluster basis. The urge is for all those in an industry to pull together and get the industry unified in its efforts. Training fits in here.
There are other driving forces, Blatch added.
- The service industry realises that the market is shrinking. So, to survive, you must be smarter.
- Barriers to trade are going down - so there is increasing outside competition putting pressure on local business to be better.
- Universities are now beginning to show an interest in vocational training - this tied to graduates wishing to link their degree courses with others, specifically pointed at their chosen career path. One personal example is Potchefstroom University, which uses our distance learning material for practical aspects applied to vocational training.
- On the short training course side, I see a big upswing. Great interest in courses tailored for specific industries.
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