New Seta regulations raise alarm bells for industry training

New Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) regulations designed to cut spending, are likely to guillotine a vital sector of training for the freight industry. According to Suzanne Hattingh, MD of the LPI consultancy and a specialist in skills development, learnerships and training, the basic intent of the new regulations is “clearly focused on using the money from the skills levy predominantly for training towards qualifications offered by public colleges and universities”. However, she noted, the National Development Plan (NDP) argued that we needed to “offer young people life-skills training, entrepreneurship training and opportunities to participate in community development programmes”. In the freight industry, much of this more basic form of training is either conducted in-house, or farmed out to the many independent training establishments that specialise in such courses. But the halving of the skills training grant levy will have a huge impact on businesses – particularly the smaller freight organisations that are prevalent in the industry. This reduction of the skills training grant levies from 40% to 20% is set to become effective in April. And, with the lower grant, smaller businesses may be reluctant to engage in training initiatives due to high training costs. This argument was supported by Nazrene Mannie, skills development executive at the Steel and Engineering Federation of SA (Seifsa), who said this would have a huge impact on smaller businesses as they relied heavily on the grant to train employees. “In future the part of the grant that goes to the Setas will be used for their Pivotal programmes which are focused on professional qualifications obtained at university level as opposed to on the job training,” he added. “These changes ignore the segmented and varied needs of different sectors and businesses.” Commentators in the clearing and forwarding industry also pointed out to FTW that it was certainly important that funds were directed to Pivotal programmes. However, they stressed, that should not be at the expense of basic employee training which produces the clerks and customs clearing employees, for example, who run the dayto- day business. The new Seta regulations are also seen as a “pay-up more than before” demand. While all the companies in the freight sector will still have to pay their workforce salary levies to the Transport Education and Training Authority (Teta), they will also now be corralled into paying for their own basic training in day-to-day skills that are considered vital to making freight companies efficient and competitive. And, in a sector hit by the recession, they cannot afford to be losing out on more training. This was backed up by Business Unity SA (Busa). It said that it rejected the Seta grant regulation changes as it believed they would have a negative effect on training and would threaten the whole workplace skills environment. “This goes against the spirit of the Skills Development Act, which advocates work place training . . . and is a blow to occupationally relevant skills training and puts the whole skills environment at risk,” added the Busa statement, while also stressing that the regulations would lead to less training, “which would negatively affect information on skills requirements for workplace skills plans”. Hattingh was adamant that the new changes to the levy grant system would put all the basic training necessary in any industry at serious risk, and advocated that business should fight the new scheme at government level. The focus on funding from the skills levy on qualifications offered by public institutions failed to recognise the wide range of training needed to address the diverse national, sector, organisational and individual skills needs in this country she said – adding that there were unintended consequences that would have a detrimental impact on skills development. “Bodies representing employers and private training providers are encouraged to engage with government to remove the restrictions on the training that can be funded from the skills levy grants," she concluded. INSERT ‘Employer bodies encouraged to engage with government to remove the restrictions on the training that can be funded from the skills levy grants.’