'Stop playing politics with industry's education system'

The minister of higher education, Blade Nzimande, should stop playing politics with the freight industry’s education and training system, according to Bajith Panday of Eduskills Rainbow. This was in response to the latest amendments to the Sector Education and Training Authority (Seta) grant regulations, which, he told FTW, force skills development into the narrow confines of the public further education and training (FET) offering. “The programme offering in these colleges is limited to the National Certificate, Vocational (NCV),” he added, “which, starting with the first cohort of learners in 2008, has been an unmitigated disaster. So much so, that the public FETs themselves are now calling for an end to the NCV programme.” Panday is also adamant that the emphasis on formal qualifications as opposed to short skills programmes will not address the employment problem and neither will it meet the needs of business and industry. He also hit out at the reduction of mandatory grants and the limiting of discretionary grants. “This,” he said, “will further drive away businesses both large and small – which will, in turn, directly impact the submission of workplace skills plans (WSPs) and annual training reports (ATRs), which already is under pressure.” At the same time, the focus at public colleges and universities is not so much on skills demand in the workplace but rather the supply of general educational qualifications. In a public statement to the minister, Panday said: “We will not stand by and watch you squander our money in a futile bid to repair a dysfunctional public further education and training system. For your information, the private education and training sector services over 1.2 million learners a year – a far cry from the 350 000 that you currently have in the public FET system. “By shutting out the private sector you are exacerbating the mismatch between supply of skills and the demand for them in business and industry.”