 Skills boost for 50000 as Patel plan takes shape State-business-labour deal hailed as ‘extraordinary partnership’ ALMOST 50000 people are set to benefit immediately from two national skills accords, signed at the Union Buildings yesterday, aimed at igniting SA’s economy to reach the target of creating 5 million jobs and cutting unemployment to 15% by 2020. While the agreements are the first concrete steps to emerge from Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel’s New Growth Path, they are low-hanging fruit in terms of the targets set out in Mr Patel’s plan. A tougher nut to crack will be finding agreement on myriad New Growth Path aims, such as gaining "national consensus on wages, prices and savings" — including a R550000 cap on annual salaries, a "national productivity accord" and the creation of 100000 public sector jobs in health, education and policing. At the end of last month, Loane Sharp, an economist at Adcorp , said there were 365750 unfilled positions in the public sector, including state-owned enterprises, and 24,4% of all positions in the public sector were unfilled. The accords — one on skills and the other on basic education — were signed yesterday by Mr Patel, Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, Business Unity SA chairwoman Futhi Mtoba and "community representative" Lulama Nare. Mr Patel said "an absolutely critical challenge for creating new jobs is skills", and the accords marked "an extraordinary partnership", the first of "a range" that was coming. The accords form a government-business-labour pact, negotiated at the National Economic, Development and Labour Council since November of last year. Crucially for the deal, labour has agreed to alleviate business of the burden of having to offer permanent jobs to those who receive in- service training. The skills accords, which have eight key commitments, will see up to 30000 new artisan trainees enter training this financial year, 31% in government, 13% in state- owned enterprises and 56% in the private sector. It will also see about 12000 "placements and internship spaces" made available by business each year for further Education and Training College students to complete the on-the- job training they need to gain their certificates. There will be 5000 internships for third-year university of technology students to do the same, for their degrees. SA produces an estimated 8000 artisans a year and Mr Nzimande’s performance agreement signed with President Jacob Zuma commits him to ensuring the country trains 10000 a year. The trade unions — especially the 233000-strong South African Democratic Teachers Union, the largest teacher union in SA and the second-largest union in the powerful Cosatu — have promised to work with the government to improve the quality of education. Teacher unions have often been blamed for protecting members who are not committed to the profession. Under the basic education accord, up to 200 "dysfunctional" schools will be "adopted" and improved this year, and up to 1000 next year. "One of the structural fault lines of our economy is the dysfunctional education system that continues to sideline millions and millions of workers and condemn them to perpetual unemployment without a hope of them getting out of that black hole," Mr Vavi said. Ms Mtoba said the skills accord was "a milestone that business is proud to mark along with the other social partners". Business had undertaken to provide more than half the training on offer, and had put R1,7bn on the line — more than 10% of the national education budget. Business has committed to spend 4% to 6% of payroll on training. Two years ago, the Singizi report revealed JSE-listed companies were spending more on training than the statutory national skills levy, which is 1% of payroll. Chamber of Mines skills development adviser Vusi Mabena, said the mining sector’s average was 4,5% of payroll, with some companies spending up to 6% of payroll on training. Mining directly contributes an estimated 8% of gross domestic product. A business leader, speaking off the record, said business felt it had been steamrolled into the agreement and expressed concern that while spending 4% to 6% of payroll on training was easy for large companies it could "kill" small and medium enterprises. Small business support is another of the promises made in the New Growth Path, which identified the small- and micro-enterprise sector as "relatively weak" and committed the government to "fully implement (its) long-standing commitment" to pay small business suppliers within 30 days, with "clear consequences" for noncompliant public entities. In its dealings with the African National Congress, Cosatu has opposed a number of suggestions contained in the growth path, including the call for moderated salary increases. At the signing ceremony yesterday, Mr Vavi committed Cosatu, the Federation of Unions of SA and the National Council of Trade Unions to working with the government, especially in improving the quality of education. He said Cosatu would "do everything to change the mind-set of all public sector workers — including teachers". "People who are delivering education inside the classroom, are our members. "They know we have to play an even greater role in changing the mind-set of public-sector workers," Mr Vavi said. -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . |
