Business Day
*Accountants agree to help FET colleges with management* *Bekezela Phakathi, Business Day, Johannesburg, 25 April 2012*Higher Education and Training Minister Blade Nzimande said yesterday his department had agreed with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (Saica) that the institute would come to the assistance of further education and training (FET) colleges.
Under the agreement, Saica will provide accountants for two years to help set up accounting and financial management systems in all FET colleges.
In his budget vote speech in Parliament yesterday, Mr Nzimande said FET colleges were weak in financial and human resource management.
The government has been on a drive to boost the allure of FET colleges in an attempt to ease the pressure on universities. This month, President Jacob Zuma announced that R2,5bn would be allocated to refurbishing and constructing FET college campuses over the next three years.
Mr Nzimande told reporters before delivering his speech that the agreement with Saica was a short-term intervention that could become long-term. He said the department would ensure that every college had a qualified chief financial officer, and ensure that colleges had qualified human resource practitioners.
He said the department was developing FET colleges to become "institutions of choice for higher education and training".
In his speech, Mr Nzimande said over the past two years enrolment at FET colleges had increased "dramatically".
"In 2011, we had projected a head-count enrolment of 359000 in all programmes, but the actual head-count enrolment reached 437060, exceeding our projections by 24%. This year, we are expecting a further increase to 550000 enrolments," Mr Nzimande said. The increase could be ascribed to several factors, including the bursary scheme amounting to 100% of fees for those who qualify, and the career advice campaign launched with the South African Qualifications Authority and the SABC.
Mr Nzimande said over the three-year medium-term expenditure framework period starting in 2012-13, R15bn had been set aside to ensure increasing enrolment at FET colleges.
He said the department would also focus on teacher training, because the "basis of any good education system is the quality of its teachers".
"We have ring-fenced R450m for the 2012-13 to 2013-14 funding cycle to expand university infrastructure capacity for teacher education and this will continue in the next funding cycle," Mr Nzimande said.
There had been a significant growth in "full-time equivalent" enrolments in initial teacher education programmes, from 35937 in 2009 to 41292 in 2010, a 15% increase, he said.
Almost R500m had been allocated to universities for teaching-development grants to assist in improving graduate outputs, and R194m for foundation programmes to improve the success rates of students from disadvantaged educational backgrounds.
Democratic Alliance education spokeswoman Annelie Lotriet said in order to improve the quality of teaching, it was vital to improve teacher training.
"One of the ways this can be achieved is by focusing on the reopening of teacher training colleges. The department has long promised this," she said.
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