Sector Education and Training Authority (SETA) new landscape & performance: briefing by Department of Higher Education & Training; Election of Chairperson

Adv Ishmael Malale (ANC) was elected as the new Committee Chairperson, replacing Mr M Fransman who had become the Deputy Minister of the International Relations and Cooperation in November 2010. The Department of Higher Education and Training spoke about the changes made during the re-licencing of the SETAs. In terms of the new landscape 18 SETAs would remain the same or have minimal standard industrial classification (SIC) transfers , two SETAs were affected by insignificant changes based on receiving sub-sectors from MAPP and three SETAs were affected by significant changes. The Public Services SETA (PSETA) would be re-established for a year, pending and inter-ministerial task team process to investigate the viability and operational viability of the PSETA. The SETA problems were well known and significant immediate, short- and long-term changes were being made in the SETAs to address performance. Some of these measures might require legislative changes. Members asked about monitoring measures to ensure that SETAs functioned properly and stressed that the SETAs were not functioning optimally in developing skills and addressing development goals. The Deputy Director-General of Skills Development commented that part of the exercise was that the vision of the SETAs needed to be guided by DHET, which sought to conceptually integrate education and skills development. There had been a tendency to see the skills development levy as a resource for people in employment, with a smaller category for unemployed people. There had also been a bias towards short courses. Nowadays they were focusing on longer courses that led to qualifications. There was also the problem of people who had gone to university but lacked funding. They had the resources to combat this. There was lots of money sitting in the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) and still students were unable to access their results because they lacked funds which was unacceptable. They had skills development