Skills Handbook Pre-order Edition Now Available

Last week, on the 25 May, the Skills Handbook Pre-order Edition (version 0.1) was published.

This 98 page teaser is a downloadable eBook which is made available to anyone pre-ordering the 554 page Print Edition, available later this year.

Click image to zoom in

While the Print Edition consists of 249 chapters, of between 1 - 8 pages each, the Pre-order Edition consists of the following six chapters, with a distinctly artisan development focus:

• Artisan Development
• Artisan Development - Funding 
• Artisan Development - History of
• NAMB - National Artisan Moderating Body
• SETA Sector - Grant Regulations, Amended
• SETAs - Finance and Accounting Services SETA - FASSET  

To access the Pre-order Edition, please click here to visit our online shop, and place a pre-order for the Print Edition, at R300 ex VAT (normal price will be R500 ex VAT).

Updates

The Pre-order Edition is updated approximately monthly until the book is printed. Each time it is updated you will be emailed a download link to access the updates.

Advertising

Should you wish to advertise, please click here for more information. On finalisation of your booking, your advert will be placed in the next Pre-order Edition update, and your 12 months of exposure will be counted from the date the book is printed.

What to expect in version 0.2

The next version update is planned for 20 October and will include the following new chapters and updates:

• National Scarce Skills List (2 pages)
• Interview with Brent Wyborn (Business) (4 pages)
• Updates to the Artisan Development chapters based on the recent publication of the Trade Test Regulations and the Draft Trade Test Quality Improvement Strategy 2015
• Updates to the SETA Grant Regulations chapter, based on BUSA's successful legal challenge (now under appeal)

The full list of chapters covered by the Print Edition is available here. If you would like to see other topics prioritised, please comment at the bottom of this page.

The White Paper on Post School Education & Training

"Education is the great engine of personal development" states Nelson Mandela's billboard at the Theo van Wyk building on UNISA Muckleneuk Campus, where the White Paper was launched today

22 July 2014 Update: The Minister of Higher Education & Training gave his budget speech today and indicated that the White Paper would form the basis for a re-alignment of all higher education and training related legislation:

" Our White Paper provides a solid policy framework for our work going forward and all higher education and training legislation must be aligned with it. Consequently all legislation pertaining to higher education and training will be reviewed. Amendments to at least the Higher Education Act, 1997; Skills Development Act; National Qualifications Framework Act, 2008 and the Continuing Education and Training Act, 2006 are envisaged. During the next five years we will concentrate on amendments to legislation and their implementation to enhance the current system."

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Table of Contents

Please scroll down to view the headings listed below:

1. Overview
2. Purpose
3. Vision
4. Background
5. Highlights (in Tweets)
6. Timeline
7. Green Paper vs White Paper 
8. SETAs 
9. New developments
10. Still to come
11. Enrollment targets
12. Authors & contributors
13. Downloads

Overview

Any document that has been in the making for three years is anticipated with a certain amount of awe.

Even more so, given the flurry of activity generated by Minister Nzimande's Department of Higher Education & Training (DHET) since its inception in 2009.

Rather than be intimidated by the sheer size, complexity and independence of institutions in the post school sector, Minister Nzimande showed an appetite for streamlining the sector which equally matched the massive task in front of him (a task which had been somehow avoided by each education administration before him).

For all his opponents' criticism about the direction he was taking the DHET, and the speed with which he was moving, Minister Nzimande's White Paper has now delivered a clear statement of the DHET vision for 2014 - 2030. It is a vision statement based on the hard experience gathered by the Department since 2009, rather than the theoretical musings of a new administration, which may have been the case if it was issued five years ago.

Ground Breaking New Funding Policy from DHET for Artisan Development

A ground breaking new funding policy for artisan development was launched at Olifantsfontein in Midrand on 11 July 2013. Not only will the policy remove one of the three primary blockages to boosting our artisan skills base as a country, it could also pave the way for streamlining the funding and administration of all our SETA based learning initiatives.

"It is not often that organized labour and employers agree on a policy but it seems that when it comes to artisan development there is definitely one voice."

Deputy Minister Manana at the launch of the "Policy for a Generic National Artisan Learner Grant Funding and Administration System" on 11 July 2013

Government, business and labour want more artisans, so what's the hold-up?

 

Artisan training is an expensive and time-consuming exercise. It takes anywhere from 2 - 4 years to train an artisan, and it costs between R200,000 to R650,000 depending on the trade. The figure of R300,000 was used as the basis for the development of this new policy.

This makes it hard for small and medium sized employers to train artisans in large numbers, but even large employers can go badly wrong if they take on a large group of artisans and run into funding or administration problems.

Deputy Minister Manana concluding the launch of the policy

Government on the other hand has identified artisan development as a key strategy to boost the manufacturing and engineering components of our economy (which are needed to grow exports), and to support job creation by absorbing school leavers and unemployed people into well-paying jobs. So government needs to get employers to scale up their current artisan training efforts to go well beyond "training for their own need" in order to increase the pool of available artisans for the big Strategic Integrated Projects (SIPs).

This is one of the reasons that artisan development is one of the key priorities of the HRD Council. In June last year the Council identified funding and learner administration blockages as one of three key constraints to artisan development (artisan data and artisan RPL are the other two constraints).

For example, until the launch of this new funding policy,  there were 14 different sets of grant criteria for employers across the 21 SETAs, and the National Skills Fund (NSF) also had its own criteria.

If you were successful at getting a grant, you couldn't easily plan ahead, knowing what amount your grant was going to be, as each SETA offered differing amounts. Then even if you did plan ahead successfully and get a grant, you faced the certain uncertainty of knowing that everything would change in the next financial year and you may not be able to complete (or repeat) your artisan training -  because with each new financial year SETAs would adapt their grants to available funding and changes in their strategy.

"We as a country and as individual citizens have become completely confused with the multi sector approach to artisan development and as a result have lost huge knowledge of how a real national artisan system works. This policy helps us to get that national system back in place."

Deputy Minister Manana 11 July 2013