Event - National Skills Authority Roundtable on the New Skills Development Landscape

The National Skills Authority (NSA) has been tasked with advising the Minister of Higher Education & Training on the proposed new skills development landscape, which comes into effect from March 2018.

To advise the Minister on how stakeholders feel about the proposals, the NSA has been conducting nation-wide public hearings to provide information on the proposals, encourage discussion around the impact of the changes and gather feedback for the Minister.

Yesterday's roundtable at the Midrand Conference Centre in Johannsburg was aimed at a wide variety of organisations which play important roles in the post-schooling sector. The NSA provided feedback on the public hearings and gave the organisations an opportunity to share their views on the proposals, and answer questions from the audience.

You can download the event presentations later in this post.

Proposed New Skills Development Landscape

The Department of Higher Education & Training (DHET) published on 10 November 2015 a draft proposal for a new National Skills Development landscape which would take effect on 1 March 2018.

The proposal is a government gazette with a deadline of 20 January 2016 for public comments.

With National Skills Development Strategy (NSDS) III finishing its five year life-span in 2016 (now extended to March 2018), it was expected that a fine-tuning of the key skills development institutions would take place to support the new NSDS. The proposed new landscape is however a significant evolution in the institutional landscape and one which therefore requires significant consideration and discussion among stakeholders.