Released by Department of Labour on 22 January 2004
Minister of Labour, Membathisi Mdladlana says he is confident that
the Sector Education and Training Authorities (SETAs) will meet the
learnership intake target of 72 000 young, unemployed learners as
agreed at the 2002 Growth and Development Summit.
Addressing the SETA CEO Forum meeting in Woodmead Johannesburg
today, Minister Mdladlana said there has been a marked improvement in
the learnership implementation and he was optimistic that the 72 000
learnerships target would be met by the May 2004 deadline.
"According to our preliminary Quarterly Monitoring Report up to
the end of September 2003, I have noticed a significant improvement in
terms of participation levels by young people below the age of 30 in
learnerships. There are a total of 45 898 young people in various
learnership programmes," the Minister said.
"On these figures we still need about 27 000 learners between now
and May to meet our target for May and of course an additional 8 000 on
top to reach the 80 000 target by March next year," he said.
But the Minister hastened to warn against complacency and called
on SETAs to remain more determined particularly in the light of the
growing number of unemployed school leavers who are unable to pursue
higher-level education.
"We have seen a significant improvement in the matriculation pass
rate and we know that relatively few young people will get the
opportunity to participate in full-time higher education. It is for
this reason that I urge you to double your effort to exceed the
target," the Minister said.
Minister Mdladlana also noted that the Skills Development Strategy has
been embraced countrywide and that a number of support initiatives are
continually been developed in various provinces to accelerate
learnership implementation.
These initiatives include:
- Siyaya Learnership project in KwaZulu-Natal offers structured
learning to 1 000 unemployed graduates
- Ethekwini Municipality Learnership programme will accommodate 5 000
matriculants
- The recently registered Community Worker Learnership will
accommodate 2 840 learners.
The Minister said government as an employer was also leading by
example by appointing young unemployed people in learnerships in
various departments.
"There are learnership programmes with the Department of Public
Works where 500 contractor learners are to be employed by the end of
January 2004," the Minister said.
He said an additional 11 000 learners were envisaged to be trained
from March as part of the Employment Development Lead Employer Pilot
Project. This project is a precursor to the Employment Skills
Development Agencies (ESDAs) to assist small businesses in learnership
implementation.
The Minister said ESDAs are to be formalised later this
year.
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