Sector Education Training Authorities and the Delivery of Training: Preliminary Remarks on the New Skills Dispensation in South Africa

The workplace training dispensation that is evolving in South Africa represents a significant advance over previous initiatives in the country. While it is funded on the basis of payroll levies, the relatively sophisticated institutional structure in the administration of the system has caused delays in its set-up and operation. Some of these problems have been caused by delays in putting the appropriate institutions into place. Others have been caused by difficulties in aligning the training system to the educational system. From the outset these problems, coupled with the obligation to adhere to the requirements of a national qualifications framework in order to start the training process have hopelessly compromised the planned outputs of the system vis-à-vis training. The paper discusses these problems with respect to the training of apprentices and recommends that at a systemic level the vocational mandate and vocational requirements need to be given greater priority and command within the National Skills Development Strategy.