CONSTRUCTION EDUCATION
CONSTRUCTION EDUCATION AND TRAINING AUTHORITY must be a live and dynamic document. For instance, when the critical skills list was published in February this year, we went back to our SSP, to review which skills were not on our list of critical skills? We updated it to make sure that we don’t work with a document that was a museum artifact. Is CETA tackling the green economy and the 4IR? It is one of the planned research agenda items that we need to cover, together with the institutions of higher education. We are having engagements with the Green Building Council to sign a memorandum of understanding so that we can collaborate in this area. We will be doing surveys with the industry itself to see who is doing this or how and to what extent these green projects are taking place and what is in the pipeline. Students listening to details of CETA bursaries. other trades as well. It will have a 12-month learnership component and will include other trades such as plumbing and electrical fitting. To what extent is current skills policy aligned with needs? The current policy regarding skills development and provisioning is aligned to cover South African economic sectors’ needs, especially in relation to the construction sector. This is also covered in the National Human Resource Development Strategy and our National Skills Development Plan 2030. The policy directives are clear. We need to strengthen implementation side. We need to work on changing attitudes of all role players in the sector as well. All SETAs are struggling with workplaces for practical exposure after people have been given theoretical training. Where do they go to get practical experience? In some provinces like in the North West they have employers who are not keen to take on learners to give them practical experience. Then that province is forced to incur additional costs to take learners to Gauteng, where economic activities and construction activities are booming, to get the practical exposure. Also from an implementation side, our projects monitoring and evaluating will be strengthened. The projects M&E evaluates the quality of training that is being rolled out against the standard that the training providers are accredited for. Overall transformation of the industry is more the role of the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB); but ours is to engage with the stakeholders to see the need to broaden the opportunities for skills development in the industry and to improve access. We are not lacking people needed to enter the sector, but it is what happens when they are in the industry that needs to be look at: are they getting exposure and the right experience that will enable them to go on and become competent technicians, artisans or professionals? Our Sector Skills Plan (SSP) is revised at least annually. With the improvement in our research agenda and our capacity, we are now not only going to be revising it once a year but every time there is a change. It How would you characterise the relationship between SETAs and stakeholders like TVET colleges, labour and business? I will start with the SETAs themselves, as all SETAs report to the Department of Higher Education and Training. By virtue of a policy directive, we have to collaborate because there are areas that cut across the SETAs. Also, when we go out there it assists when you go in numbers to make an impact. If a person who is being trained to be a plumber wants to be an entrepreneur, they need business management and financial management skills as well. A different SETA may offer these components. We have signed memorandums of collaboration with eight of the 21 SETAs. We intend by the end of this year to have signed with the majority. The same applies to TVET colleges. We have memorandums of understanding with and some TVET colleges host our skills development centres and provincial offices. We have given bursaries to TVET college lecturers plus community education and training colleges and some support for IT equipment as part of our support imperatives. Our stakeholder engagement with labour and business will improve when the board is also appointed. We will be doing a stakeholder imbizo in May, taking all our stakeholders through where we are as an organisation. There will be communication through newsletters, email and other regular communications of what is happening in the organisation. 22 | www.opportunityonline.co.za Credit: Graeme Williams/BrandSA
Developing skills. Serving society CETA value proposition is "to provide skills development services by implementing the objectives of the National Skills Development Plan (NSDP 2030); to increase number of people that obtain critical or scarce skills needed, and to build the capacity of the construction sector to be economically sustainable and globally competitive". We do this through disbursing discretionary and mandatory grant to the sector, embarking on research initiatives, accrediting training providers and employers, developing occupationally directed qualifications and offering bursary oopportunities and creating access to skills development for rural and township based community members. VISION "To be a pillar for skills development and nation-building" www.ceta.org.za MISSION "To position skills as a foundation for economic development and empowerment" Values Agile Results-oriented Integrity Respect Professionalism
