Chairperson, to start with, I think we need to correct something. The hon De Villiers described poverty as a lack of capability and educational skills to perform in a society. I would add to what hon Mncube actually said about Verwoerd. Verwoerd said: "Let us create a system of education that will make a black person more inferior to us."
He continued and said: "We don't need him, we only need him for his labour."
Now, you cannot, after the period from 1948 to 1993, expect a black child and a black person to have the capabilities and skills to do all these things. [Applause.]
I would just like to add my voice to the issue of the universities for Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, as well as on the pronouncement that has been made by the Ministry. I am sure we will definitely get an update on that.
Also, on the issue of the unintended consequences of the central applications offices, CAOs, which was a good idea, learners and students apply and put their preferences for studying towards a Bachelor of Science, BSc, and so on. They say they want to study BSc Marine and so on, but what you find is that students really do not get what they want in those particular clusters.
They do not get admission to their first, second or even third preferences. Thus we find that we have an unintended consequence whereby there can be an admission to another cluster like Bachelor of Administration and then a student ends up finally doing the degree for a Bachelor of Administration. It is with regards to this issue that an investigation needs to be done to find solutions on how it can be corrected. Thirdly, with regard to the fly-by-nights issue, it is also in the Sowetan paper of today, 3 November 2011, more especially the nursing colleges and other further education and training, FET, colleges that are not registered. I am sure the department would need to work with the SAPS to deal with these issues.
Fourthly, with regard to the National Student Financial Aid Scheme, NSFAS, issue, a statement was made by the Minister today that once a student completes his or her studies the loan becomes a full bursary, but we would have loved to have that formalised by including it in the Bill.
Lastly, with regard to the areas in South Africa, more especially in KwaZulu-Natal, that do not have FET colleges - public areas like Nquthu, Nkandla, Msinga, Ngwavuma and so on - I am sure it is in the plans that we should get those things in the distant future and we will have the FET colleges in those areas.
Now today, we begin a new journey in which we commit to making public FET colleges institutions of excellence and to challenging the widespread perception that they are poorly resourced and second-choice institutions. The FET colleges are a critical component of the department of education. They are also a key performance area and are a focus point of the current Higher Education and Training administration.
There are several key areas of focus for the ANC-led government in respect of colleges: the shift of the function of managing the college system from the provincial to the national government; quality improvements, including increased success and throughput; increased enrolment of youth and adults; close alignment with skills development strategies and funding, including training partnerships and work placement; increasing apprenticeships and learnerships, and the production of quality artisans as one of the key goals of the FET college sector.
The President, in his state of the nation address, reiterated these themes with particular emphasis on the expansion of access in the context of the need to develop a skilled and capable workforce to support growth and job creation.
A key challenge is for the sector to grow as rapidly as possible and to be accessible to both young people and adults, but to drive that growth on a firm basis together with increasing quality. Colleges are well positioned to contribute to the acute middle-level skills crisis; this is precisely the domain of FET colleges.
They are currently distributed across all nine provinces and have a wider geographic reach than universities. The lower unit cost of the FET college education means that a significant increase in access can be achieved with less investment than a corresponding increase in university enrolment would require. Increased FET access would have the social benefit of including young people currently not in education or in employment or training opportunities in participating by studying in work-oriented programmes.
As we all know, the dimensions of these challenges are enormous. Of the 2,8 million South Africans between the ages of 18 and 24 who were not in employment or education or training in 2007, 2 million of them - that is 71% - had not achieved Grade 12. Of these, 18% had not progressed beyond primary school.
The college community therefore must expand its horizons and see the world beyond individual institutions and campuses, whilst at the same time not losing sight of building each institution as a centre of excellence.
As an integral part of the Department of Higher Education and Training family, the FET college community must understand that our broad goal is to develop the economy in a way that responds to the needs of all South Africans, especially the poor. That is why it is also important to locate our discussions today against the background of an urgent necessity to contribute towards a new economic growth path for our country.
It is also important that we all study closely government's Industrial Policy Action Plan 2, Ipap 2, as well as the Human Resources Development Strategy for South Africa, as critical guidelines for the further transformation of the FET colleges in particular, and the revitalisation of the college sector in general.
In other words, the transformation of the FET college sector must not only be guided by these key broader commitments and policy documents, but are a critical component in the realisation of a new and more inclusive growth path and our industrial policy.
The central question is: How do we also build the capacity of FET colleges to build skills for a green economy? For all this to happen, we must widen our scope and see the challenges in the FET sector, no matter how complex, as part of a multifaceted process to revamp and rejuvenate the entire post- school education and training system. We cannot deal with the challenges in the colleges in isolation from the challenges in the rest of the system.
We are aware of many difficulties that have been experienced in recent years in the FET college subsystem as a result of a complex and incomplete transition with multiple and overlapping changes of a profound nature, for which many were ill equipped. These difficulties have affected the colleges as institutions to different degrees, and include loss of lecturers from the colleges, low morale and a high vacancy rate; poor learner performances, with low pass rates and high dropout rates; increasing reliance on the private sector for skills training, coupled with a growing loss of confidence in the public sector; institutional instability, and labour instability; and severe financial difficulties.
However, these challenges and complexities must not lead to further lamentations; instead, they should make us focus on practical and concrete solutions to these problems. The principal task is that of growing a quality FET college sector, and this is non-negotiable.
Part of this is curriculum transformation not only to produce college graduates who possess quality technical skills, but also to introduce civic education as a critical component of the curriculum.
We also have to respond to the challenges of providing resources for both quality improvements and higher enrolment in colleges, and closer alignment with the funding arrangements contained under the skills development levy is required.
This means that the sector education and training authority, Seta, programmes and collaboration with public further education and training colleges must no longer be ad hoc, but mainstreamed into the very work of the Seta.
The FET colleges are pivotal in our mission to address skills shortages and mismatches, as well as in helping young and less skilled workers to access jobs. We must ensure that further education and training programmes provide the real-world skills needed by the public sector.
In conclusion, South Africa is committed to the equality of all, but too many still suffer unfair exclusion. The ANC-led government is committed to ending all forms of discrimination, be they class, race, gender, age, disability or HIV and Aids. I thank you. [Applause.]